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Google users locked out after 15 years' use

businessinsider.com

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Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#31

Post by Xylakant »

Tor3 wrote: post #26
grishka wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mail is one of the things I'm most worried about. Use an IMAP client. It would keep all your mail on your device, so at least you don't have to rely on having uninterrupted access to your account for your old conversations. Actually, I'm surprised just how many people use email through web interfaces for some reason.

Search and find old emails.. that's where gmail works. I guess that's why I keep using it. For work I use Thunderbird (the best of the bad alternatives), and search is horrible and extremely slow (and usually never find what I want to find). If I had something which was as easy as gmail for handling tens of thousands of emails I would switch.

You can use an imap client as “backup” and continue using the gmail web interface for day-to-day usage. Or the other way round, depending on how much you rely on gmaial search. There’s also a few mail backup tools that effectively let you create a local copy of your mails.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#32

Post by adventured »

goatinaboat wrote: post #6

It’s long past time that Google, Twitter, Facebook etc were legally declared to be public utilities and regulated as such.

Don't do that. Do almost anything other than that.

If you make them public utilities, they'll get even worse, become more politically tangled, become even more entrenched, impossible to remove and impossible to compete with. You'll put the government directly into the business of preventing competition against them via intense regulation and government-lobby protection.

There are a lot of ways to restrain big tech before you get to the public uiltity option.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#33

Post by hilbert42 »

szszrk wrote: post #7

Being locked out from google account is one of my biggest fears in practical computer usage. Over the years I can't even tell how much I'm sunk into using tiny pieces of google's services, even though for most crucial things I tend to omit google and look for alternatives that are easier to handle in problematic situation. Mail is one of the things I'm most worried about.

As one who's never trusted my data to Google I really am curious why so many actually do so.

Is the convenience truly that great that people are even prepared to gamble the loss of their data? Alternatively, why is it that some of us have always been mistrustful of Big Tech and most others not?

They're completely opposite worldviews.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#34

Post by cbozeman »

mnahkies wrote: post #18
hilbert42 wrote: post #11

If you don't use Google then you can't get locked out. I don't. I've never understood why people would actually trust their data to Google or any Big Tech company when there's no guarantee one will always have access to it. That said, we need laws to guarantee people can always reclaim their data even if their account is closed or the company goes bust.

I think it's a matter of convenience - running your own gsuite like application (eg nextcloud) safely and securely is out of reach for most users, either for want of education or time

LOL, that is enormously out of the reach of most users...

What you mean to say is that it isn't out of the reach for anyone visiting YCombinator.

Most "users" have less understanding now, many of them having lived with this technology their entire lives, than I did at 14 when I got my first computer... A Pentium 75 with 8 MB of RAM and a 540 MB hard drive.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#35

Post by Vespasian »

dannyw wrote: post #9
rusticpenn wrote: post #2

At what point does it make sense to take this to court?

You signed a binding arbitration agreement, didn’t you?

In many jurisdictions arbitration clauses for consumers cannot be binding and can neither prevent them to sue in court.

Check your local laws.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#36

Post by viraptor »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #12
szszrk wrote: post #7

Being locked out from google account is one of my biggest fears in practical computer usage. Over the years I can't even tell how much I'm sunk into using tiny pieces of google's services, even though for most crucial things I tend to omit google and look for alternatives that are easier to handle in problematic situation. Mail is one of the things I'm most worried about.

Do a google takeout ASAP if you haven’t done so already. This mitigates against data loss through being banned. You then just need to change your email in myriad places!

I went through this recently and... It's not actually as many as I thought. I've got 454 entries in bitwarden, but anything past 20 or so most common entries, I can completely ignore / wouldn't care if they disappeared.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#37

Post by WanderPanda »

stiray wrote: post #30

Welcome to vendor locked-in world where you have willing-fully decided to become prisoners in exchange for few sweets that you dont really need. I hope you dont also own some google router or even better, "home security" device. This would make it a real pain. I am explaining this to people since the birth of gmail, but no one listens. Let me think for a moment, what would happen if google does this to me... [x] No g…

Da rise of da preppers :D

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#38

Post by merijnv »

rexf wrote: post #16
TheChaplain wrote: post #3

Tip: Get your own domain from a non-google registrar, then connect to Gmail if you prefer. If you ever are locked out, you can just move the address to another email-provider. Another trick is to use always have forwarding enabled in Gmail, to Outlook.com or another provider. All email will be forwarded despite your account being locked, so you will not miss out on important info. And use Google Takeout for backing u…

Would forwarding continue to work if your account is disabled or terminated? That doesn't seem likely? I wish there was a way to pay for Google (such as Google One) and it meant Google wouldn't ban your Gmail account. Period. However from reading HN anecdotes, it seems like they don't care about you (even if you're a paying customer). I realize this could feel like extortion, but it would be well worth the peace of m…

> Would forwarding continue to work if your account is disabled or terminated? That doesn't seem likely?

No, but the idea is that you can point the domain at a new host and at least keep receiving future email, so that you don't lose the ability to password reset accounts, etc.

As for

> I wish there was a way to pay for Google (such as Google One) and it meant Google wouldn't ban your Gmail account

There's a reason I pay, like, €50 a year for my email hosting instead of gmail's free mail. I want to be able to actually reach a human when it comes to problems with my email instead of Google's customer service void.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#39

Post by simion314 »

This is the issue with this giants, say you get banned because something weird happened on your console now your entire life is destroyed. I own a PlayStation and I am concerned that if my kid does something stupid I will lose access to all the games now imagine if you ownede a Google or Microsoft console , you could lose not only the games but access to everything else.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#40

Post by tjoff »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #12
szszrk wrote: post #7

Being locked out from google account is one of my biggest fears in practical computer usage. Over the years I can't even tell how much I'm sunk into using tiny pieces of google's services, even though for most crucial things I tend to omit google and look for alternatives that are easier to handle in problematic situation. Mail is one of the things I'm most worried about.

Do a google takeout ASAP if you haven’t done so already. This mitigates against data loss through being banned. You then just need to change your email in myriad places!

You often need to have access to your email to be able to change email.

And many services will be like, oh, haven't seen you in a while so we sent you this code to your email to verify it really is you.

Do it now.

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