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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

#41

Post by names_are_hard »

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…

That's why you need to own your domain. When they lock you out, you setup a new mailbox elsewhere and point your domain to it. That covers new mail. And the archives are still accessible because you've been forwarding mail all along.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#43

Post by camillomiller »

hilbert42 wrote: post #33
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.

It grows and compounds. I started using gmail an google a long time ago, when I was not enough of an expert and a big tech enthusiast. The Google cloud ecosystem has been ahead of its time for a long time. Now that alternatives are available and I understand the lock in risk, I am way too entrenched into the ecosystem to consider getting out as an easy and painless option.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#44

Post by chinathrow »

> He received a response the next day: Google had determined he had broken their terms of service, though they didn't explain exactly what had happened, and his account wouldn't be reinstated.

This is such a shitty behaviour, it makes me angry. I hope he'll follow up with a court case.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#45

Post by harel »

hilbert42 wrote: post #33
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.

Yes. The convenience is truly that great and the ratio of users to locked out users is large enough that I am prepared to gamble like that. We gamble all the time with any service we use or retailer we buy from.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#47

Post by tjoff »

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.

People constantly bash on thunderbird search, when it is actually the opposite.

Gmail will often fail on exact-match searches. Unbelievable frustrating and next to useless.

Thunderbird is a bit clunky but does what you ask of it and has much better+simpler filtering options.

Which makes sense, gmail is in the cloud so it can't perform intensive search queries because that would cost way to much.

Thunderbird has a dedicated machine for it, no matter how old and slow it is it will have way more resources at hand than google will ever allocate to you, even if you pay.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#49

Post by hilbert42 »

harel wrote: post #45
hilbert42 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes. The convenience is truly that great and the ratio of users to locked out users is large enough that I am prepared to gamble like that. We gamble all the time with any service we use or retailer we buy from.

OK, that's fine. But as I said elsewhere you should always be entitled to get your data back if you are locked out and the law should guarantee that entitlement.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#50

Post by conradfr »

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.

It needs to be regulated in some way. At least for email providers.

I guess we'll have to wait for some high profile people in the EU administration to be mistakenly banned by Google so they look into it.

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