Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs

#191

Post by thomasmonopoly » Sat, Jul 23, 2011, 7:43 PM UTC

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #113

white_devil wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FWIW Not much. They're only doing damage control. I wonder whether Matt Cutts is on holiday or something, by the way..

I talked to the person with this complaint, then looked into it myself. The account was suspended for a violation of our Terms of Service. After digging into the situation, my personal opinion is that Google took appropriate action. I'm sorry that I can't go into more detail.

and based on what other people have said about you i do belive you are an honest person. and if i really have violated the terms of service in some way, what in gods name could i have done that was so small for me to have not noticed it yet so large as to warrant shutting down my entire account and blacklisting me???

Re: Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs

#192

Post by dwwoelfel » Sat, Jul 23, 2011, 7:47 PM UTC

Pewpewarrows wrote: post #174

ajays wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. A bunch of Google fanboys voting me down for stating something rational, but that just happens to be anti-Google. I just started using G+ (mainly because I'd like there to be a strong competitor to FB), but Google's antics give me cause for concern. I'd hate to get "hacked" some day and have Google completely wipe out every bit I have with them.

You can download your data from Google anytime: http://www.google.com/takeout/ When you sign-up for a Google account, there's a little something called a Terms of Service you agree to. You violate them? You sacrifice all rights to any data you may or may not have on their services. That's something every Google user agrees to from day one. If you don't like that punishment, you shouldn't have signed up.

* If you don't like that punishment, you shouldn't have signed up.*

Alternatively, we could make arguments for why that is a bad idea, post them on a public forum, and hope that Google sees it.

Re: Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs

#193

Post by thomasmonopoly » Sat, Jul 23, 2011, 7:48 PM UTC

fozzymandias wrote: post #187

thomasmonopoly wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hi. someone on twitter sent me a link to this. is this about my situation? because if it is let me say to "boneslf" if he is the correct person, i don't know a goddam thing about computers let alone the "tiny bit of programming knowledge and keyword knowledge to make money" scamming google products. let me be clear about that. and also "jellicle" makes my point exactly and so do a few others on here. also, i've sent…

It definitely seems from the way that google is handling this (playing everything close to the vest, not letting you know anything) that it DOES have something to do with the FBI raid. In the US, this kind of cockiness and disregard for standard procedures of law and decency is often paired with Homeland Security shit. It doesn't seem very far fetched to say that google might have been told by the gov't that you are…

first of all i am absolutely pro-wikileaks. that shouldn't even be a statement i have to make. that's like saying "why yes, i am pro-truth." those people are the definition of patriots and they're not even from my country. secondly, i can't imagine google would be dumb enough to actually think that even if someone did use my account for something like that. i would hope that the most powerful corporation would notice the change in behavior if someone was one day uploading pictures of hiking to my picasa account and emailing my sister and the next day hacking into the cia. i should hope that they would suspect they weren't the same person. also, why is the text on this website so small? rhetorical question.

Re: Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs

#194

Post by j_philipp » Sat, Jul 23, 2011, 7:51 PM UTC

BonesLF wrote: post #126

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I talked to the person with this complaint, then looked into it myself. The account was suspended for a violation of our Terms of Service. After digging into the situation, my personal opinion is that Google took appropriate action. I'm sorry that I can't go into more detail.

Since Cutts isn't at liberty to say I think I'll take this one for him. This guy did really dumb stuff with Adwords or Adsense and got caught. Everyone wants a piece of the Google pie and Google wants no one to have it too easily, or their integrity goes to the shitter. Think about what you could do with a tiny bit of programming knowledge and keyword knowledge to make money using these service. Then try it and get b…

> This guy did really dumb stuff with Adwords or Adsense and got caught.

If that were the case then why can't Google disclose this to him when they close his account? (And perhaps, though this is a separate issue, then even give him a chance to defend his position -- you know, like they do in The Real World?)

Re: Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs

#195

Post by thomasmonopoly » Sat, Jul 23, 2011, 7:52 PM UTC

robertc wrote: post #169

bauchidgw wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

zip his his data, close the account. even if he did some serious TOS violation, it's still his data. (or isn't it?)

It depends on whether his violation of the TOS involved him stealing data he shouldn't be allowed to have.

huh? i think people are assuming that i know way more about computers than i actually do.

Re: Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs

#196

Post by thomasmonopoly » Sat, Jul 23, 2011, 7:54 PM UTC

el_topo wrote: post #165

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I talked to the person with this complaint, then looked into it myself. The account was suspended for a violation of our Terms of Service. After digging into the situation, my personal opinion is that Google took appropriate action. I'm sorry that I can't go into more detail.

Whether or not there has been a TOS violation, basically locking away the guy's past emails and any other documents he may have saved previously using Google services seems like the dick move of the century. It certainly makes me question the wisdom of keeping my email in Gmail and my photos in Picasa. And anything else in other parts of my google account.

right? what am i going to do? post offensive articles to my reader account?

Re: Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs

#197

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 23, 2011, 7:57 PM UTC

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #113

white_devil wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FWIW Not much. They're only doing damage control. I wonder whether Matt Cutts is on holiday or something, by the way..

I talked to the person with this complaint, then looked into it myself. The account was suspended for a violation of our Terms of Service. After digging into the situation, my personal opinion is that Google took appropriate action. I'm sorry that I can't go into more detail.

[deleted]

Re: Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs

#198

Post by thomasmonopoly » Sat, Jul 23, 2011, 8:03 PM UTC

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #113

white_devil wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FWIW Not much. They're only doing damage control. I wonder whether Matt Cutts is on holiday or something, by the way..

I talked to the person with this complaint, then looked into it myself. The account was suspended for a violation of our Terms of Service. After digging into the situation, my personal opinion is that Google took appropriate action. I'm sorry that I can't go into more detail.

also let me be clear that i don't think this is going viral because i wrote a poetic letter that tugged at the heartstrings of twitter. if you think that my story is going viral for any other reason besides google's completely crap user support you need to re-examine your approach to dealing with people. and if you need anymore proof of that please be aware that i signed up for twitter on wens night. and i do not know a single person, not one single person either physically or virtually, that has republished my letter. this should speak volumes as to how frustrated people are with google and any company that has policies like this. go to twitter, search for @thomasmonopoly and change "top tweets" to "all" tweets and see how your users are responding. because this has absolutely nothing to do with me.

Re: Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs

#199

Post by JaggedJax » Sat, Jul 23, 2011, 8:06 PM UTC

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #113

white_devil wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FWIW Not much. They're only doing damage control. I wonder whether Matt Cutts is on holiday or something, by the way..

I talked to the person with this complaint, then looked into it myself. The account was suspended for a violation of our Terms of Service. After digging into the situation, my personal opinion is that Google took appropriate action. I'm sorry that I can't go into more detail.

This is essentially the response I got from Valve about 4 years ago when I was banned. I spent about a month struggling to get in contact with them just to ask 'why' and 'are you sure.' It wasn't until I began leaving daily voicemail messages at their offices asking for help that they finally talked to me at all. The only thing they told me in that conversation was that the ban offence was at my home IP, so I knew my account wasn't compromised. They even ignored a BBB complaint I filed.

They insisted that their automated ban system could not make a mistake. While I realize that most people banned from any online service probably deserve it, you can tell the quality of a company by the way they handle the mistakes. And there are always mistakes.

Here's where I documented all I tried to do years ago with no success in case anyone is interested: https://sites.google.com/site/vacban/

Re: Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs

#200

Post by hrgrl » Sat, Jul 23, 2011, 8:27 PM UTC

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #113

white_devil wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FWIW Not much. They're only doing damage control. I wonder whether Matt Cutts is on holiday or something, by the way..

I talked to the person with this complaint, then looked into it myself. The account was suspended for a violation of our Terms of Service. After digging into the situation, my personal opinion is that Google took appropriate action. I'm sorry that I can't go into more detail.

you can't tell thomas monopoly what he did??? do you even understand how ridiculous that sounds? you have destroyed his online presence and won't even tell him why? really????