121–130 of 288 posts
I really wish they had someone I could call.
Many people (including me) raised this issue internally at Google more than a decade ago now during the Google+ era. Vic Gundotra decided that not using your "real name" was a bannable offense despite the many legitimate concerns people brought up [1]. This was of course an automatic process and there were (completely predictably) false positives. This would kill your entire Google account, Gmail included. I was one…
Or just don’t use gmail. Email is way too important to me (and most people) to risk losing because an automated system thought I broke the TOS of an unrelated Google product. Even if you keep separate accounts, there’s nothing to stop them correlating those accounts and banning you anyway. Don’t use gmail as your primary email provider.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's normal if you're a store someone can go elsewhere to do business. It should be illegal if you're a global monopoly where it's nearly impossible to function in modern society without an account to. The problem I see time and time again, is that Google acts like it is completely unaware it's a monopoly.
How is google a monopoly? I get by just fine without it.
Many people (including me) raised this issue internally at Google more than a decade ago now during the Google+ era. Vic Gundotra decided that not using your "real name" was a bannable offense despite the many legitimate concerns people brought up [1]. This was of course an automatic process and there were (completely predictably) false positives. This would kill your entire Google account, Gmail included. I was one…
Per-service bans seems like the obvious thing. Sure, there will be some rough edges (what when I am banned from GDrive but not Gmail, but then I click the 'save to drive' button in gmail?). Who will test that codepath? How about when i DDoS the antivirus service API? - does that mean my email will no longer be scanned? But a few rough edges for a few users seems better than a few users very unhappy and enough to beco…
To me, the issue with Google's products and services is that they're not willing to provide any human customer service to resolve the real issues. Now, of course, I understand that even Google can't reasonably be expected to provide free 24/7 customer support for the entire Internet. If they had a normal phone number available where anybody could reach a human at any time, every confused person would call them with i…
How about only paying customers outside of consumer subscription services (and maybe even those)? I don't know why it's reasonable to expect them not to be able to provide that service at volume when I can and have reached amazon support for small sales and even before sale events and I'm sure they move more stuff around than google does pixel phones.
I placed an order for a Pixel Watch on Black Friday as a gift. Spent $380 or so on the watch+band. Site said it would be delivered on Nov 29-Dec 2nd (and status was updated to 'Pending Shipment'). Well, Dec 5th rolled around, still wasnt shipped. Since the status was 'pending shipment' you cannot cancel the order. I contacted google asking them to cancel my order. Two weeks later, it's still not shipped, CS rep is ba…
Google in my experience is basically a giant black hole if you need any real service on the consumer side. This is one of the various reasons that like others in this thread I've disconnected myself from any reliance on Google services over the past few years. Having the vast majority of my digital identity linked to a single gmail account was super convenient, but there's way too much downside risk if someone at google decides to shut you out for any reason.
What's the best email alternative to gmail?
To me, the issue with Google's products and services is that they're not willing to provide any human customer service to resolve the real issues. Now, of course, I understand that even Google can't reasonably be expected to provide free 24/7 customer support for the entire Internet. If they had a normal phone number available where anybody could reach a human at any time, every confused person would call them with i…
IMO they should be legally required to provide an appeals process with a real human and reasonable turnaround time (e.g. 1 business day would probably be fine with me) for all forms of account banning or website banning. For payment disputes they should also be legally required to provide human assistance within a few business days. If you can't do that then you shouldn't be allowed to take payments.
I had a location-based file sharing website banned across the internet because Chrome falsely labelled it as a suspicious website or some BS. That new Chrome version marked the end of that project. No way to reach a human. I can't imagine how many businesses and startups have been ended because of Google's rash policies and no appeal process.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
rclone's documentation warns you that you can't actually get the original resolution photos back out via the Photos API. Better than nothing, obviously, but...
... just a confirmation that signing for anything on google just makes you their hostage. I'm happy I quit them 5 years ago after I couldn't have access to my mail anymore after I stepped down my paid drive access to free one and I didn't have space anymore to receive emails.
It seems to me like deleting the files over your storage limit is the easy path for both you and google and I don't see how this is an example of holding you hostage. At most bad communication and a lack of warning.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have an Android phone? It's getting harder to use them without a Google account. In my university, professors and old T.A. have a mix of gmail, hotmail and yahoo, let's say 1/3, 1/3 and 1/3. But students have almost 100% emails from gmail. I't not a monopoly, but it's getting very close.
No I don’t use Android on any device.