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Google users locked out after 15 years' use

businessinsider.com

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Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#161

Post by wegs »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #153
grandpoobah wrote: post #147

This article finally prompted me to do what I should've done a long time ago, which is to create a Fastmail account and begin importing my Gmail into it. I've seen this story far too many times, and no longer will I say "yeah but it'll never happen to me". Setting up the import was insanely easy, and my Fastmail account is now configured to enable me to send using my Gmail address from directly within Fastmail. Plus…

But even then you have to trust FastMail not to lock you out. Sure it's a paid service so less likely and I'm sure their customer service is better. But it doesn't fix the root issue of being dependent on one party.

Google is pretty unique here. You can have a dedicated support team at Google with a multimillion dollar account, and still be wack-a-moled by Google's automated systems.

The root issue is Google. This doesn't happen with most companies. This is specific to Google's culture, which treats customers as statistics. That comes out of how Google thought about search and ads, and doesn't work for anything else.

The secondary issue is being dependent on one party.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#162

Post by arkitaip »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #157

Yeah I'm always worried about this. I have a paid Microsoft office 365 account with all my email and a lot of data on it. I backup my OneDrive regularly using an rsync-style tool. But the email is more difficult now that it's all in exchange format. I could use IMAP die the backup but Microsoft is going to block basic authentication soon.

At least Microsoft has an infinitely better reputation for customer service and product retention. I mean , when was the last time they shut down a major product?

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#163

Post by benou »

koonsolo wrote: post #61
stiray wrote: post #30

Welcome to vendor locked-in world where you have willing-fully decided to become prisoners in exchange for few sweets that you dont really need. I hope you dont also own some google router or even better, "home security" device. This would make it a real pain. I am explaining this to people since the birth of gmail, but no one listens. Let me think for a moment, what would happen if google does this to me... [x] No g…

Let me explain what happens when my house burns down, taking along all my hardware: - I buy another laptop and install Linux. - I connect my Google, Dropbox (which contains google backups) and Github, and they contain all data I own. - I buy a new smartphone and connect it to Google Simple as that. And my house doesn't need to burn down for this, when I buy a new laptop or smartphone I do the same. Plus, all my email…

I am also self-hosting using the excellent yunohost.org it allows me to painlessly maintain my email and nextcloud instance.

To solve the issue you mentioned (disaster recovery), I am using rsync.net borg service.

Another 'trick' I do which considerably help is to use my gandi.net free email accounts as secondary MX and relay for my emails: - I bought my domain through gandi, I get 5 free emails account - I put gandi mail as secondary mx and I mirror the important email account as gandi mail accounts. For example, if my email is abc@example.com, I create a gandi mail account for this address - I run fetchmail on my server to fetch mails from gandi - I setup a specific email account for relay (eg. postmaster@example.com), and I configure my postfix to relay emails through gandi using this account

That way, if my server is unreachable, all emails are delivered to gandi and I can access them through gandi webmail. When everything works fine, most emails (99+% in my experience) go through the primary MX (my server). In case some are delivered to gandi or when my server is back up, fetchmail will just get them back locally.

This 'trick' helped me in numerous occasions, esp. when moving from a location to another, but it should also helped in case my house burns down.

The relay part alleviates most delivery issues: I used to have a lot of rejection (ISP MX rejecting residential IPs) or spam classification (gmail I hate you). I no longer does.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#165

Post by wegs »

Laurentvw wrote: post #159
TheChaplain wrote: post #3

Tip: Get your own domain from a non-google registrar, then connect to Gmail if you prefer. If you ever are locked out, you can just move the address to another email-provider. Another trick is to use always have forwarding enabled in Gmail, to Outlook.com or another provider. All email will be forwarded despite your account being locked, so you will not miss out on important info. And use Google Takeout for backing u…

Just wondering if there are any trade-offs to consider if I were to use Google Workspace (G Suite) instead of a provider like ProtonMail. Using a custom domain with Google's paid service seems like the least drastic change and you get to keep using all their services. Maybe the support won't be as good, but the products and integrations are probably better than any other provider. And as long as you do regular backup…

I had a commercial GSuite for an organization I was running. A Google bug wiped my domain and all my data. Support was automated systems all the way down.

I think the downside of Google is this happens about 100x as often as other organizations.

Google security also cares about Google's security, not your security. Your odds of account compromise go way up dealing with Google.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#166

Post by baq »

this would be easily solved if google was disallowed to provide email service for $0. as is, the gap between $0 and even $1/yr is so large that you really need to know how to price risk correctly (most people don't know or don't care).

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#167

Post by blunte »

Imagine if it were somehow possible to require a company (G in this case) to expliticly tell you which part of their terms of service you broke and provide the evidence or justification to prove you did break the ToS...

I frankly cannot fathom how it's legal to say someone has broken an agreement without justifying what they did which broke the agreement.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#168

Post by roenxi »

_jjca wrote: post #60

This is genuinely scary. Photos, Yale locks, Fi, WiFi and Nest thermostat can all be poof gone because I made a silly YouTube comment? How is this not regulated? Google photos also 'helpfully' offers to delete your uploaded photos with 'some guarantee'!!! If this isn't an indication of a giant shitty monopoly that doesn't care about its customers at all, I don't what is. They have some AI ML fucking crap but can't fi…

I'm trying to not make this sound harsh; but you really don't need a government regulator to tell you that centralising all your data with Google, who are providing largely free services, is risky.

It is like building a house on the edge of a cliff then falling off the cliff one day. It was always a real possibility. Being locked out of your stuff is quite a likely end of the story with Google.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#169

Post by wegs »

mmkos wrote: post #100

It makes me think that it wouldn't be unreasonable to have regulation around blocking access to email. Google provides a number of services and seemingly, if you break the T&Cs on one of them, your entire account is disabled and you no longer have access to other Google services (including email). I can't imagine not having access to my email - at this point I'm kind of locked in. Google keeps a lot of my passwords a…

Google is being investigated for antitrust.

If this investigation moves forward -- unlikely under a democratic government as we'll probably have -- one of the potential outcomes are better corporate firewalls.

If Google were broken up, a la baby bells, unusual activity on Youtube might no longer result in loss of email and phone service.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#170

Post by hilbert42 »

eloisant wrote: post #87
soco wrote: post #42

Any usable suggestions on (1) what to do to get out of a Gmail account with many years of history unscathed and (2) how to prepare for disaster with an Android phone?

1. There are several alternatives, but usually not free. One example is protonmail, that I use with a custom domain so I can still switch provider without having to get everyone to change the address they use to contact me. - You can import your emails, but it might not be realistic to import all your history. It's going to take ages and fill up your new account quota. So what I did is first do a cleanup of my gmail…

"You can't expect everyone who has your old gmail address to know your new email address, so you need to accept to live with a forward from gmail potentially forever"

You wouldn't if there were an international telephone-like directory. We seem to have forgotten that this was the actual function of old fashioned paper based telephone books.

As I see it, it's imperative that something like this be established as it's the first step in unshackling ourselves from being permanently locked in to Big Tech. Similarly, we need portable email addresses and portable IDs that we can use anywhere and with any service. As this HN news story illustrates, we need these more than ever and we need them soon.

These won't be easy to implement as Big Tech will oppose them every inch of the way. For starters, we'd need legislation that would enforce Big Tech to compulsorily use these IDs. As Big Tech is in the pocket of governments, this won't be easy.

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