211–220 of 305 posts
It's true that every service has to deal with the same policy and lockout problems, but that doesn't lead to the conclusion that the risk is the same. I pay for FastMail because 1. if something goes wrong, I can reach a human without needing to write a viral blog post first. Other services pay for a customer service department. 2. I trust FastMail more to not shut down their product because they got bored. Sure Gmail…
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So what’s the reason for reading it then?
Probably the relevant bit: > To provide you features like smart inbox categories, Smart Compose, and spam detection, we use Gmail data to provide a more intelligent email experience and keep you safe. - https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10434152?hl=en Famously, a while back, at some Google subdomain, you could see a list of all of your payments extracted from your emails, but I'm not sure that still exists.
It's true that every service has to deal with the same policy and lockout problems, but that doesn't lead to the conclusion that the risk is the same. I pay for FastMail because 1. if something goes wrong, I can reach a human without needing to write a viral blog post first. Other services pay for a customer service department. 2. I trust FastMail more to not shut down their product because they got bored. Sure Gmail…
2) Why in the world would Gmail get shut down? The veins of treasure to be mined from within the user's emails are vast and endless. It is quite simply a mother lode. The only bigger source within their direct control is the search input screen.
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Actually, in my experience it can also bite the other way around: I was locked out of my Google account after using it in Italy and coming back to Germany. Unable to login: It would first ask username, password, then send me an a-mail, then ask for the code from the e-mail (which I provided) and then either tell me to enter a phone number (Google is not going to get it from me!) or alternatively: “You're trying to si…
> I interpreted the phone number requirement as a signal that “had I setup 2FA, it would not have asked for the phone number but maybe just the second factor?”. Then I went on an odyssey to setup a Google account without linking it to a phone and with 2FA enabled (also not linked to a phone!). Seems OK so far, but the procedure is highly complicated and partially luck-dependent. I am probably going to publish it, bec…
Here we go: https://masysma.net/37/google_how_to_create_an_account_witho...
You might notice the date on that page being 2021/04/06 -- I had this in draft state for a long time, but newly put it online now. What has worked back then may not work anymore, though.
> My experience has been that some services apparently let you sign up without a phone number, but then try to extort it out of you either at first login (or worse) after you've used the service for awhile.
Yes, that is basically what Google did to me, too. It was not a new account either -- from 2012 (I still have the initial "registration" e-mail).
I just checked: I can still login into that account that I had created around 2021 when I discovered the "trick" as described on the website. It asked for username/password/2FA and that was it. I did not use it much in the meantime, though.
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That's correct. Google boasts that it doesn't do customer service because it can't scale to meet the demands of their user base. That can only work if their systems and processes never cause a user to have to go further than an FAQ page or community support. Given that Google are fallible, you end up in a situation where users' have a poor experience and cannot contact someone to resolve it.
I suspect you mean infallible rather than fallible.
i bet google could charge 1k/yr and have thousands of paying customer. I would.
This doesn't mention what I think is the most egregious example of Google account risk - viewers of Markiplier's YouTube live stream getting mass banned. That included access to Gmail accounts from some reporting at the time ( https://gamerant.com/markiplier-stream-ban-lock-users-out-of... ). Combine that with automoderation and you have a recipe for people with no recourse getting hammered. At least when Nick (Train…
I'd never heard of that, but it doesn't appear anyone was banned for viewing a stream. Rather, accounts were banned because he asked people to vote via comments using just single emojis, and the repetitive emoji comments were classified as spamming, so accounts were blocked for spamming. Once Google recognized the error of over-aggressive spam classification, it reinstated all the accounts. [1] [1] https://www.engadg…
https://twitter.com/markiplier/status/1193218509804695552
markiplier complaining that not all accounts were reinstated one day before that article, I doubt everything was sorted out by the next day.
having personally fell through a crack with one major service (not google) I feel like some poor souls are still looking at this bitterly.
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I'm not sure how you can make that judgement without extra context (that is almost certainly tightly held within google). For example, what actually is the error rate? How does that compare to improper access that is successfully prevented? Obviously any real person losing access to their account is a rubbish experience for that person, but an error rate of 0% is not possible with any system (including those with ple…
> How does that compare to improper access that is successfully prevented? Last year I had an email from immigration services and I had to reply within 10 days. If I lost access to my email, I would be deported right now. They don't call, they just email. Why? I don't know, but that's what it is. On the contrary, if someone get's access to my email, what can they do? Send random porn to my contacts? No-one will care.…
Take over every account you have that's configured to send password resets to that address.
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>Any company with a business model that takes your money and gives you service is inherently more secure than one that sells your eyeballs to advertisers in exchange for giving you free stuff. If anything, companies try to double-dip and serve multiple masters. See: the security and privacy mess in smart TVs. Last I checked, LG wasn't giving their TVs away.
The amount of nonsense on my LG C1 is nonsense given what I paid for it. Seriously considering getting an Apple TV or Nvidia Shield to run all my stuff on. Their UI is so bloated with crap.
This way I still have a "dumb TV" (apparently impossible to get now).
Second option would have been to get a projector.
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> My takeaway was that if I was ever in a dispute over a couple of hundred bucks for Google, I would not risk a chargeback for fear of retaliation. My takeaway from that is to never spend more than a few quid (i.e. money I'd care about losing) on anything linked that directly to Google.
To me, a chargeback is a 'burn the bridges' moment. If a company has wronged me to the point I'm prepared to do a chargeback, then I obviously don't want anything to do with that company anymore, and I welcome them to close my account since I will never do business with them again. Why would you want to continue doing business with a company that has frustrated you to the point of doing a chargeback?