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Google disabled my husband's account

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Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#421
post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a small website few years ago and I placed Google Ads on it. After few weeks my Google Ads account got banned forever (no appeal available) for fraudulent clicks. There is no way to reverse this ban. I am 100% sure I didn't click on my own ads. I guess someone could easily do some suspicious activity on your ads (or just extract your Ads ID from Android APK) and then get your account banned. Fortunately, they o…

> never ever open a Google Play developer account with your personal Google email. Create a new one for this. That means having another phone number, right? I tried to make a Google account for this kind of purpose, but had no way to receive the text they insist on without linking the new account directly to the old one.

A friend in the freeer err I mean 3rd world might hook you up

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#422
post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually cost/benefit arguments do consider the benefits. If I kill millions of mosquitos and reduce malaria fatalties by 100 per million population while blinding 1 per million, then unless there is a better way to kill the bugs we should consider this approach. I don't really see how this line of argument really translates to this issue with Google. First of all I should have acknowledged that imprisoning data is al…

I think you would agree that there is no plausible amount of spam traffic which would justify google murdering a user to cut the spam down. That it's just incomparable, right? Even though the cost of being dead would be borne by the user and their family and not part of google's bottom line-- murder for spam reduction would be right out. I don't think it's that big a leap to say that it is unlikely that there is any…

An externality is a cost borne by an unrelated third party. That is not the case here. These are two party arrangements. You and Google have engaged in a contract; Google is providing you email in exchange for your eyeballs, and there are terms and agreements.

There should still be a solution though. Maybe this is a terrible idea, but one idea: Google could sell a service where you pay them $200 and they thoroughly review your case, tell you what happened and work with you to restore access to data, maybe even setup email forwarding for 90 days or something that comes reasonably close to making you whole even if they can't restore service.

If in the course of doing this work they figure out they screwed up closing the account in the first place, the money is refunded. Of course fraudsters would not generally want to sign-up and pay this money as - even if the information of how they were caught was worth $200 - that would create a paper-trail. And it could still be the case that Google is under a FISA letter or something and can't fulfill this service, and in that case they'd refund your money as well.

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#423
post #12

Right now I have everything tied up to my Google account (primary email, drive, photos). Has anyone moved away and if so, to what?

Microsoft 365

I don't know why this got downvoted, I use 365 (in addition to other non-Google providers) and am quite happy with them for the accounts I use them for.

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#424
post #243

If anyone has a Google account, you need to Takeout regularly. https://takeout.google.com

This helps mitigate some risk but if you're using OAuth or rely on receiving future emails via your @gmail.com account you're still out of luck regardless

This. We need to create an email portability system (like there currently is with mobile phone numbers)

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#425
post #349
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should be illegal if there is no way to contest/appeal.

It's the reverse. It's often illegal to divulge the content of a violation.

I'm not lawyer, and I'm not an American, but doesn't this sorta fall under the 6th Amendment?

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#426

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…

Not only is this incredibly Kafka-esque, it's archetypally Kafka-esque! This is effectively exactly the plot of The Trial!

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#427
post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the reverse. It's often illegal to divulge the content of a violation.

I'm not lawyer, and I'm not an American, but doesn't this sorta fall under the 6th Amendment?

No.

The Sixth Amendment applies to criminal action by the government. Google isn’t the government, and even if we were to pretend they were, they are neither applying a criminal law nor imposing the kind of punishments which are inherently criminal no matter how the law authorizing them is characterized, so the Sixth Amendment is far from applicable.

Were they the government, either 5th (federal) or 14th (state) Amendment due procesos rights might be an issue, but, again, Google is not the government.

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#428
I was very happy to get one of the first Gmail accounts in my country, when it was by invitation only.

But this is a distant memory, and nowadays I avoid relying on any single big corporation for anything. Particularly I avoid Google.

My main email is in my own domain(s) (paid in intervals of ten years) with gandi.net.

Using Duck duck go everywhere I can.

I have an Android phone by necessity and because there is no real alternative. I download all my pictures and store them with pCloud instead. No G-drive or Dropbox, as I can't trust these services at all.

My Gmail account is used for things that can get spam. All important accounts are in the email of my domain(s).

If Google decides to cancel my Google account, it would be a minor nuisance, mainly related to reinstalling the smartphone apps with another account, and that's it.

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#429

Do Google employees realize how disgustingly evil their customer service is? Forget their free services for a second: you can even be spending big bucks with them every month and be randomly blocked by algorithm with no human recourse. I understand that Google can’t feasibly provide free tech support for the entire Internet as they’d probably have to have a million employees just answering phones and emails all day l…

> What they need to do is find some number (whether it’s $5, $25, $50, or more I have no idea) where they can charge for real customer service.

They've done that, as they have both business and personal (the latter as a component of Google One) paid support plans.

Re: Google disabled my husband's account

#430

Issues like this- are why I jump’d through hoops to have a somewhat secure , somewhat reliable, and somewhat consistent- on-Prem back up of my Google (gsuite) data. It’s not as easy and robust as it should be, but it helps me sleep a tad bit better at night.

I just had that same panic realization. Turns out it is pretty easy to do manually. From GSuite click the 9 grid dot application menu and choose Account. Go to "privacy & personalization". Find "Download or delete your data" section and click the "Download your data" link. Seems to be a comprehensive download system including everything I could imagine (including my gmail history which is probably most important). If…

Use Puppeteer to automate it
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