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Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers

zdnet.com

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Re: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers

#101

Post by bonch »

sliverstorm wrote: post #24
tshtf wrote: post #3

I use Google for everything from Google Apps to Google Voice. Given this recent behaviour of Google, I'm doing something wrong. Over the next few weeks, I plan to do the following: 1) Transition my gmail account over to a domain I own. I'll email everyone I know, and change all my known addresses. Thankfully, Google lets me connect via IMAP to retrieve all of this. 2) Move my Google Voice number to my VOIP carrier. T…

Every time I see these posts with alarmists giving bullet-lists of things they are "going to do", it sounds a lot to me like they are trying to threaten Google. Just so you're not surprised and disappointed later, I'll let you in on a secret- they don't care . Even besides the part where they are Google, I have witnessed a long history of complaints to different companies, and the more false bravado and chest- and/or…

If they don't care, that's the best reason of all to publicly abandon them.

Re: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers

#102

Post by djeikyb »

tectonic wrote: post #18
tshtf wrote: post #3

I use Google for everything from Google Apps to Google Voice. Given this recent behaviour of Google, I'm doing something wrong. Over the next few weeks, I plan to do the following: 1) Transition my gmail account over to a domain I own. I'll email everyone I know, and change all my known addresses. Thankfully, Google lets me connect via IMAP to retrieve all of this. 2) Move my Google Voice number to my VOIP carrier. T…

Is there a good alternative to Google Voice? I want an online voicemail service and call forwarding for when I travel.

I've been happy with Youmail's free and paid services. I paid when I needed voicemail transcriptions. Right now I'm using the free voicemail service.

Re: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers

#103

Post by cousin_it »

iamdave wrote: post #80
alayne wrote: post #64

How long are people going to tolerate the tyranny of large companies controlling social interaction? Google+ has all kinds of terms of service that I find infringing of free speech. Facebook has their own terms. I think we need to stop being sharecroppers and serfs and develop social network solutions that are distributed and open, or at least encourage the projects that are working on it already. The amount of press…

Everytime I see someone referencing "free speech" in a way that makes it painfully obvious they skipped over the words "CONGRESS shall make no laws restricting..." I want to bang my head against a wall. Google is a company, a company that's providing you a service free of charge. They are 100% within their right to tell you how not to use their product.

To me, free speech is not just a law, but also an ideal that society should aspire to. When the government was the only entity that could realistically restrict your speech, the old laws were enough. But today there exist new powerful entities that can restrict everyone's speech, harming society about as much as a bona fide government restriction would, and they don't even have to consult the representatives of the public beforehand.

An analogy: if the government were the only employer in the country, then it would make sense to make anti-discrimination laws that only forbid discrimination by the government. Then times would change, private companies would begin to employ people, and something like your argument would be used to defend allowing private companies to discriminate.

If tomorrow Google, Facebook and Twitter announce that they're going to jointly ban any speech criticizing penguins, that will sound like an attack on free speech to me. Even worse if they install automatic filters in their chat clients, to block you if you badmouth penguins while talking to your friend privately. Even worse if cellphone companies join suit and begin filtering text messages. Even though all of these are private companies that are 100% within their rights.

Rigorous enforcement of property rights to the exclusion of all else just isn't enough to make society pleasant to live in. They need to be balanced out with right-of-way laws, fair-use laws, antitrust laws, all sorts of regulations to ensure that the big guy doesn't use his power to make the little guy worse off.

Re: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers

#104

Post by tonfa »

tshtf wrote: post #3

I use Google for everything from Google Apps to Google Voice. Given this recent behaviour of Google, I'm doing something wrong. Over the next few weeks, I plan to do the following: 1) Transition my gmail account over to a domain I own. I'll email everyone I know, and change all my known addresses. Thankfully, Google lets me connect via IMAP to retrieve all of this. 2) Move my Google Voice number to my VOIP carrier. T…

I don't think accounts are deleted, if you read the article it only talks about suspension (of the Google+ profile).

Re: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers

#105

Post by imurray »

tuoru wrote: post #67
tshtf wrote: post #3

I use Google for everything from Google Apps to Google Voice. Given this recent behaviour of Google, I'm doing something wrong. Over the next few weeks, I plan to do the following: 1) Transition my gmail account over to a domain I own. I'll email everyone I know, and change all my known addresses. Thankfully, Google lets me connect via IMAP to retrieve all of this. 2) Move my Google Voice number to my VOIP carrier. T…

If you're not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold. In this case, a product Google no longer wants to sell.

I've lost count of how many times I've seen statements about users being products on here. Can we please stop reciting platitudes?

Obviously Google would care if they annoyed enough users to lose ad revenue, or tarnish their reputation. The real argument is about whether the fraction they are annoying is small or otherwise irrelevant.

Re: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers

#107

Post by vaksel »

tonfa wrote: post #104
tshtf wrote: post #3

I use Google for everything from Google Apps to Google Voice. Given this recent behaviour of Google, I'm doing something wrong. Over the next few weeks, I plan to do the following: 1) Transition my gmail account over to a domain I own. I'll email everyone I know, and change all my known addresses. Thankfully, Google lets me connect via IMAP to retrieve all of this. 2) Move my Google Voice number to my VOIP carrier. T…

I don't think accounts are deleted, if you read the article it only talks about suspension (of the Google+ profile).

that's because Google doesn't delete things...they just issue a permanent non-revocable suspension.

Re: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers

#108

Post by vaksel »

karussell wrote: post #106

Why not use a name which sounds like a real name but isn't yours? I'm doing so very successfully ;) ...

that's a mistake.

eventually you'll have to login into your Gmail or Analytics where you gave your real name. Google will then cross reference your IP and notice that the information they have on file is fake. So they'll suspend all of your accounts.

Re: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers

#109

Post by motters »

As someone else remarked, if you think that your online identity has some value then you really need to own it yourself. Giving the keys to your identity to Google or anyone else potentially gives them a lot of leverage over you.

If you're using Google accounts for any business related activities then you're risking the chance that some bot implementing a set of dodgy heuristics and with no real accountability can shut down your operations at any time (see http://fora.tv/2008/08/08/Daniel_Suarez_Daemon_Bot-Mediated_...)

Re: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers

#110

Post by bad_user »

jshen wrote: post #69
jrockway wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is recent at all: this has been going forever. It just happened most recently to someone with a love of spamming the Internet (which is why his gmail was disabled, apparently), and we all heard about this. Combined with ladyada and Skud, it seems like this is happening a lot. But it's three cases out of millions of users.

"But it's three cases out of millions of users" Are you saying that only three accounts have been suspended? I'm assuming not, but that's what your words mean. Hard to take the point seriously after that.

Considering there are hundreds of millions of Gmail accounts, that statement may be pretty accurate.
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