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Updating our inactive account policies

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Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#201

Post by JohnFen »

jfoutz wrote: post #100
rippercushions wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Remember when Google said they would hold on to everything that their users did on their site forever? Err, no, as a matter of fact I don't. Would you have a cite for this?

it's probably a wishful interpretation from the initial coverage, https://slashdot.org/story/04/04/01/0038200/googles-gmail-to... "hey want to offer their searching capabilities so that users can search through their entire set of e-mail, I guess forever. " https://googlepress.blogspot.com/2004/04/google-gets-message... "Storage: Google believes people should be able to hold onto their mail forever. That’s why Gmail…

> at the time, I thought it meant forever, silly me

Nothing is forever. Any time any company is promising something that is "unlimited" or "forever", they're lying. They have to be, because the economics of holding true to infinities preclude them.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#202

Post by branon »

zdimension wrote: post #173
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…

> And as other reporting has noted, they're not deleting YouTube videos I haven't seen anything mentioning that, do you have a source for it? Old YouTube videos disappearing are my main concern from this policy change

Yeah this seems wrong, from the link it appears they definitely WILL delete YouTube videos:

> 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.

This needs to be frontpage of HN for MUCH longer, this is honestly catastrophic. So much knowledge will be lost, imagine if public libraries started throwing books away if authors didn't publish any new books for 2 years.

This is insane from my perspective (though I see how it makes sense from Google's)

This needs to be talked about MUCH more, though even as I'm writing these words I doubt the utility of even discussing it - nobody except Google has the ability to even store all of this. Data hoarders are backing up Imgur prior to their purge... but Google is about to rip YouTube a new one. This looks insurmountable.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#203

Post by tarboreus »

ben_w wrote: post #189
8note wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gmail should just be nationalized at run by the post office

Nationalised by which nation, and run by whose post office? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_Post It's not just Americans who use gmail.

Belgium, obviously.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#204

Post by JohnFen »

vxNsr wrote: post #148
qingcharles wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That’s horrific, and the actual sentence was 6 months+ time served or you ended up winning at trial? Is it bec only US citizens are protected by the constitution’s promise of a speedy trial?

> only US citizens are protected by the constitution’s promise of a speedy trial?

US citizens aren't really protected by that promise either.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#205

Post by LordAtlas »

jfoutz wrote: post #100
rippercushions wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Remember when Google said they would hold on to everything that their users did on their site forever? Err, no, as a matter of fact I don't. Would you have a cite for this?

it's probably a wishful interpretation from the initial coverage, https://slashdot.org/story/04/04/01/0038200/googles-gmail-to... "hey want to offer their searching capabilities so that users can search through their entire set of e-mail, I guess forever. " https://googlepress.blogspot.com/2004/04/google-gets-message... "Storage: Google believes people should be able to hold onto their mail forever. That’s why Gmail…

And now the GMail storage limit for free users is 15 GB, 15x what it launched with. I think it's rather naïve to expect that any free service will give you unlimited space or unlimited time. A 2-year inactivity period sounds reasonable to me. Literally all you need to do is log in once in 2 years to not have your account deleted. I often disagree with Google's handling of things, but this isn't one such instance.

And set up Google Inactive Account Manager* so that in case you unexpectedly pass away, somebody you trust gets access to your account after a set period. I've set mine to 3 months because I'm online so much, but you may find 6 or 12 months to work better for you.

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

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#206

Post by kerkeslager »

xpe wrote: post #122
kerkeslager wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Sure, and some of which are bad.

If you want to do something unambiguously good, do it, don't start a business.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#207

Post by MrDresden »

jasonfarnon wrote: post #105
MrDresden wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of weird entitlement is this?

Whatever the sense of entitlement behind it, it would be nice to have the public reminded of this walkback, so that Google's future statements and promises can be interpreted with appropriate degree of skepticism.

Let it be known that I have no particular love for Google (nor any corporation of significant enough size for that matter).

That being said I can not say I understand what is being conveyed in the original comment nor by yours.

Google at some point promised free storage of stuff, and for some reason these comments try to make it sound criminal that they are now backtracking on that, even if it is in the case of accounts that have not so much as twitched in two years.

If we were talking about a promise they had made to keep all your data (for which you pay them to keep) completely out of their ad business, and then years down the line that promise would get reversed, well then this line of reasoning would make sense.

They are a corporation giving free stuff. More shouldn't be needed for your spider sense to tingle.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#208

Post by kyrra »

Kye wrote: post #198
aimor wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I should, but I didn't. I used to get emails from them: 2013-08-11 "Your Google Voice number --- has expired", 2021-04-11 "Your Google Voice number --- will expire in 30 days", 2021-11-06 "Your Google Voice number --- will expire in 30 days", 2021-11-30 "Your Google Voice number --- will expire in 7 days" Nothing about expiring numbers since then. The last contact I had was: "2022-12-14 Notice: Verify your Google…

Mine always end up in spam.

That's my guess as well. Sometimes Google emails end up in spam, even on GMail. Since spam is purged after 30 days, if it ended up there, there would be no trace of it at this point.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#209

Post by gessha »

Gigachad wrote: post #101
gessha wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about we stop monetizing people’s misery and start treating them like humans? People get drunk on money and start trying to monetize every single interaction in life. People make mistakes, go down the wrong path and go to jail if their wrongs are bad enough. That doesn’t mean they should have even more of a mine stripped road back to society.

This is already common for most business models. When you chuck your stuff in a storage locker and then vanish for 2 years without paying, you know what they do? They cut the lock off and sell your stuff to some stranger.

You choose to put your belongings in a storage locker. You don’t choose to go to jail.

Re: Updating our inactive account policies

#210

Post by lamontcg »

kccqzy wrote: post #151
lamontcg wrote: post #124

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 con…

> 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. This is a highly unreliabl…

No, I'm suggesting that you need to prove who you are using a high level of authentication (ideally things like passports). That identification can then be used to associate you with addresses, e-mails, phone numbers, etc using sources like credit agencies and probably Google's own existing information, which can then be associated with the logs on the account. And this should be used for accounts with significant amounts of inactivity so it isn't a process that could be used for actively used accounts. I'm not suggesting that Google employees just trust someone who just says they lived somewhere and had some phone number.
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