Google banned me from Google Voice • Hacker News Board

Re: Google banned me from Google Voice

#21

Post by kypro » Thu, Nov 07, 2024, 5:21 PM UTC

elmerfud wrote: post #2

While people like to scream and lose their mind about who the president is and what they're blathering on about today it's this situation that I never see any politician talk about in a meaningful way and I never see get attention. This situation impacts the average person and has the potential to impact the average person more than who the president is at any given time. Because at least with governmental politics t…

> They could simply say when an account is suspended or disabled or you are banned including a shadow ban that you must provide the specific details of what caused the ban and what specific provisions were violated in the terms of service.

I think you're misunderstanding why this happens. Banning without a clear explanation or shadow banning users is a feature, not a bug. It grants platforms the ability to arbitrarily make decisions about who can use their platform without having to apply a consistent standard that would be questioned and challenged.

Governments don't want to change this because it benefits them. It means when they're able to tell a platform to ban a user and that user can be banned for "violating the ToS", instead of telling the truth and saying the user was "banned on order of the government".

The reason why governments don't care about this issue is because no one with power would benefit from this transparency.

Re: Google banned me from Google Voice

#22

Post by umaar » Thu, Nov 07, 2024, 5:21 PM UTC

Was the number used to sign up for, and receive communications from credit card companies? Is the ban related to signing up for +100 cards?

https://www.dannyguo.com/blog/my-credit-and-debit-card-colle...

Re: Google banned me from Google Voice

#23

Post by CharlesW » Thu, Nov 07, 2024, 5:21 PM UTC

kuczmama wrote: post #10

I have been using Google voice for 10+ years, and it's always been something that concerns me. I've been worried about Google either banning me or dropping the service. Does anyone know of a good alternative, I'm happy to pay for something but the main thing is it needs to be able to work from the browser like Google voice.

One option is to buy an Ooma ($80) and port your number to it ($40). The my.ooma.com site isn't responsive, but otherwise works fine on mobile.

Re: Google banned me from Google Voice

#24

Post by rty32 » Thu, Nov 07, 2024, 5:21 PM UTC

That's exactly why I have been de-Googling for the past year. I have lost all trust in Google. I still use some of their products, but I make sure I never got in a situation where losing my Google account means losing important data or getting myself into serious trouble.

Re: Google banned me from Google Voice

#25

Post by jtbayly » Thu, Nov 07, 2024, 5:21 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #15

jtbayly wrote: post #13

He should be more mad, in my opinion. It’s ludicrous that Google can simply kill your phone number and nobody bats an eye. It’s such a fundamental part of life at this point. At the minimum, users should get a “We are no longer willing to provide you service. You have two weeks before service will end. Please switch your number to another provider if you want to keep it.” Other than non-payment, are there other phone…

> It’s ludicrous that Google can simply kill your phone number and nobody bats an eye. It is Google’s phone number. What is ludicrous is not having a federal US identity verification API such that phone numbers are not the end all be all. Or that if the US government wants to use phone numbers for identity verification, they enact legislation to provide legal protections from losing it. But I think leaders like the e…

It’s actually not Google’s phone number, as evidenced by the fact that he could have gone to the FCC and gotten it back if Google refused to release it to him.

Edited to add: Also, it’s not true that phone numbers are only so important because of identity verification. That is one reason, but solving that doesn’t let my children’s school call me if Google shuts my number down, just to give one example.

Edited to add again: It’s unclear to me now if the FCC actually requires Google to release the number or if Google voluntarily does it (eg to avoid problems with the FCC getting more involved).

Re: Google banned me from Google Voice

#26

Post by add-sub-mul-div » Thu, Nov 07, 2024, 5:22 PM UTC

Thankfully when I signed up for Google Voice I had a few friends send me text messages and none of them came through. I wrote it off as unreliable and never thought about it again. Scary to think I almost let myself become reliant on a Google service back when I was naive enough to think that was a good idea.

Re: Google banned me from Google Voice

#27

Post by causal » Thu, Nov 07, 2024, 5:22 PM UTC

sbuttgereit wrote: post #9

Not to address the author of the article specifically, but only all readers generally.... I would suggest that the moment you chose to have a critical dependency on someone else's services, it becomes incumbent on you to have a disaster recovery plan should that service suddenly become unavailable to you. How formal or intense such a plan is may depend on if you're an individual or a small/mid-sized business that's t…

You are right that this is wise, but it's too much to ask the average user to do. At least in the US, most people lack the technical literacy to do anything but depend on big tech.

What we really need is legislation to regulate big tech services as the utilities they really are.

Re: Google banned me from Google Voice

#28

Post by josefresco » Thu, Nov 07, 2024, 5:22 PM UTC

>Sure I never paid for Google Voice, but Google never gave me an option to pay for it.

Pretty sure you can pay for Google Voice: https://support.google.com/a/answer/9229433

While this sucks, I know that my free Google accounts (including Voice) could go poof at any time and I don't really have recourse. For this reason, my Google Voice number is only used for likely spammers.

It's also part of my sales pitch or "branded email" to web clients: "You don't want to operate your business on a free email address".

Re: Google banned me from Google Voice

#29

Post by ein0p » Thu, Nov 07, 2024, 5:23 PM UTC

Folks, do not use Voice for anything critical. It has all the hallmarks of a "destaffed" project - no significant updates in years, nobody even bothers to rename it every 6 months. For all we know it's a purely volunteer effort at Google, like Reader was shortly before it got canned. I only use it in the cases where I need to leave a phone number and I know I'll get spammed.

Re: Google banned me from Google Voice

#30

Post by Jerrrrrrry » Thu, Nov 07, 2024, 5:23 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #15

jtbayly wrote: post #13

He should be more mad, in my opinion. It’s ludicrous that Google can simply kill your phone number and nobody bats an eye. It’s such a fundamental part of life at this point. At the minimum, users should get a “We are no longer willing to provide you service. You have two weeks before service will end. Please switch your number to another provider if you want to keep it.” Other than non-payment, are there other phone…

> It’s ludicrous that Google can simply kill your phone number and nobody bats an eye. It is Google’s phone number. What is ludicrous is not having a federal US identity verification API such that phone numbers are not the end all be all. Or that if the US government wants to use phone numbers for identity verification, they enact legislation to provide legal protections from losing it. But I think leaders like the e…

The incentives align for everyone to play dumb, as incompetence at this scale can dissolve responsibility/accountability via complexity/laundering that can systematically benefit a select few.