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Don’t Mess with The Google

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Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#251

Post by kybernetyk »

a3n wrote: post #64
vilhelm_s wrote: post #8

This really seems like it needs to be regulated in law. For telephone companies, there are rules about when they may disconnect you, e.g. the Arizona Utilities Division write > f I am unable to pay my entire bill, what can I do to maintain local dial tone? > The Arizona Administrative Code specifically states that a telephone company may not disconnect a customer for failure to pay an unregulated portion of their bil…

Fastmail. I'm just a regular (paying) customer, not a business or anything. I've opened a small number of tickets, one or two of the RTFM variety. I've always got a human response and satisfaction, even a "here, let me RTFM that for you." I can't imagine being locked out of my fastmail account for anything other than abuse of my fastmail account . Or not paying my bill.

Seconding Fastmail. Moved earlier this year from gmail to Fastmail. Also using my own domain now instead of @provider.com.

Never been happier. Their Webmail UI is less cluttered and more intuitive than Gmail (at least to me - but I'm not a huge webmail user anyways).

Well worth the money.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#252

Post by ansgri »

aristidb wrote: post #201
wnm wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

some feedback from a happy fastmail customer: please add 2 factor authentication via sms! I neither have a smartphone or yubikey.

SMS is not very secure, there have been quite a few stories of people losing digital access due to an attacker just calling Verizon and taking over their phone account.

That's in the US. In other countries things may be more secure. In Russia I barely can make any changes by phone because they verify so much info. Forwarding will certainly require an in-person visit to the carrier office.

So I guess it's better to leave the choice to the user, with an appropriate warning text.

—Another happy Fastmail customer

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#253

Post by ucaetano »

kuschku wrote: post #231
xyzzy123 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a whole variety of reasons, you need know what you're doing to properly host your own email now. From the risk of domain name takeover, to hosting provider takeover, to modern spam requirements (ip reputation, dkim, spf, dmarc), to just plain sysadmin ability and ideally run an HA system. Agree that there are probably some startup opportunities, but the the reality is that you'll just be transferring the user's t…

Quite a few you're missing indeed. Many ISPs give out a domain name and email service for free with internet contracts — you can set it to redirect to gmail until you need it, then just switch it over. Tada, problem solved.

Until your ISP closes your account for whatever reason.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#255

Post by apatters »

Google has simply gotten too big and too impersonal. If they were smaller, only did one or two things, and locked you out of those things because of a ToS violation it'd be frustrating but it wouldn't be catastrophic. Similarly if they just had more humans interacting with their customers, then incidents like this would get resolved in a more humane way (but can you really do that at Google scale?).

We live in the era of tech giants owning vast swathes of worldwide markets because they got there first and developed proprietary IP to make it work. Which they deserve plenty of credit and have been rewarded richly for but I would prefer to see the pendulum swing back at this point to businesses which have a more personal touch. Fewer giants, more mom'n'pop shops which might not ever make anyone a billionaire but would create jobs for people who interact with other people.

Customer service, consulting, service businesses built on open source IP, humans running the machine--that is one possible future. The other is a couple of tech giants controlling everything and the machine running the humans. I know which one I'd rather live in. One change we can all make to promote this is simply limiting the business we do with companies that make it hard for you to get in touch with a person. If the market starts to value the human touch more then these companies will improve or be replaced.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#256

Post by simonh »

john61 wrote: post #137
mistermann wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until they get into the thought police business for some real interesting situations. All jokes aside, for those who remember, it's pretty amazing what Microsoft got punished for ( bundling a browser with the OS, with no other restrictions) compared to what Apple and Google get away with.

Wait if they get into the automated car driving business for some real sad situations.

Due to suspension of your Google account this GoogleCab service is no longer available to you. Please be careful exiting the cab on this narrow strip of interstate hard shoulder 50 miles from anywhere. We have also disabled google authentication access to your phone. Have a nice day.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#257

Post by Loic »

perlpimp wrote: post #185
setq wrote: post #170

First post, might as well be a cautionary tale. My father, a pretty old programmer by anyone's standards, regularly warns me of this sort of thing. He was pretty much shafted by CompuServe many years ago on a miniscule scale compared to what is possible now. He lives his life in what I previously described as a paranoid bubble of data control. Until I inevitably burned myself with Google. I have no idea what happened…

Going on a tangent, there should probably be a set of universal backup formats that can be advertised as being somewhat portable. So that, if you need to can take your mail and other online business stuff elsewhere if need be. Beyond this article a user might start working for some place that does not allow external app use, but they can bring their data with, to be loaded onto the service. I guess like github and gi…

For Email with IMAP, you have the wonderful offlineimap tool[0], I have been using it for years, you can easily perform a maildir format[1] backups of all your email accounts.

[0]: http://www.offlineimap.org/

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maildir

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#258

Post by dingaling »

hellofunk wrote: post #212
kinkdr wrote: post #19

We have to stop being naive about our email accounts. My recommendation is to buy a domain name use that as the primary email. It may cost in total around $100/year but it is definitely worth it.

But to then you are vulnerable to poor domain registrar security: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7141532

And susceptible to the whims of and demands upon your registrar or registry. "Torrentz.eu Domain Suspended After UK Police Request " etc

Probably best to pick a TLD and registrar outside your immediate jurisdiction as well as that of the USA and EU, which rather narrows the choices. .ch or .me seem reasonable.

Little wonder 'normal' people don't bother with all this stuff.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#259

Post by jfindley »

mikejb wrote: post #206
throwaway98237 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you watch an old tech talk re: Google disaster recovery topic, the Googler explains that a user's info is never fully deleted because it's too expensive to do so given back-up duplication is processed multiple times in multiple locations and sometimes over multiple technologies. In other words, cancel your google account today and your data may be "deleted" but it's really, as in actually really , still on magneti…

Can you point me to that tech talk? I think this info is outdated, at least it conflicts with what I believe to know.

I agree, AIUI this is no longer the case.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#260

Post by kybernetyk »

rdtsc wrote: post #100
a3n wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fastmail. I'm just a regular (paying) customer, not a business or anything. I've opened a small number of tickets, one or two of the RTFM variety. I've always got a human response and satisfaction, even a "here, let me RTFM that for you." I can't imagine being locked out of my fastmail account for anything other than abuse of my fastmail account . Or not paying my bill.

I might have to switch at some point. It is stories like these that are freaking me out. Were there any instances of them being DoS-ed or you not getting emails from others? I would also be afraid one day if Google sees people fleeing to them, they'd come in and buy them. I'd almost whish there was a public trust or non-profit who would run an email server. Post office is a government service (for better or for worse…

That's why I'm using my own domain now for emails. Even if my email provider goes away I still keep the address.
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