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Updating our inactive account policies

blog.google

21–30 of 225 posts

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#21
post #12
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

[deleted]

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#22
post #4

Oof. The end of YouTube as we know it

> At the moment, Google is not planning to delete accounts with YouTube videos. https://9to5google.com/2023/05/16/google-account-delete/

Only at the moment, YouTube was included as part of the content they're going to delete from accounts as per the VP announcement.

People should use this as a warning to save content they want to keep from YouTube that's particularly old and the account seems abandoned. Just in case Google isn't so lenient with the generous solution; unlinking YouTube accounts but keeping the video up.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#24

This ... 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…

I can't imagine a more bruteforce approach to a known pattern, then.

If the only indicator you have for spam potential is [created an acccount] + [was inactive for some period], I can't imagine the other myriad spam vectors aren't getting hammered 24/7.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#25
post #10

Earlier 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.

PSA: If you haven't engaged ArchiveTeam to back these up, feel free to. They have the tooling necessary to rapidly rip entire channels (and define a collection for them) for upload to the Internet Archive. Can't count on Youtube to persist or provide open-ish access forever.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#26
post #3

Account handles will not recyclable (for obvious security considerations). So this seems more akin to "permanently disabled" rather than "deleted"

Isn't this a vector for username squatting then?

How is this more a vector than it is now, though?

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#27
post #12
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

For now.

It feels like a small leap to go from deleting a person's photos, documents, and emails to deleting their videos.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#28
post #12
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Which is contradicted by this blog, so who knows what they'll do (answer: the worst possible option at the worst possible time).

Archive everything.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#29
post #18

This 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 n…

It's not just poor health, there's an entire subclass of Americans who don't have internet access for 2 years+ - most anyone in the prison system.

Now as a secret unmentionable for any 2+ year sentence: lose access to all your google shit.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#30
post #5
post #3

Account handles will not recyclable (for obvious security considerations). So this seems more akin to "permanently disabled" rather than "deleted"

It has been reported that they will not be reusable for exactly that reason. https://9to5google.com/2023/05/16/google-account-delete/

There's an argument that this should be done with domain names as well. Right now, anyone can buy an expired domain, set up a wildcard email address, and read any email that's still being sent to addresses in that domain.

Conversely, if you take the advice of some to set up a personal domain for your email, you are basically committing to a lifetime obligation. If you later change your mind and let that domain expire, any future owners of that domain will receive any email that was sent to your old addresses.

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