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Don’t Mess with The Google

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Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#101

Post by MrThePresident »

rebootthesystem wrote: post #71

This sort of thing truly needs to run into regulatory force. I don't believe in government being up our collective skirts for everything but regulation does have its place and this, I think, would be appropriate use of such power. And this does not apply to just Google. We've had run-ins with Google, Facebook and Amazon on different fronts and for different issues. And, in all cases, our clients had their accounts su…

You hit the nail on the head describing the culture of doing business with these companies. This is not the way the world works and certainly not the way legitimate businesses operate, dealing with them is incredibly frustrating. I laugh every time people complain about comcast or att customer service, just wait until they have to deal with google and facebook's nonexistent customer service.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#102

Post by alistproducer2 »

throwaway76543 wrote: post #15

I recently made a decision to stop running my own mail server, figured it was long, long overdue to pay someone to handle my email for me. Stories like this are why I didn't pick gmail for this service, which would have otherwise been my first choice.

Can I ask what your email stack was? I'm working on a project that's a cross between TOR and bit torrent to provide free (encrypted) email to the masses that doesn't monetize data. I've been on a crash course of all things email lately.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#103

Post by euske »

I can't help but wonder how many people had this kind of account suspension for random reasons? I bet most of them aren't noticed. These people should be more vocal, because regular folks just have no idea how risky to rely on just one company for everything they do online.

In future, I'd hope some sort of digital risk management become a common practice, just like a fire drill or food storage in real life. They should also be taught in schools.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#104

Post by alistproducer2 »

wyager wrote: post #57

Anyone have any good links on how to host your own email with spam blocking and such?

You can't run an email server from a residential address b/c most ISP's block port 25 and 587. That being said, there a project called mail in a box, that attempts to be a plug and play solution. You'll have to host it on a VPS provider (Digital Ocean, for example) and even then you'll have a hard time keeping your email from being black holed by major email service providers like Google.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#105

Post by cmoscoso »

moyta wrote: post #76
cmoscoso wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

People get banned from Facebook every day for stupid reasons, whether it be Facebook's real name policy or otherwise, and I would encourage you and everyone else to keep alternate contact details handy for your friends. Maybe you should encourage them to get on Signal Private Messenger, so that you aren't SOL if anything happens to Facebook.

sorry, I was being sarcastic.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#106

Post by sacradix »

rebootthesystem wrote: post #71

This sort of thing truly needs to run into regulatory force. I don't believe in government being up our collective skirts for everything but regulation does have its place and this, I think, would be appropriate use of such power. And this does not apply to just Google. We've had run-ins with Google, Facebook and Amazon on different fronts and for different issues. And, in all cases, our clients had their accounts su…

I don't know if it's so much attributable to malice as it is that it's their business model of working hard to satisfy the 99% but neglecting the concerns of the 1% that cause trouble and take up a lot of labor without yielding commensurate return to the bottom line. I don't know if regulation is the solution, but at the least, we should be mindful of this and try to arrange their lives to be anti-fragile to these unexpected shocks.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#107

Post by jdc0589 »

euske wrote: post #103

I can't help but wonder how many people had this kind of account suspension for random reasons? I bet most of them aren't noticed. These people should be more vocal, because regular folks just have no idea how risky to rely on just one company for everything they do online. In future, I'd hope some sort of digital risk management become a common practice, just like a fire drill or food storage in real life. They shou…

I had an account suspended, I still don't know why. It was a generic account my roomate and I used to manage stuff that we shared at the time. I still have some stuff hooked up to it. Logged in one day to get my new credentials from PIA and it was disabled. All I did was open a ticket from the backup account listed (my main account) asking what the deal was, and....POOF! account reactivated.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#109

Post by tempestn »

I'm mildly uncomfortable with my primary address being outside my control. (Like most, I use gmail too.) A year or two back I registered stretch.email, as Stretch is, in fact, my last name. Obviously most of the more common 'stretch' domains are taken, but this one was available and seemed appropriate. I have since discovered that enough services don't support newer tlds as to make it basically unusable for authentication purposes.

Anyway, I guess I'll probably end up with mail@[firstname][lastname].com, but with some disappointment. I suppose I can always keep the .email and just forward it to the other though.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#110

Post by hn_user2 »

This is a big wake up call for me.

I have everything in google: Drive, email, voice, docs, sheets, etc. I was actually about to sign up for Fi. The convenience of everything in one place is great. But I don't think I had quite thought through a disaster like this.

With this article in mind, need to reevaluate. I guess either regular local backups and/or diversification of service providers would be a good step.

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