Oof. The end of YouTube as we know it
> At the moment, Google is not planning to delete accounts with YouTube videos.
Updating our inactive account policies
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Re: Updating our inactive account policies
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
How so?
There are many content creators on YouTube who have gone silent or died, two years from now all those videos will be lost like tears in rain.
In this article[0], it says that YouTube accounts with videos won't be deleted:
> At the moment, Google is not planning to delete accounts with YouTube videos. (That would be tricky as some old abandoned clips might have historical relevance.)
[0]: https://9to5google.com/2023/05/16/google-account-delete/
Re: Updating our inactive account policies
#13Re: Updating our inactive account policies
#14Re: Updating our inactive account policies
#15This ... is not what is going on. When I worked at $bigcorp serving billions in traffic, what happened is that botnets would create accounts and leave them dormant for weeks/months/years (thousands of them), then start doing their bot thing. Account age says a lot when it comes to trust (usually) and spam detection. That's more than likely what they're seeing, not 'compromised' accounts. All this does is tell the spa…
> This ... is not what is going on.
I am reasonably confident that Google are more aware of what's going on with dormant accounts on their platform than you are. I previously worked at Google in Security and while it wasn't in user protection, I know they have quite a few signals for determining compromise. It's pretty trivial to see that an account that was in legitimate use for 5 years and then dormant for 5 vs one that was created and left dormant for 10.
Yes, on Google and on other platforms, account age is a valuable reputation signal but it isn't the only one.
Re: Updating our inactive account policies
#16[flagged]
Re: Updating our inactive account policies
#17This ... is not what is going on. When I worked at $bigcorp serving billions in traffic, what happened is that botnets would create accounts and leave them dormant for weeks/months/years (thousands of them), then start doing their bot thing. Account age says a lot when it comes to trust (usually) and spam detection. That's more than likely what they're seeing, not 'compromised' accounts. All this does is tell the spa…
Are you suggesting that they're too incompetent to tell the difference between bulk account creation and hijacking, or that they're just lying about the reasons for why this change is happening? The former idea is pretty arrogant, the latter is unmotivated.
Especially given you're talking of "thousands" of accounts, I suspect whatever problems mattered to you the most were not the same as those of Google's account system.
Re: Updating our inactive account policies
#18This is disappointing, albiet not that surprising. It's a good reminder to not rely on Google for long term storage of anything you care about. It's not uncommon for inidivduals in poor health to go through multi-year stretches of very limited activity, especially for elderly individuals. In the future, people in that situation, or their relatives, might be surprised to find a Google account they thought was secure no longer exists.
Re: Updating our inactive account policies
#19This ... is not what is going on. When I worked at $bigcorp serving billions in traffic, what happened is that botnets would create accounts and leave them dormant for weeks/months/years (thousands of them), then start doing their bot thing. Account age says a lot when it comes to trust (usually) and spam detection. That's more than likely what they're seeing, not 'compromised' accounts. All this does is tell the spa…
> This ... is not what is going on. I am reasonably confident that Google are more aware of what's going on with dormant accounts on their platform than you are. I previously worked at Google in Security and while it wasn't in user protection, I know they have quite a few signals for determining compromise. It's pretty trivial to see that an account that was in legitimate use for 5 years and then dormant for 5 vs one…
Exactly. If Google were to rely on activity, then the bots would simply post now and then akin to human behavior and remain active.
Re: Updating our inactive account policies
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
> At the moment, Google is not planning to delete accounts with YouTube videos. https://9to5google.com/2023/05/16/google-account-delete/
A pity their actual announcement says otherwise
This is announcing a change in the policy of which accounts are eligible for deletion. It doesn't mean that every eligible account will be deleted immediately, or even ever. The post says that they're starting with accounts that were only created but literally not used at all.