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Updating our inactive account policies

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Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#131

Post by thimabi »

bombcar wrote: post #2

> To reduce this risk, we are updating our inactivity policy for Google Accounts to 2 years across our products. Starting later this year, if a Google Account has not been used or signed into for at least 2 years, we may delete the account and its contents – including content within Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar), YouTube and Google Photos. Note the may . It is not a guarantee that they will de…

That seems to be merely legalese to prevent people from relying on the deletion period and then suing Google when it ends up not deleting something for one reason or another.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#132

Post by johnny22 »

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.

that assumes they have family and friends who are still alive.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#133

Post by pb7 »

qingcharles wrote: post #116
stronglikedan wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very easy to be arrested, denied bond, be convicted, and serve your time, without ever leaving the jail/prison system. Especially if you're poor.

This. I am a British citizen living in the USA so I waited nine and half years in custody to go to trial.

Why did it take so long?

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#134

Post by weeblewobble »

qingcharles wrote: post #117
skissane wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideas: (1) sign up for Google Workspace subscription and then log a support ticket saying you want to migrate your old account to Workspace (2) hire a lawyer and get them to write a letter to Google asking nicely. If that doesn’t work, you could have the lawyer escalate to threatening a lawsuit, filing a lawsuit, subpoenaing the account contents, asking for a court order that Google give you access to the account, et…

Let me start with number one and see what happens. The frustrating thing is I swear I set a recovery email. I actually still get all the email that arrive in the account as it has a forward rule to another email address I have access to.

You may be able to use this fact to your advantage if you can get someone to pay attention. Ask them to send a confirmation code to the old email and then produce it

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#135

Post by Gustomaximus »

Also note google have a trusted contact option for inactive accounts.

I haven't seen this mentioned in the thread and worth doing for some peeps. I set this up so after 6 months of no activity my sister and wife get access to my accounts.

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3036546?hl=en

Quite useful if you die or become incapacitated etc so emails, files and photos etc can be kept as needed.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#136

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #135

Also note google have a trusted contact option for inactive accounts. I haven't seen this mentioned in the thread and worth doing for some peeps. I set this up so after 6 months of no activity my sister and wife get access to my accounts. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3036546?hl=en Quite useful if you die or become incapacitated etc so emails, files and photos etc can be kept as needed.

This is as good a time as any to remind people to get their estate planning sorted.

I recently turned , and had a death in the family who was nearly 100 and had their estate in order which made things a lot less complicated their executor and kin.

We now have Enduring Power of Attorney and Enduring Guardian delegated to each other plus two other well trusted people, one local and one distal, jointly and severally; and set up our wills.

So our lives now have a trusted back-up operator and a redant pair of back-up operators. N+3.

Don't wait till it's too late.

This is not legal advice. I am not a lawyer, and I am especially not your lawyer.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#137

Post by dot5xdev »

Am I the only one who (mostly) likes this new policy? I actively try to delete my online accounts—and it's _hard_ (or impossible for some companies).

I definitely have some Google accounts from like 10 years ago that I lost access to. I'm glad to know they'll be deleted.

That being said, 2 years does seem a little short.

But, I do like the idea of my data expiring. It seems creepy as hell that someone could go back 10 years and dig up a bunch of information about you that you forgot existed: blog posts, comments, photos, videos, emails, home addresses, phone numbers, credit cards.

Data breaches happen. Data brokers find your stuff. Stalkers exist.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#138

Post by 8note »

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.

Gmail should just be nationalized at run by the post office

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#139

Post by 8note »

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…

I think the obvious alternative is nationalization? Why should email be run by Google?

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#140

Post by sjfidsfkds »

tedunangst wrote: post #130
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, ...

Cost per GB of hard disk has not dropped much in the past few years, the money has to come from somewhere.
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