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An Example of a Sad Google Account Recovery Failure and Its Effects

lauren.vortex.com

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Re: An Example of a Sad Google Account Recovery Failure and Its Effects

#81

Post by shortcake27 »

justin_oaks wrote: post #59
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick is regulation. A huge difference between the wildly profitable tech companies and most other large companies is that everyone else has to have customer service departments... large departments providing hundreds or thousands of jobs and salaries helping users with the product. Very simply, Google and the like should be required by law to have customer service adequate to support user needs in every language…

In the case of a free GMail account, the user who doesn't get the support they need can get a full refund. In all seriousness, how does it even make sense to regulate expensive customer support for a free product? If you do, you may not have any free products anymore. But perhaps we'd be better off having decent customer support with no free products. As for paid products, it does make some sense to have some minimum…

> In all seriousness, how does it even make sense to regulate expensive customer support for a free product?

It makes sense because email addresses have become the defacto gateway to our entire digital lives. Losing access to an email causes significant financial and emotional stress. It should be treated like an essential utility. There needs to be a minimum level of service even if the product is free.

Re: An Example of a Sad Google Account Recovery Failure and Its Effects

#82

Post by PrimeMcFly »

istillwritecode wrote: post #74

I fully expect to someday lose access to my gmail account because I regularly delete cookies and I won't give them a phone number. If they won't accept a password as proof of ownership on an account, then the account will someday be dead.

So, I have this issue as well, but I found a way around it.

Add the google account to an old android phone you don't use (maybe even an emulated android would work) and it skips all the verification stuff simply because it's on a phone. That way you can keep it logged in and change things even if you can't log in via a browser.

Re: An Example of a Sad Google Account Recovery Failure and Its Effects

#83

Post by zakember »

sho wrote: post #62
saagarjha wrote: post #20

> They’ve all basically hit the brick wall of Google suggesting that at their scale, nothing can be done about such “edge” cases. The thing is that at scale your “edge” cases are still millions of people. Companies love the benefits that come from scale, like having a billion people use their service, but they never seem to be capable of handling the other parts that come with it :(

What I don't understand is why there isn't some kind of paid escalation option. I fully understand why they don't provide free human support for a billion unpaid users, but couldn't there be a $50 "OK, we will actually take a look at your issue" option? Surely that wouldn't be a money loser. Hell, you could outsource it. It seems instead that they just don't even want to touch it.

Because that can be seen as a money making opportunity by one of their executives in future and the number of accounts that would need support could rise.

Re: An Example of a Sad Google Account Recovery Failure and Its Effects

#84

Post by franciscop »

flangola7 wrote: post #75
franciscop wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Punish companies is not the same as you getting compensated. It happens (at least in EU) harsher with the GDPR, so yes it's fairly recent, but so is security online (just 10 years ago not even half of the sites used HTTPS). There's dozens of high-profile fines every year due to data mishandling from Europe, just a quick search: > Data protection supervisory authorities across Europe have issued a total of nearly EUR1…

Those fines are laughable. There should be another zero or two on them

The latest Facebook one is literally 10% of their revenue (in Europe), how is that laughable? That's a big chunk of money, if you add two zeros to them that's probably more than their lifetime revenue.

Re: An Example of a Sad Google Account Recovery Failure and Its Effects

#85

Post by franciscop »

clipsy wrote: post #63
franciscop wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Punish companies is not the same as you getting compensated. It happens (at least in EU) harsher with the GDPR, so yes it's fairly recent, but so is security online (just 10 years ago not even half of the sites used HTTPS). There's dozens of high-profile fines every year due to data mishandling from Europe, just a quick search: > Data protection supervisory authorities across Europe have issued a total of nearly EUR1…

If you think those fines are strong punishments you are, frankly, delusional. Those figures are a drop in the bucket and are regarded by the companies in question as little more than the cost of doing business. Start putting CTOs in handcuffs and I'll consider it a strong punishment. Edit: Also, just to be clear, the reason I brought up class action lawsuits is not because I think all punishment will result in remune…

Yes, I believe fining a company 1-10% of their annual revenue (not profit) is a strong fine (for this kind of crime!). The kind of issues I'm discussing here, involuntary data leaks, we are trying to make them change their ways, not to bankrupt them or have them leave the market altogether. These fines escalate (the next bigger than the previous) and can be repeated as needed, so if they don't change their ways they WILL be fined into oblivion. But the main goal is for them to change the way they deal with data and security.

> Start putting CTOs in handcuffs and I'll consider it a strong punishment.

But we are discussing companies, which take decisions to maximize profit for their shareholders; I would also agree with putting CEOs/CTOs in handcuffs under the right circumstances.

Re: An Example of a Sad Google Account Recovery Failure and Its Effects

#86

Post by franciscop »

em-bee wrote: post #52
franciscop wrote: post #32

> I recognize that there are many different kinds of google users. Some folks [...] need maximum security. (un?)fortunately this is not exactly true. While it's true that some folks do need "extra security", the steps in discussion here are fortunately still applicable for the general population. We as a society have decided (correctly) that leaking your private photos, conversations and data is an unacceptable risk,…

aren't those two different issues? security against leaks needs to happen at the backend. security to access an account doesn't protect against leaks of the database. it protects against personal data or identity theft, which is not something companies get punished for

They are unfortunately all related in multiple complex ways; for example password strength is important against leaks if the data is encrypted. Some times a leak happens through admin accounts, so if you have a single sign in system then security to access those is important.

Re: An Example of a Sad Google Account Recovery Failure and Its Effects

#87

Post by darkhelmet »

crazygringo wrote: post #10

Given the difficulty people talk about recovering an account to which they've lost the password or recovery methods, it seems like Google ought to periodically ask you to verify that your recovery e-mail and phone number and 2FA device are still correct. It seems like that would basically solve the problem in most cases. So I kind of find it strange that I use Google services extensively, and yet I can't recall ever…

The cynic in me suspects that they probably tried this and discovered that they will lose a percentage of logged-in accounts and how much that costs their revenues/bottom-lines.

Seriously though, even apple does this - where they periodically ask you for your pin/password on phones with fast biometric logins every 1-2 weeks as a memory refresher.

For google: I think they should do a memory refresher too. Once you've confirmed that you remember it, they can stop bugging you for some time. And if a logged-in user can't remember it, then don't log the user out, give them time to save important things.

Re: An Example of a Sad Google Account Recovery Failure and Its Effects

#88

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

swang wrote: post #2

I have a very old account that I still use for some email forwards to my main account. Even though I can verify all the other requirements, since I haven’t logged into that account with a machine it recognizes that I still have, apparently I will never be able to log into the account. Literally nothing can be done because google would rather take the easy way to handle this.

This answers a question I have idly wondered- if I have setup email forwarding, but get locked out of the account, will Google continue to forward the address? So, probably best to configure it while I can.

Re: An Example of a Sad Google Account Recovery Failure and Its Effects

#89

Post by madaxe_again »

saagarjha wrote: post #20

> They’ve all basically hit the brick wall of Google suggesting that at their scale, nothing can be done about such “edge” cases. The thing is that at scale your “edge” cases are still millions of people. Companies love the benefits that come from scale, like having a billion people use their service, but they never seem to be capable of handling the other parts that come with it :(

They aren’t “people”, they are “consumers”, “punters”, “suckers” or “revenue units”. I’ve heard them called less polite things, too.

And that’s why this happens.

Re: An Example of a Sad Google Account Recovery Failure and Its Effects

#90

Post by madaxe_again »

justin_oaks wrote: post #59
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick is regulation. A huge difference between the wildly profitable tech companies and most other large companies is that everyone else has to have customer service departments... large departments providing hundreds or thousands of jobs and salaries helping users with the product. Very simply, Google and the like should be required by law to have customer service adequate to support user needs in every language…

In the case of a free GMail account, the user who doesn't get the support they need can get a full refund. In all seriousness, how does it even make sense to regulate expensive customer support for a free product? If you do, you may not have any free products anymore. But perhaps we'd be better off having decent customer support with no free products. As for paid products, it does make some sense to have some minimum…

Gmail is not free. You may not be paying for it with cash money, but you are paying for it with your privacy, and you’d better believe they profit from having your data.
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