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My Google Workspace account suspension

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Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#81

Post by warkdarrior »

amelius wrote: post #62
brookst wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU’s heart is in the right place, which can only rarely be said of the US. But the EU’s approach is often backwards. When product managers have to ask the government if it’s ok to ship a feature, something is wrong. When the government responds that it can’t say in advance, you’ll just have to ship and see if you get fined, something is really seriously broken.

If a company is about to produce millions of physical products, I think it is quite ok if they first check with the government to see if that is a good idea. Same with social media features that are rolled out to millions of users.

This is about Digital Services Act, not physical products.

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#82

Post by gib444 »

Arcuru wrote: post #80

If a service offers "Login with Google/Apple/Facebook/etc" you should never do that if they offer a username/password. It just increases the single point of failure. Avoid places that only offer the "Login with Foo" if at all possible (looking at you Tailscale). As an ex-googler, the only reason I was comfortable keeping even my personal email there was because I could reach out internally if there was a problem. I l…

> Avoid places that only offer the "Login with Foo" if at all possible (looking at you Tailscale).

Tailscale is the only serious company that I can ever recall offering /only/ third party login. It's bit bizarre on the face of it. Anyone know the reason?

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#83

Post by qingcharles »

r1ch wrote: post #44

I recently had to go through the recovery flow for an admin account and it was wild. Despite Google manually unlocking the account and giving me a reset link, every login was forced to authenticate via SMS using the (removed) phone number. Luckily I was able to get a hold of it and get the code, but even after adding a TOTP and security key 2FA, further logins still required SMS. It feels like the security team made…

Google enabled 2FA on my Gmail account without any prior notice. I have the username, password, recovery email, and all emails from the account are forwarded to my Fastmail, but I can't ever log into the account again because it is trying to do 2FA by SMS to a number I don't have.

I've tried everything to find someone inside Google to fix this, but so far no luck. At least with Meta you can find someone on a forum like Swapd who will take a small bribe to fix these issues.

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#84

Post by anjel »

blueboo wrote: post #39
bookofjoe wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct. I agree 100%. It's easy to be great when it's on a tiny scale.

Billions in profit may unblock scaling customer support beyond scrappy startup minimums However (and I loathe this logic) if you can get the marketplace to accept that minimal level, and the brand harm is inconsequential, why not pocket the savings

Those are not matter-of-fact saving, but rather significant savings

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#85

Post by pfooti »

ValentineC wrote: post #49
cj wrote: post #43

Using a Google Workspace Super Admin account for your non-admin day to day needs is similar to using your AWS root account instead of IAM users. In my experience Google Workspave support is very good. I’ve always been able to get a knowledgeable person on a call to debug issues without much difficulty. But yea, if you’re locked out of your admin account, that’s another story. Very sjmilar to if you get locked out of…

> Using a Google Workspace Super Admin account for your non-admin day to day needs is similar to using your AWS root account instead of IAM users. It sounds like the mistake here is not appointing another Super Admin, and making sure they don't use their account for day to day needs. Or just having two Super Admin accounts controlled by the same person, heh. I can't see how not using one's Super Admin account wouldn'…

Make a primary super admin (admin@ whatever) and only log into it for admin purposes. Make an actual user (you@) for day to day line of business work. This has the benefit of making some categories of spear phishing and xsrf attacks harder if the account that gets compromised doesn't have root.

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#87

Post by protimewaster »

HumanOstrich wrote: post #67
protimewaster wrote: post #20

I think Google has done some cool stuff, and I think in a lot of ways they're, at least historically, one of the less evil big tech players. I gotta say, though, that my experience with trying to get them to sort out any kind of issue with their services makes me reluctant to spend any money with them. I bought a Pixel phone. As per the sales terms, the phone came with one year of Gemini AI Pro service. Except, the r…

I agree with your sentiment, but I wanted to call out that they've always been just as evil as other big tech companies. I think their motto of "don't be evil" was some pretty clever PR. I started questioning it c. 2008 when they ghosted me on resolving an issue with my blogspot site that was a bug in the platform. All I could get was a condescending non-response from a "diamond" volunteer on a forum. They were appar…

I definitely don't think they've ever been super nice, but I still they still have a few much more user-friendly approaches than others. E.g., one of the reasons I bought a Pixel is that Google is one of the only phone makers that manages to have respectable security practices and still respects users enough support them choosing to modify the software on their devices and run alternate operating systems.

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#88

Post by bookofjoe »

ceejayoz wrote: post #74
bookofjoe wrote: post #24

Once upon a time at Google: The year was 2013, and I'd been selected to be among the first 8,000 people to get Google Glass. I had to go to Google HQ in NYC from my home in Virginia to get it and be instructed 1:1 on how to use it. I was given a toll-free phone number to call for support by a Glass expert, available 24/7/365. Not only did they answer immediately whenever I had even the smallest problem or question: I…

> Google's policy was that no matter how you broke it or how many times it happened, they'd replace it free. Yes, because they were using you to figure out where it needed improvements for every day wear and tear. It wasn't charitable, it was R&D expense.

True. I loved my Glass, it was amazing.

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#89

Post by lukeschlather »

> On Saturday, April 4, at 5:06 AM, I received a notification saying my authenticator had been removed. It hadn’t. The authenticator was still active on my phone - it was the recovery phone I had removed. Google apparently conflated the two.

This is a massive bug here. I was also surprised recently that Google won't let you enroll multiple Authenticators. If we had functional security regulations I think there would be some pretty large fines for Google's error here.

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#90

Post by livinglist »

bookofjoe wrote: post #24

Once upon a time at Google: The year was 2013, and I'd been selected to be among the first 8,000 people to get Google Glass. I had to go to Google HQ in NYC from my home in Virginia to get it and be instructed 1:1 on how to use it. I was given a toll-free phone number to call for support by a Glass expert, available 24/7/365. Not only did they answer immediately whenever I had even the smallest problem or question: I…

Still remember the excitement I felt when I saw this Google Glass concept video in 2012: https://youtu.be/5R1snVxGNVs?si=sVS7wzZ8jYH-oGMM
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