171–180 of 205 posts
Stop buying computers that require you to provide your identity to ad companies in order to use them.
While this is a good idea in principle, in this case it's a recent development. You can't really go back in time and unbuy it just because Google suddenly decides to be a(n even bigger) dick.
I've had this happen with gmail accounts randomly. Most of the time with computers I've been using for years on the same network. The worst occasion I've ever had was the one time I was traveling. I was getting by with only wifi and, naturally, didn't have a phone number to confirm my account with. I didn't have a number bound to my account, either, making the whole process pointless. How did I get into my account? I…
It’s an anti-spam, and anti-abuse measure. So they’re not giving away free resources that get used to harass their users.
Why would Google need you to give them your phone number to associate that with you? They’re on many of the phones in the world, someone you know has already done that for them, or you used your own phone to do the same.
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Fair enough. I'd just pick up a random sim card at any supermarket, comes with a free phone number.
I don't want to spend money. Not even a few quid, because a scummy company suddenly doesn't let me access my device, which I "own" for years without surrendering even more personal information. That's apart from what other posters explained. That in a lot of countries you can't just get a sim from a kiosk, or a vending machine without proper identification.
They’re on most of the phones in the world, and have access to all the billing records associated with your phone number, as they’re a cell phone service provider. They’re asking folks who they think might be abusing the service for this information, so they identify themselves in a way that Google can report to law enforcement.
The idea they’d need you to tell them this information so they could use it is kind of laughable.
Evil. Imagine those teens at school, that bought Chromebooks because they were more affordable, and now getting pried on like this.. :-( It is this generation that is going to lose the idea of privacy and suffer from these piece of shit corporations. It's almost like watching a movie.
>"...and now getting pried on like this." Those students are being tracked regardless of whether they provided their mobile phone number. ChromeOS is an entire operating system that tracks you from the moment you sign-in with your Google account . Sure, you can use a guest account, but you won't be able to save anything because the entire OS is "cloud-based". People rush to Google's defence and say that Google doesn'…
Like when I search for a three letter acronym, google knows that I’m an engineer, and I see links for results about computer hardware, and not about a Jewish Torah studies group with the same TLA.
Google makes those models for individual accounts, which is why google can tailor results so well to what you’re looking for right now.
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Anyone over the age of 40 (and many younger) will have had a landline, almost all in the phone book. Name, address, and phone all neatly collected, very few were bothered.
True but that loophole was closed when phone books started to collect mobile phone numbers. Nobody was happy with that so it was changed so that people had to actively opt into being listed. Phone books are now dead and good riddance.
Which is why Google is asking for a phone number here, they think the account is likely abusing a service, and they want to identify who is using it.
To bypass that, set up MFA using OTP app, like FreeOTP, that should skip 'unknown device' nagging.
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What on earth are those of us supposed to do that don't have a phone?
Switch to a paid service that doesn't depend on your data or on ads for revenue and survival. I would mainly recommend posteo.de because of what the company stands for and its cheap pricing. Other options are runbox.com and mailbox.org. All these providers support IMAP too. So you can use any email client on any platform, or the web interface, to access email. Protonmail, recommended by some others here, doesn't supp…
Can't you just set up an alternative two factor authentication method? How about a Yubikey? I think that maybe if 2FA is not explicitly enabled on the account, Google try and enforce this 2FA 'light' method using SMS
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Well, when there is only one App Store and it requires you to log in, it in effect means you have to have an Apple ID -- which is a far cry from being forced to give up your phone number to use your own personal computer.
On the other hand they could allow access to the app store only for free apps
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Stupid "security" questions, I've started answering them like "what's your favourite colour?" - "colour" or "what was your first pet's name" - "pet". There are a few things that make me wonder if I can trust a company. Security questions, stupid password restrictions, sending me a password in plain text via email.
I used to give my real birthday. Then I kept reading about how knowing that plus your address (usually easy to find on the internet - whitepages.com, etc.) got someone a long ways toward imitating you. So I started making up birthdays but would have problems because I didn't remember them. So now I just use the epoch, which I think somebody here suggested.