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It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

alexaobrien.com

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Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#171

Post by mnw21cam »

londons_explore wrote: post #163

If your Google account is suspended, then deletion of the contents after a set number of days is required by various laws and legal precidents for your own privacy. Google cannot hold your private data on an ongoing basis without letting you access it. Your only chance will be getting the account unsuspended before the timer runs out.

> Google cannot hold your private data on an ongoing basis without letting you access it.

Has anyone mentioned this to Facebook? I think they hold quite a lot of information about me, and because I don't have an account, I presumably can't access it.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#172

Post by KGIII »

rndgermandude wrote: post #167
KGIII wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You read my post and THAT is what you took from it? Oh, wow... I'm not even remotely defending censorship, I think it's horrible. That doesn't mean they don't have a right to do so. It does mean I don't think they should. You might want to read my whole post, maybe the whole thread.

They should stop having that right, in my humble opinion. We regulate companies, trying to prevent them from doing things that we deem harmful to people or the society as a whole. I've seen a ton of people on here (not you; in general) argue that e.g. that Christian homophobe baker has to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple, or that the Hobby Lobby company has to provide access to contraceptives under ACA. So why ca…

I agree. I only say they have that right because they do, currently, have that right. I also make it a point to stress that I only suggest this for lawful content. Nobody should have to host illegal things.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but this situation is not acceptable to me.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#174

Post by l0b0 »

ebcode wrote: post #164
anotherbrownguy wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I hope for good. But, I honestly don't know. I love how Google handles their customers. They just block/remove without any warning, don't respond when asked and reinstate if they have to without any apology or explanation.

ha ha. you said "customers".

I was a paying customer of theirs for a few years, using GDrive to back up my photos. I suspect many HN users are also Google customers. It is definitely a distinction worth making.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#175

Post by dredmorbius »

KGIII wrote: post #120
cptskippy wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By and large I think people's desire for raw data has grown from a mistrust of the News stemming from the move away from reporting towards commentary and hidden agenda. Once upon a Time you could mostly trust the news but these days we have "no spin zones" which are in fact entirely spin. You can no longer sit back and consume news, to get the real facts requires a great deal of effort and attention which is exhausti…

You might wish to look into the history of journalism. I've written about this before, but there really wasn't a golden age of journalism. This doesn't mean good journalism didn't exist, just that there have always been biased sources. Head to your local library and hit the archives. From yellow journalism to papers owned by political parties, bias and dishonesty has always been a problem.

Anything particularly you'd point at of yours?

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#176

Post by JD557 »

deathanatos wrote: post #28
jack9 wrote: post #10

Terabyte drives are very cheap. Since it's borderline stupid, to simply upload this volume of work to some third party service without backup, I have no sympathy or technical concern. This being an illustration of Google's terrible "progressively tyrannical" track record, the article is badly titled. More like Google the Oppressor of Truth. Good Luck to Alexa.

Ideally, I'd like to back up my data too. That's where it becomes much harder: I need a second location. (In case my house catches fire, or floods in a hurricane, etc.) AWS and GCE both provide raw disk space, and certainly, an encrypted backup could be uploaded to them. I would like to be able to put a cap on what I spend on service, in case something goes wrong with the system, which AFAIK, neither GCE/AWS provide,…

>GCE

I know you are probably not referring to the OP here, but "recommending" GCE as a backup service in a thread about "moving your data away from Google" seems a bit odd. :)

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#177

Post by KGIII »

dredmorbius wrote: post #175
KGIII wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might wish to look into the history of journalism. I've written about this before, but there really wasn't a golden age of journalism. This doesn't mean good journalism didn't exist, just that there have always been biased sources. Head to your local library and hit the archives. From yellow journalism to papers owned by political parties, bias and dishonesty has always been a problem.

Anything particularly you'd point at of yours?

Oh, just comments here on HN, Slashdot, and similar. I was once a freelance journalist, so I probably should write up something more formal and better researched. I'm hoping to get some writing in during the coming winter. I have a lot to say.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#178

Post by braveo »

adventured wrote: post #82
KGIII wrote: post #7

Well, she is easier to defend than Nazis. So, here I go... Freedom of expression, not just free speech the legal concept, should be a societal goal. Google has every right, legally, to delete this stuff. However, in an ideal world, they'd do no such thing and would let people judge based on the merits of the message. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd like to work towards that ideal world. Maybe the solution…

> They can do it, but I don't have to like it. While correct currently, that isn't going to continue much longer. These abusive tech giants are about to start getting regulated left and right. You can practically hear the political machine awakening. Google's ability to freely control what is or isn't allowed on their platforms, will be replaced by government determined rules. That process has already started, it's a…

I've also changed my stance on it, mostly because I think these companies have become too influential over people.

There's a difference between a scrappy company hosting content for people and a company hosting such a large percentage of the worlds opinions in media form and moderating those opinions with no oversight.

Re: It appears my Google account is slated for deletion

#179

Post by jmaa »

cm2187 wrote: post #140
projectant wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happens. It's not good that it happens but we must expect it to happen. What power to we have? Change our perspective. These online services which area now beginning to dip their toes into censorship / advertiser-hedged editorializing, are not to be seen as reliable ubiquitous platforms existing for the convenience of all. As much as they perhaps want to be seen as such, their actions belie this. They are closed…

I am a big fan of run your own services. But when I do the maths, the cost is uneconomical for the average user. And the complexity already too high even for my own taste. Like configuring a mail server is hard.

Well, it's a trade-off between comfort and privacy. You should self-host what you are capable of and deem of higest importance / privacy.

To upgrade from gmail, you don't even to jump directly to self-hosting. There are pay-to-use email-providers, who treat you like the customer, not the product. Similar services exist for video, etc.

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