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An update to storage policies across your Google Account

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Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#251

Post by ge96 »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #205
ge96 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess my deceased dad's email was deleted(hotmail). I found an old email address of his and was trying to get into it just to reconnect since he died when I was a child. I get shouldn't see other people's stuff but still... would have been interesting as it was in the early 2000's that he was around. Would have liked to see how his mind operated. Afterall he was a successful person (eg. operating a 60ft yacht for s…

My father also died when I was a child, so I understand where you're coming from. I am now a father, and currently dealing with a serious illness, which has made me think about these things. I can say that my child finding my emails after I'm dead is something I definitely do not want to happen. I'm not sure how to handle it yet.

> I can say that my child finding my emails after I'm dead is something I definitely do not want to happen.

That makes sense(funny?), I suppose it is different if you have a relatively active/recent relationship. Hope the illness is worked out.

Also yeah, it is your own private details I get that, I wouldn't ask my friend if I could see their email. Just in my case it was the only potential record of my dad's thoughts.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#252

Post by amerkhalid »

geek_at wrote: post #130
dataflow wrote: post #4

> "If you're over your storage limit for two years, Google may delete your content across Gmail, Drive and Photos," the company said. That's different from just deleting all your data because you're inactive. Which is it? Edit: it seems both. Here's the blog post (maybe this is a better link): https://blog.google/products/photos/storage-policy-update/

oh damn. I've created an account for my newborn son on my (free) google workspace domain and send him emails every few weeks with updates and photos. He'll receive the account when he's like 12. Will these be deleted too?

I have been writing a journal addressed to my son. It is just a markdown file. But this system has a flaw that is I go back and edit old entries.

I would never trust a 3rd party for this kind of project. But I like that you cannot edit your emails. It just feels more honest.

Now I am thinking of sending him hand written letters by mail. And just save them until he is old enough. I can add photos or his other favorite things in the letters. It would be a lot more fun to open these letters in the future instead of reading a text file.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#253

Post by Gustomaximus »

WalterBright wrote: post #147

It can be worse. I got a letter recently from a mutual fund saying I'd done nothing with my account for years, and if they didn't hear from me soon, they were going to hand it over to the government. (I'm a buy and hold, hold, hold, hold, investor.)

In Australia they changed inactive bank accounts from 7 years to 3 years and had to change it back to 7 years and 3 was way too short.

https://asic.gov.au/regulatory-resources/financial-services/...

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#254

Post by acruns »

djsumdog wrote: post #167
px43 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also a massive security hole. I needed to do a password reset on my old ebay account, but the hotmail account it was attached to was deleted, so I just created a new hotmail account with the same name, and reset my password. I've done this maybe three or four time, because I haven't used hotmail since high school, so they keep deleting it. A lot of people also have password resets on gmail linked to their old hotmail…

I don't think Gmail allows this. I explicitly deleted all my old gmail addresses and moved back to my own mail servers in 2013 (due to Snowden/domestic spying .. sad how so few people did anything due to that) and I remember reading that once I deleted the e-mail address, I could never create it again. I made sure I had moved over all the accounts I cared about to my new e-mail address first.

This is true of Gmail, once an address or account is deleted by its owner that email address is gone for good.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#255

Post by fletchowns »

alisonkisk wrote: post #246
fletchowns wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm is my G Suite account different from a Workspace account? I got this email a few weeks ago saying I hadn't logged in for awhile and they were going to delete my data: https://i.imgur.com/XAEXQWb.png

This subthread is confused. Google will delete long idle nin-domain users and idle domains, but will not delete long idle users within an active domain.

Ah! That makes sense

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#257

Post by WalterBright »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #253
WalterBright wrote: post #147

It can be worse. I got a letter recently from a mutual fund saying I'd done nothing with my account for years, and if they didn't hear from me soon, they were going to hand it over to the government. (I'm a buy and hold, hold, hold, hold, investor.)

In Australia they changed inactive bank accounts from 7 years to 3 years and had to change it back to 7 years and 3 was way too short. https://asic.gov.au/regulatory-resources/financial-services/...

I have one fund I invested in 25 years ago and have had no communication with them for 20 years. They just send me 1099s and I pay the taxes.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#258

Post by SquareWheel »

laurent92 wrote: post #236
laumars wrote: post #110

I’m often the first to criticise Google but what they’re doing here isn’t exactly unprecedented. Free online mail providers have been removing inactive users since the 90s. Cloud storage providers remove inactive free users. A lot of companies even have a far more aggressive time line (pretty sure 90s Yahoo Mail was in the region of months rather than years) so 2 years seems pretty generous to me. At the end of the d…

Gmail doesn’t provide a way to delete the big emails. They just let you go over limit, you don’t know what is consuming resources, and you get charged for it. So, like AWS.

Gmail search is very powerful. Try searching:

has:attachment larger:10MB

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#259

Post by joshuakelly »

tehabe wrote: post #242
joshuakelly wrote: post #59

This is speculation, but I wonder if this is not the outcome of legal compliance efforts with respect to defined data retention periods in various pieces of consumer privacy legislation over the last few years. From Recital 39 of the GDPR: "This requires, in particular, ensuring that the period for which the personal data are stored is limited to a strict minimum. Personal data should be processed only if the purpose…

This doesn't really apply here, this is about data which is stored by the users on the services for being stored on those services according to the ToS of Google. So, it the purpose is only expired when a user decides to delete the data.

In general, the consumer data privacy laws in regions where Google has significant regulatory exposure do not permit indefinite data retention of PII. My speculation is that Google sees an across the board, 2-year inactivity period as the best option to mitigate regulatory exposure because a plain reading of, for example, Rec. 39 is that a maximum retention period must be defined as a policy organizationally.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#260

Post by knowaveragejoe »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #170
dataflow wrote: post #4

> "If you're over your storage limit for two years, Google may delete your content across Gmail, Drive and Photos," the company said. That's different from just deleting all your data because you're inactive. Which is it? Edit: it seems both. Here's the blog post (maybe this is a better link): https://blog.google/products/photos/storage-policy-update/

Wow, 4.3 petabytes a day . Operating at Google's scale these days is just nuts.

That's mainly media. What's the deal with deleting emails of all things, as if they couldn't support that aspect indefinitely?
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