Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Updating our inactive account policies

blog.google

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 225 posts

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#121

Post by resolutebat »

theRealMe wrote: post #118
bombcar wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 .

I could be wrong, but people in prison usually still have access to email. And even if they didn’t, they have 2 *years* to have a friend/family to log in for them. For a free service. This is fake concern created by people that just want to be mad at google.

Prison email, if available at all, is usually through some super locked down per pay message custom site (www.corrlinks.com seems to be a big player). You're definitely not getting access to regular Gmail if you're doing hard time.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#122

Post by xpe »

kerkeslager wrote: post #73
sokoloff wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can effect change in May 2023 if you start now on the business. When will you be able to effect change if the only strategy is “fix the whole system”? It won’t be this year and probably not this decade. Which strategy gives a better outcome for someone incarcerated today?

> You can effect change in May 2023 if you start now on the business. And in May 2033, you can lobby to keep the system broken so that you can maintain your business! Businesses solve one problem, and one problem only: how to get money into the business owner's pockets.

This is far too simplistic.

Some businesses don’t even really want to make money; some intentionally lose it for tax purposes. :)

But seriously… in the course of doing business, businesses affect the world, which can indirectly lead to various impacts, some of which are good.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#123

Post by lamontcg »

crazygringo wrote: post #72

I'm seeing a lot of criticism here in the comments, but what's the alternative for free accounts? If you're not using it, how long is Google (a for-profit company) supposed to hold onto your data for free? 100 years? 50 years? 15 years? 2 years seems pretty reasonable to me for something provided by a for-profit corporation. And as other reporting has noted, they're not deleting YouTube videos (makes sense, since whi…

> If this were a government-provided service then it would be one thing. But it's not, it's a for-profit company that gives you free products in exchange for ads.

It is so big it is nearly a monopoly and it is part of our lives which is almost impossible to avoid. It should be regulated a lot more like a government and not treated like some kind of startup business.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#124

Post by lamontcg »

If compromised accounts is the problem, then google could change the authorization on them, and require proof to get back into them.

Of course that would require some kind of functional consumer-oriented support line where a human working at google could receive identifying information, check that against Google's internal records and public databases (your old phone numbers, addresses, etc) and check against the contents of the account and the old logs in order to determine that the person was who they said they were.

That would also solve the problem of so many people in the comments who have old google accounts that they've lost the 2FA/passwords to who are locked out of their accounts, they'd now have a process to go through in order to prove who they are and that they owned the account and get it back.

But that would cost Google a lot more money than just even hanging onto the storage, so they're gonna nuke it and make it all go away.

Big Tech really needs to be regulated more like a government agency.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#125

Post by chrismcb »

lamontcg wrote: post #123
crazygringo wrote: post #72

I'm seeing a lot of criticism here in the comments, but what's the alternative for free accounts? If you're not using it, how long is Google (a for-profit company) supposed to hold onto your data for free? 100 years? 50 years? 15 years? 2 years seems pretty reasonable to me for something provided by a for-profit corporation. And as other reporting has noted, they're not deleting YouTube videos (makes sense, since whi…

> If this were a government-provided service then it would be one thing. But it's not, it's a for-profit company that gives you free products in exchange for ads. It is so big it is nearly a monopoly and it is part of our lives which is almost impossible to avoid. It should be regulated a lot more like a government and not treated like some kind of startup business.

What is so big? Gmail? Apparently Gmail is 75% but there are a ton of options out there.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#126

Post by nhinck2 »

Aeolun wrote: post #120
crazygringo wrote: post #72

I'm seeing a lot of criticism here in the comments, but what's the alternative for free accounts? If you're not using it, how long is Google (a for-profit company) supposed to hold onto your data for free? 100 years? 50 years? 15 years? 2 years seems pretty reasonable to me for something provided by a for-profit corporation. And as other reporting has noted, they're not deleting YouTube videos (makes sense, since whi…

> it's a for-profit company that gives you free products in exchange for ads Exactly. If I stop using their free services, do I stop seeing their ads though? Because that’s kind of required to make this argument work. Or it’s just Google gets to delete my data because they have all the power in this relationship? I get to keep being fed ads, make Google money, lose my data, and cost Google less at the same time. Ther…

> Exactly. If I stop using their free services, do I stop seeing their ads though?

How would you be seeing their ads if you aren't using their services?

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#127

Post by chrismcb »

Aeolun wrote: post #120
crazygringo wrote: post #72

I'm seeing a lot of criticism here in the comments, but what's the alternative for free accounts? If you're not using it, how long is Google (a for-profit company) supposed to hold onto your data for free? 100 years? 50 years? 15 years? 2 years seems pretty reasonable to me for something provided by a for-profit corporation. And as other reporting has noted, they're not deleting YouTube videos (makes sense, since whi…

> it's a for-profit company that gives you free products in exchange for ads Exactly. If I stop using their free services, do I stop seeing their ads though? Because that’s kind of required to make this argument work. Or it’s just Google gets to delete my data because they have all the power in this relationship? I get to keep being fed ads, make Google money, lose my data, and cost Google less at the same time. Ther…

Yeah, I think if you stop using their free service you do seeing their ads. I'm pretty sure you are talking about using a Google service... Which you wouldn't use unless it benefits you. So no there isn't only one side that benefits

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#128

Post by CapstanRoller »

crazygringo wrote: post #72

I'm seeing a lot of criticism here in the comments, but what's the alternative for free accounts? If you're not using it, how long is Google (a for-profit company) supposed to hold onto your data for free? 100 years? 50 years? 15 years? 2 years seems pretty reasonable to me for something provided by a for-profit corporation. And as other reporting has noted, they're not deleting YouTube videos (makes sense, since whi…

[dead]

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#129

Post by starkparker »

However expected these policies are, they're always a massive pain in the ass for people who continue to maintain accounts for the dead, and that use case never seems to be considered, except maybe to push those maintainers to just delete everything.

For example, one Gmail account I maintain for my deceased partner has another older Gmail account delegated to it. I have the credentials for the newer account, but not the older account. That delegated access is the only way I can get at about 10 years of their life; since I can't login to the account, I can't run a Google Takeout on it, I can't pull it via IMAP, etc.

(I'm sure it turned some heads when I logged back into their Twitter account, which became their de facto public online memorial after death, to prevent Twitter from deleting it as inactive.)

All of my efforts to recover actual capital-A Google Account access to the delegated account have been either declined or ignored by Google because I'm not the account owner — which, obviously, because I'm not dead. I've offered them death certificates and small-estate proof, but they don't want it or seem to care. Since I can't login to the account, I can't prove activity on it, so this means one day in December that'll just be it. 10 years of correspondence, wedding planning, travel plans, memories straight down the shitter. (Google already "lost" all of the photos in that account that were more than 10 years old; cf. other complaints: https://www.reddit.com/r/GMail/comments/jgr0j9/help_missing_....)

If you want content from a dead person's account, you have to get a court order, and then only if Google accepts your request, which they probably won't: https://support.google.com/accounts/troubleshooter/6357590?h...

Judging from the contents I think it consumes about 150MB of storage. I'd pay quite a lot to get that account dumped onto a $10 thumb drive so I can back it up. I'd already printed out a binder full of it, which is comical considering it's fucking _email_.

Anyway — figure out your digital estates while you're awake and alive because it gets way harder — for everyone, much less you — once you're incapacitated or dead.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#130

Post by tedunangst »

crazygringo wrote: post #72

I'm seeing a lot of criticism here in the comments, but what's the alternative for free accounts? If you're not using it, how long is Google (a for-profit company) supposed to hold onto your data for free? 100 years? 50 years? 15 years? 2 years seems pretty reasonable to me for something provided by a for-profit corporation. And as other reporting has noted, they're not deleting YouTube videos (makes sense, since whi…

The storage costs to google are also asymptotically approaching zero, too, no? Last year I was using $1 of storage, this year it's 0.50, ...
Post reply on HN