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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

#71

Post by Semaphor »

koonsolo wrote: post #61
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…

Let me explain what happens when my house burns down, taking along all my hardware: - I buy another laptop and install Linux. - I connect my Google, Dropbox (which contains google backups) and Github, and they contain all data I own. - I buy a new smartphone and connect it to Google Simple as that. And my house doesn't need to burn down for this, when I buy a new laptop or smartphone I do the same. Plus, all my email…

There’s no need for lock-in though. I have almost all those benefits without google, the only difference is, that I need to install TitaniumBackup first before I can restore everything on my phone.

But unlike you, I don’t care if google locks me out.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#72

Post by goatinaboat »

adventured wrote: post #32
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 be…

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.

I think your fears are overblown, when was the last time the power company, the phone company, the sewer company, the train operator, the postal service decided on a whim to un-person someone? Sure those organisations aren't perfect by a long shot but by and large they are trustworthy and accountable.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#73

Post by hilbert42 »

tjoff wrote: post #47
Tor3 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ded…

I use Thunderbird but I only do so as it's the best of a bad lot (before that I used Eudora before Qualcomm dropped it - Eudora users know everything else is a letdown).

Thunderbird has forks but they too need much work. The trouble with email started when free email was included in Windows thus taking the incentive away from development. Same goes for Thunderbird nowadays with free Gmail being available.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#74

Post by g_p »

hilbert42 wrote: post #14
dmitriid wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you have a trillion dollars stashed away. Then you wouldn't care about lawyer costs. That's the main reason big corps get away with doing what they are doing.

You would if laws demanded you always had to hand back users' data if you locked them out. That's the problem we don't have a proper legal framework to manage Google and other Big Tech.

In Europe there's no provision for GDPR rights to access to data to be removed on these non-grounds, so users would have the right to get access to their takeout.

Since Google's processes don't seem to give access to that, you might have to sue them. If they failed to show though, you should be able to get a default judgement eventually.

(note - GDPR is in some cases privately litigable, so you don't need to wait around for a snail's pace regulator - you can indeed sue for relief and get your legal costs back in the award. I'd expect a lawyer would take this case on a contingent basis given how clear-cut the GDPR is about your right to access your own data).

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#75

Post by ajnin »

SiVal wrote: post #54
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…

For video off your own server, do you have a good streaming solution or is it a download?

HTML5 tag works just fine if you want to put a video up somewhere.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#76

Post by eloisant »

koonsolo wrote: post #61
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…

Let me explain what happens when my house burns down, taking along all my hardware: - I buy another laptop and install Linux. - I connect my Google, Dropbox (which contains google backups) and Github, and they contain all data I own. - I buy a new smartphone and connect it to Google Simple as that. And my house doesn't need to burn down for this, when I buy a new laptop or smartphone I do the same. Plus, all my email…

You can also benefit from the cloud while still avoid putting all your eggs in one basket.

A few years ago I was happy to have all my life on Google because it's was so integrated, but recently because of (1) privacy issues are (2) risks of being banned arbitrarily, I decided to reduce my exposure to Google.

So my email is Protonmail, my browser is Firefox and my search engine is Duckduckgo. I'm still looking for alternative for my calendar and files hosting. I might shell out a pro Dropbox account.

What might be harder is Android and Play Services. I don't like the iPhone, and I don't want to bother with de-googlized custom ROMs either.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#77

Post by eloisant »

Semaphor wrote: post #71
koonsolo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me explain what happens when my house burns down, taking along all my hardware: - I buy another laptop and install Linux. - I connect my Google, Dropbox (which contains google backups) and Github, and they contain all data I own. - I buy a new smartphone and connect it to Google Simple as that. And my house doesn't need to burn down for this, when I buy a new laptop or smartphone I do the same. Plus, all my email…

There’s no need for lock-in though. I have almost all those benefits without google, the only difference is, that I need to install TitaniumBackup first before I can restore everything on my phone. But unlike you, I don’t care if google locks me out.

It's still more work and risk of messing it up than using a cloud service.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#78

Post by g_p »

Nginx487 wrote: post #27

Is it possible to file a case for financial loss, which is absolutely huge for the unfortunate Google customer?

Under GDPR right to access your own data (in Europe), you could sue over Google's refusal to honour your data rights. Your request to use data rights can be made through any means, including social media message funnily enough!

You can privately litigate breaches of GDPR, and I imagine the court would be keen to award you costs when the judge discovers the kafka-esque situation going down. Oh, and ensuring you receive your takeout as they are legally required to give.

Not sure if there's grounds for loss, as the terms and conditions are pretty tightly wrapped to say they can block you at any time and you're fine with that... Not to say that should be allowed either!

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#79

Post by perryizgr8 »

adventured wrote: post #32
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 be…

> impossible to compete with.

That's already true. Look at how Google is banning accounts without recourse. Or how Twitter and Facebook are censoring personal and public discourse to push their political agenda. Why are they able to do so? Because it is already impossible to compete with them.

I second the idea of declaring them as public utilities.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#80

Post by White_Wolf »

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…

tbh not all people can run their own infrastructure (let alone manage/maintain it). I'm not sure about you but most non-techie people I know rely on online services to keep their data safe. some (maybe) have a USB drive to keep a copy.

talking about the setup I'm a bit more flexible in some regards to save bandwidth

Cloud/data storage/services

XCP-NG + NextCloud + 3TB NAS (24/7) -local mail server+ Dynamic DNS on VPS (for mail - local sync)-online a few small VM's for various services-local

Archiving/Backup:

40TB archive NAS for daily backups of all stuff that I keep online+offline including phones,tablets, etc

Video/Audio content:

local private copies + shared though youtube (as alternatives for content blocked on youtube I use RuTube or Youku)

Edit: Forgot about the off-site backup (different country 40TB NAS as offsite mirror)

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