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Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

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Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#101

Post by walrus01 »

mikedilger wrote: post #79

Could you imagine if "youtube.com" were blocked and locked by IANA/ICANN/? because of reports that somebody posted a video with misinformation and phishing content? I don't expect google appreciates how devastating this, but that would change quite immediately if it happened to them.

It's almost as if, while the laws and policies and regulations are supposed to be the same for all, giant entities with huge amounts of money and power behind them are held to a different standard than everyone else. I can't say I'm surprised.

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#102

Post by Karupan »

I have a simple rule when using Google services (including paid ones) - be ready to lose access without a moment's notice. Unless you are an enterprise customer or can reach out to Google employees when things go horribly wrong, you are at the mercy of their automated systems.

As other posters have pointed out, hope they have a plan to migrate their domains elsewhere.

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#103

Post by joepie91_ »

For the record: if you don't want this to happen to your site, you should avoid Dynadot also.

Several years ago I ran into almost exactly the same issue with them after someone sent them a frivolous abuse report - they'd locked down my domain unannounced to the point that I couldn't even transfer it out, and it took a call from a journalist(!) inquiring about the suspension before they were willing to unlock it for transfer.

I've been using internet.bs for most of my domains since and haven't had any issues with them - they let me know when an abuse report comes in, and give me the time to handle it. There are probably other registrars that are fine too, but I don't have personal experience with them.

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#104

Post by m0xte »

boromi wrote: post #65
dundercoder wrote: post #64

This mirrors my experience with google support, even as a paying gsuite customer. I lost a YouTube channel and wasn’t given any option to restore it. Their advice was to just re upload all the content and forget about view counts and old links that would no longer work.

I'm going through issues with G Suite as an admin. They randomly blocked my account falsely accusing me of sending spam. I can't even access the help support team sicne I can't login to the system.

G Suite is a shit show.

Had major problems with a trial. Firstly it would just redirect back to the admin console if I hit gmail. Support couldn’t fix it.

Also you can’t give anyone access to YouTube (!) for 60 days after signing up or paying $30 in credit. Which is no good because when you pay them £30 fuck all happens. And again support were useless.

Happy O365 customer now. And I’ve used support which was excellent.

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#105

Post by joepie91_ »

OzzyB wrote: post #48
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's cheap, at-cost That to me is a downside since that means that that is not a core part of their business. Financially, it makes no difference to them if I use their service or not. I would rather pay a little extra to a company that has domain registration as a core part of their business and actually makes a profit from me. And domain names are cheap. Even if you pay twice as much as the cheapest service, it s…

The counter is it's also risky to use a company that only does Domain Registration since it's a very low margin business and thus the risk for them shuttering is higher -- or they'll try to make it up with various erroneous fees I know the concern of putting all your eggs in one basket is real, but since CF's business is literally to take over your domain DNS and slap on some add-on services, adding domain registrati…

> The counter is it's also risky to use a company that only does Domain Registration since it's a very low margin business and thus the risk for them shuttering is higher

You can avoid this issue by going with a registrar that focuses on bulk domain sales (eg. internet.bs in my case, but there are more, like eNom I think?), as they have a high-enough volume that they can easily stay afloat even when charging reasonable prices and without aggressive upsells.

It's mostly the consumer-focused "$1 for the first year" registrars like GoDaddy that you want to stay away from. Those are the really problematic ones.

> but since CF's business is literally to take over your domain DNS and slap on some add-on services, adding domain registration in-house seems like a good fit.

Sure, if you want to send all the traffic of all of your users through a man-in-the-middle US-based company with a very dubious past and a questionable business model revolving around basically centralizing the internet.

It's not a great recommendation to make. It also raises the question of why they seem intent on killing off the registrar market by offering "at cost" (which honestly isn't much lower than what aforementioned internet.bs charges anyway).

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#106

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

ggm wrote: post #77

Having just moved 3 personal domains -> into google domains you can imagine I find this quite concerning. I wonder how the domain registry community at large feels about this? ICANN exists, domains are subject to a legal agreement with ICANN, and it has customer-protection concerns surely?

Well, the real question is whether you have full control over the content posted on those domains. If you do, you should be fine, but the lesson is you should never host anything with user-generated content on Google Domains.

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#107

Post by jayshua »

walrus01 wrote: post #81
eat_veggies wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the postmortem it states that they are moving to Cloudflare

ahh yes, the more ethical choice to move to well known hosters of DDoS protection for white supremacist sites and literal nazis. Why not move to a company that is just a domain registrar.

I mean, if you're switching registrars because the last one banned your domain that almost sounds like an endorsement.

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#109

Post by _jal »

You know, this is interesting. Google is taking something close to an editorial stance here - it is clear that they take action against their customers based on content on their sites.

Some might consider that sites with controversial content who use Google as their registrar and not taken down are considered reviewed-and-OK by Google.

Others might start pressuring Google to expand the nature of content they find unacceptable.

And yet others might try pressuring them to expand their policing - who knows how many bad actors could be shut down with Gmail monitoring?

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#110

Post by walrus01 »

jayshua wrote: post #107
walrus01 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ahh yes, the more ethical choice to move to well known hosters of DDoS protection for white supremacist sites and literal nazis. Why not move to a company that is just a domain registrar.

I mean, if you're switching registrars because the last one banned your domain that almost sounds like an endorsement.

From a purely pragmatic standpoint you're not wrong.
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