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Google disabled my husband's account

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Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#331

Post by Animats »

Animats wrote: post #201

Sue in small claims court. Costs about $50 to file, plus $100 or so for a process server. Check Google's terms of service.[1] They're not too bad. There's no forced arbitration. You can go to Small Claims Court in Santa Clara County, CA. Google lists the reasons they can terminate an account. It's not a "sole discretion" thing; they have specific reasons listed. So Google will have to show in court that you violated…

Someone who sued Google in small claims court over an account cancellation and won.[1]

[1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-i-sued-google-and-won_b_1...

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#332

Post by cnst »

coder543 wrote: post #239
justinlloyd wrote: post #222

I had a Google Pixel phone. Less than a year old old. Treated with kid gloves. Always kept in a case. Pristine condition. An approved Google software update bricked it. This was, by all accounts, a known issue. The phone was under warranty. I sent it back. They shipped me a scratched up refurbished phone. It ran fine for a week then bricked itself due to the same software update. I sent that back. They sent me anothe…

> Google decided that wasn't to their liking and disabled the Google account attached to the phone. Did you decide to go for Round 2 in small claims court and get the account un-disabled?

> Did you decide to go for Round 2 in small claims court and get the account un-disabled?

Sadly, you cannot do it in Small Claims Court. SCC cannot provide injunctive relief -- you can only sue for monetary relief.

To get an injunction to have the account unblocked, you'd have to sue Google in the big-boys Superior Court, and/or federal court, which may cost more and require having a proper lawyer.

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#333

Post by georgeecollins »

No one will read this, but as a public service I have to say: Storing data you need without backup, or maintaining a channel of communication that you can't replace, with a company you don't pay money on a regular basis, is a recipe for disaster.

Tech companies love to be roach motels for your data. They want to lull you into dependence on their platform for mostly innocent reasons. If they have something you need make sure you have your own copy.

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#334

Post by pixl97 »

partiallypro wrote: post #278
kodah wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at a startup where we used Google Cloud. Even as a paying customer, when I'd try to talk to their "support" all they would do is try to upsell their consulting partners to answer a question about their own services.

That's wild, we're a fairly small Azure customer (compared to others) and I get calls and emails every month from a rep asking us what they can do, if anything. I think Microsoft is maybe a bit smarter at this by connecting sales to CSMs, because they can up sell and get you to support if you need it. While with Google it's a big shell game.

Microsoft is a company born in selling physical products. Their software used to come on floppies and CDs. Google hasn't really sold anything real their entire existence.

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#335

Post by cbsmith »

breakingcups wrote: post #83

It's incredibly Kafka-eqsue that you get banned for a supposed violation that you're supposed to appeal, but you don't know what you're being accused of doing. This is exacerbated by the fact that 9 out of 10 times a story like this appears it's an algorithm gone rogue which its billion-dollar shepherd assumes is infallible. The remaining 1 time it's because someone knows how to abuse reporting systems to get someone…

"This is exacerbated by the fact that 9 out of 10 times a story like this appears it's an algorithm gone rogue which its billion-dollar shepherd assumes is infallible."

The "facts" are a bit misleading though. You won't hear stories like this when it isn't framed as a case of an algorithm gone rogue, and of course whether the billion-dollar shepherd assumes it is infallible or not is something being projected onto the story.

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#336

Post by tlogan »

pgib wrote: post #324

I just can't understand why Google, Apple, and such companies can't share the specifics around what the violation actually was.

Because it just creates more problems and work. In our small SaaS we were saying to users why they are banned: spam, abuse, fraudulent cc, etc. and that created just more work for us because these users will then write ‘reviews’, emails, etc how they are not spammers and how we are bad company. Better to lock them out and move on.

Of course, we are small SaaS and not Google but sadly I’m not aware of a better solution.

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#337

Post by dhimes »

skratlo wrote: post #320
jbay808 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely think that what you're saying is true, and is part of the explanation. But another part is that the Wild West internet also had its own major issues -- roving bandits, to carry the analogy -- and these big companies did solve real problems that were only growing with time. Gmail's spam filtering. Recaptcha's bot rejection. Facebook's identity verification. Paypal's secure credit card processing. Google d…

I don't think you're right. > Facebook's identity verification in real life, do you need to know the real name of the cashier and see their contract so you can trust them with your payment? You don't, you use common sense. > Google de-ranking link farms hey, haha, and what do we get instead? Monopoly on ad-driven search engine, great, I'd rather have link farms since I can easily filter those out with little brain-po…

Yeah, Google kind of created the link-farm ecosystem because it rewarded links— again, without verification etc. but just algorithmically.

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#338

Post by sangnoir »

relaxing wrote: post #279
sangnoir wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is necessary to develop a "theory of mind" to figure out why some entities behave the way they do. You'll encounter fewer surprises that way :) edit: also, I have the battle scars from moderated a few niche online forums/properties that were mildly popular. People who abuse services are surprisingly tenacious and creative. If there is the potential to make money - even a little - you get abusers who are te…

I don’t think anyone suggested moderating shouldn’t happen or that it isn’t hard. This situation isn’t the result of unpaid mods of a web forum - Google has incredibly vast resources at its disposal. Unfortunately the devil’s advocate has brought us no closer to an understanding of the problems posed by OP: how to appeal an unknown violation, how to regain access to ones data, etc.

My point was not that I was overwhelmed or under-resourced: it's just that trolls/assholes/rule breakers force you to regress to "I know it when I see it" because they can break the spirit of the granular rules without breaking the letter. The solution is to make the "spirit" the rules (i.e. be super-broad about what constitutes abuse)

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#339

Post by cnst »

ska wrote: post #308
alex_young wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you actually have been wronged Google will wind up paying all of your costs right?

IIRC, attorney fees are not typically allowable in small claims in California - wouldn't be surprised if there are exceptions.

In California, you're not allowed to bring an attorney to a SCC -- only to Superior Court -- so, obviously, there's no attorney fees when attorneys are not allowed.

Some other states do allow attorneys in SCC, however.

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