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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

#111

Post by doctor_eval »

submeta wrote: post #64

Moved to Fastmail years ago, because my spider sensors were telling me for years that I need to fear companies where I can’t reach a human to resolve conflicts / problems. - They have an excellent Email service, calendar and contacts management. Most important: At fastmail I get a very quick response from a human who will always help me very quickly. Also I use my own domain name so that I can move my Emails to a new…

I had a bit of an argument with a good guy who just couldn't understand why I wasn't willing to put all our new company's documents on Google. I convinced him (grudgingly) to use a setup much like this (we ended up with Box instead of Dropbox because I got sick of Dropbox trying to grab all my data).

Seeing things from his perspective, I was amazed at how successful Google has been in convincing other businesses to take on Gmail, Google Docs, etc. When I think about the enterprise focus of Google, as well as the continuous rebranding, product EOLs, and crappy user interfaces, it's hard for me not to see Google as the new Microsoft. As a former Linux desktop user who lived through the whole MS antitrust thing, I find it absolutely bizarre that today, I'm much happier with Office 365 on the web, than I was with Google Docs.

I still worry about all my photos being in iCloud, but it seems like less of a risk since I'm a customer of Apple, rather than a product of Google.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#112

Post by nobody9999 »

eloisant wrote: post #76
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…

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 alt…

>I'm still looking for alternative for my calendar and files hosting.

You might want to consider Nextcloud (https://nextcloud.com ) for that.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#113

Post by hilbert42 »

jcynix wrote: post #51
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.

> As one who's never trusted my data to Google I really am curious why so many actually do so. I expect that most users think on the same level as they do with metadata: "I have nothing to hide so can't be a possible target." And if an algorithm suddenly marks them as a target (for whatever I transparent reason) they do not understand that they might just be "collateral damage" … My IT world view was formed in the 90…

Right, having managed IT I understand the proprietary formats problem well. My two axioms are - use plaintext wherever possible, and second, before you commit to a new program always check its export features to ensue you don't get locked in.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#114

Post by doctor_eval »

classics2 wrote: post #97

Just don’t do it. Run your own domain and inbound email server. It’s so cheap it basically costs nothing at this point.

Well, only if you set aside the cost of the education you went through in order to be able to do all that stuff... while your advice is fine for the HN crowd, unfortunately this problem affects everybody.

Better advice IMO is to tell people to use a smaller provider, like Fastmail.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#115

Post by Yolta »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #56
conradfr wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We need better email providers. We need to stop using phone numbers as unique identifiers. We need email that has encryption built in. Which kinda suggest governments should run their own email services.

> Which kinda suggest governments should run their own email services.

No, no, no, no, no, let's not go there. Small independent hosters is a more compelling solution.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#116

Post by doctor_eval »

goatinaboat wrote: post #72
adventured wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yeah but it's a short step from that to being forced to exclusively use the state-mandated email provider in order to be able to communicate with the government or big businesses... at a cost.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#117

Post by hilbert42 »

harel wrote: post #57
hilbert42 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Absolutely. If we bring the law into it, one should also know why they are being locked out and have a valid human-lead channel to contest it. I'm in no way condoning what's going on sometimes. It's terrible.

Fully agree. The law should also enforce an arbitration process onto Big Tech at it's expense (it can afford it as it's selling user's info). Moreover, those arbitrators ought to be independent of Big Tech.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#118

Post by huijzer »

est31 wrote: post #88
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…

You don't have to run your server at home. You can also rent VPS from a large number of providers that have much better customer service than Google. And if you don't like your current provider, it's easy to switch. Or just upload backups of your home server's disk to the VPS.

I know that it is possible, but think that ensuring correct backups can be difficult and that a VPS is actually quite pricy. (Especially if I want my data outside of a place which the NSA can touch, that is, no DigitalOcean or Azure.) Do you have tips for that?

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#119

Post by spc476 »

knbknb wrote: post #110

fellow chromebook users: If you had a Chromebook, and Google locked your account. Does the scenario described in the article imply that you can no longer can log into your own laptop?

You could possibly log in as a guest (or "browse as a guest" at it says on the login screen) but there isn't much you can do by browse the web as a guest. Go figure.
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