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Don’t Mess with The Google

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Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#61

Post by cmoscoso »

taurath wrote: post #23

Pretty incredible - especially with how little that a hardware product purchase has to do with a user's data. Imagine for a moment that google required people to have an account to access all their services - that they have the ability to cut you off arbitrarily across ALL their services for a TOS violation should scare anyone. Imagine if facebook cut your account and thereby ties to many of your friends and acquaint…

OMG, I can't even imagine live after being cut out of facebook, all my friends are there.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#62

Post by tw04 »

addicted wrote: post #31
relics443 wrote: post #22

Just curious here, but why are people outraged over this? They clearly violated Google's policy, and there were repercussions. Those rules are there to protect Google; perhaps their only legal recourse to cover themselves after a rule violation is to suspend the account?

What if your landlord cut off access to your apartment, and everything inside, because you happened to have 3 guests visit and stay with you this month, instead of the 2 allowed by the lease? Would that be okay with you? And that wouldn't even be as bad as this, because a lease is a far more legally applicable document unlike TOS's which no one reads. Further, at least your violation there is related to your apartmen…

What if your "landlord" (and by landlord I mean your buddy who is letting you stay in his apartment complex free of charge other than making you read through the occasional newspaper flier) cut off access to your apartment, and everything inside, because you happened to have a raging house party that encompassed the entire 20th floor of his building. None of those apartments were occupied so you just broke down the doors and let people run wild. They destroyed pretty much every apartment on the floor.

Would you expect that to happen? Would you want a lot of sympathy from other people because he just cut you off without prior warning? No?

The whole thing is terrible only in the way that people like this and the dealer who buy up products that are high in demand and low in supply are the scum of the earth. They provide absolutely no value to the supply chain and make life more difficult for honest buyers.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#63

Post by snowwrestler »

vilhelm_s wrote: post #8

This really seems like it needs to be regulated in law. For telephone companies, there are rules about when they may disconnect you, e.g. the Arizona Utilities Division write > f I am unable to pay my entire bill, what can I do to maintain local dial tone? > The Arizona Administrative Code specifically states that a telephone company may not disconnect a customer for failure to pay an unregulated portion of their bil…

Google's terms of service say that each user retains the copyright to their content, but grants to Google a license so that Google can provide services.

If Google has the only copy of some of this content, I wonder if a copyright claim might have any leverage. It's one thing to give Google a license; it seems like quite another for Google to deny you access to your own copyrighted material.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#64

Post by a3n »

vilhelm_s wrote: post #8

This really seems like it needs to be regulated in law. For telephone companies, there are rules about when they may disconnect you, e.g. the Arizona Utilities Division write > f I am unable to pay my entire bill, what can I do to maintain local dial tone? > The Arizona Administrative Code specifically states that a telephone company may not disconnect a customer for failure to pay an unregulated portion of their bil…

Fastmail. I'm just a regular (paying) customer, not a business or anything. I've opened a small number of tickets, one or two of the RTFM variety. I've always got a human response and satisfaction, even a "here, let me RTFM that for you."

I can't imagine being locked out of my fastmail account for anything other than abuse of my fastmail account. Or not paying my bill.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#66

Post by rebootthesystem »

macinjosh wrote: post #13

This just disgusts me. This is the problem with giving everything we rely on to a for profit corporation like Google, et al. It's not your data if they can take it away from you. Your data is their profit center so we should demand more of these companies or simply avoid them as much as possible.

Get off the "for profit" theme please. This has nothing whatsoever to do with it. Google is an ass. That's it. Simple as that. A totalitarian regime.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#67

Post by a3n »

snowwrestler wrote: post #63
vilhelm_s wrote: post #8

This really seems like it needs to be regulated in law. For telephone companies, there are rules about when they may disconnect you, e.g. the Arizona Utilities Division write > f I am unable to pay my entire bill, what can I do to maintain local dial tone? > The Arizona Administrative Code specifically states that a telephone company may not disconnect a customer for failure to pay an unregulated portion of their bil…

Google's terms of service say that each user retains the copyright to their content, but grants to Google a license so that Google can provide services. If Google has the only copy of some of this content, I wonder if a copyright claim might have any leverage. It's one thing to give Google a license; it seems like quite another for Google to deny you access to your own copyrighted material.

That route would only get you copies of your email. It wouldn't help you change a password on a 3rd party service, if their practice was to require confirmation through your address on record.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#68

Post by snowwrestler »

relics443 wrote: post #48
morganvachon wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only speaking for myself, but I'm put off because Google is punishing its users with a digital death sentence because they sold a phone that was originally bought from Google at full retail price . Yes, it's against the service agreement for the Fi phone service, but at most Google should only be allowed to suspend the user's Fi account, not irretrievably delete their entire Google identity. It's retaliation and puni…

It's not retaliation or punishment. It's process. At the end of the day, rules were broken. If you can't handle the repercussions then don't break the rules. Pretty simple.

In most concepts of justice there is the idea of proportional punishment.

For example it would not be considered just to cut off someone's foot when they are caught speeding. Yes, they broke a rule, but the punishment is a huge overreaction.

Google now has so many services, that so many people use for so many things (at Google's encouragement!) that cutting off everything for a minor violation of purchase terms seems like an unfair overreaction.

And it's bad business. I am most definitely going to think twice before putting data into Google now. In order to grow, Google needs its users to trust it. This seems like a gross violation of that trust.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#69

Post by Mithaldu »

tw04 wrote: post #62
addicted wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if your landlord cut off access to your apartment, and everything inside, because you happened to have 3 guests visit and stay with you this month, instead of the 2 allowed by the lease? Would that be okay with you? And that wouldn't even be as bad as this, because a lease is a far more legally applicable document unlike TOS's which no one reads. Further, at least your violation there is related to your apartmen…

What if your "landlord" (and by landlord I mean your buddy who is letting you stay in his apartment complex free of charge other than making you read through the occasional newspaper flier) cut off access to your apartment, and everything inside, because you happened to have a raging house party that encompassed the entire 20th floor of his building. None of those apartments were occupied so you just broke down the d…

Equating "life more difficult" with "destroying apartments" is silly.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#70

Post by snowwrestler »

tw04 wrote: post #62
addicted wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if your landlord cut off access to your apartment, and everything inside, because you happened to have 3 guests visit and stay with you this month, instead of the 2 allowed by the lease? Would that be okay with you? And that wouldn't even be as bad as this, because a lease is a far more legally applicable document unlike TOS's which no one reads. Further, at least your violation there is related to your apartmen…

What if your "landlord" (and by landlord I mean your buddy who is letting you stay in his apartment complex free of charge other than making you read through the occasional newspaper flier) cut off access to your apartment, and everything inside, because you happened to have a raging house party that encompassed the entire 20th floor of his building. None of those apartments were occupied so you just broke down the d…

Even under the worst lease violations you can think of, it is illegal for a landlord to keep your stuff. They can throw it out on the curb, but they cannot keep it.

Google not only cut off services, they cut off access to remove users' content. I don't see how that is defensible.

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