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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

#281

Post by judge2020 »

edub wrote: post #212

i do think it is fair if it is a free service for there to be some limit for how long the data is stored. my question is, do they also delete any related metadata that they use to improve their targeted advertising in reference to me?

https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/keeping-priva...

> As always, we don’t sell your information to anyone, and we don’t use information in apps where you primarily store personal content—such as Gmail, Drive, Calendar and Photos—for advertising purposes, period.

No data from your uploaded content is used in targeted advertising (and there's not much metadata they could really use to target based off of that - who would target based off of "visited Google Drive every other day this week" in terms of adwords customers).

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#282

Post by e_y_ »

bigiain wrote: post #194
ghaff wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give a little perspective, I basically don't have any pre-Yahoo/Google email history. So maybe going back 20 years or so and not much in the way of digital archives before about 10 years before that. Essentially nothing from BBS days, email on various proprietary systems, etc. Some shards here and there from the 1980s and a few things that were digitized prior. I'm not sure if it's good or bad (probably a bit of b…

I have a collection of Eudora backups still kicking around (an old Mac OS9 and earlier vintage mail client). I don't have a _good_ way to read them any more (but at least I can grep them when I want to hunt an old email down... I've done that maybe twice in the last decade...)

I think I dumped a backup of my Juno emails (90s offline dial-up email for kids with parents too cheap to shell out for internet) but it's probably on some obsolete media like a Zip drive somewhere. Probably for the best.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#283

Post by owenmarshall »

jamesfe wrote: post #38
izacus wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FastMail / ProtonMail are good. But even they won't just store your mail forever for free.

I'd pay. But mostly, I'd pay to know the customer service would respond to me. Customer service at Google is like trying to cancel Verizon service - endless transfers.

“If you’re not paying for it, you’re the product” :)

FWIW I’ve contacted Fastmail’s support once and they were excellent: they helped through a funny DNS issue that was my own doing within an hour of contacting them, and didn’t bat an eye at the question. It was one of the few times I’ve contacted support and thought “this person knows what I’m trying to do, why I messed it up, and how to fix it” at a deep level.

They’ve either made great runbooks or hire great people, but the result is the same.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#284

Post by zelly »

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?

Pay for your own hard drives

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#286

Post by bhrgunatha »

robjan wrote: post #263
v0tary wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I can prove that this is real. I had a Gmail account that I registered when I was younger and did exactly that - setup a forward to my alt (which over the years became my primary). A few years ago I started receiving emails for another person with my same name. Legit work emails, party invites and the like. Turns out that person was using my original email. I never contacted anyone about this for fear Google wou…

I also receive emails and invites for someone else but I actively use my Gmail account. I think it's just people misspelling email addresses.

I've got several of these for one active email in particular. I've always thought it was bad data entry. There is a cluster in the US south - Georgia, Texas and Alabama.

At first I tried to rectify the mistakes but gave up due to lack of response.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#287

Post by pcurve »

fiberoptick wrote: post #199
actuator wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, this seems like one of those name and shame cases. A login shouldn't be expected here.

There are state laws that require financial institutions to do this actually. Their hands are tied here. It's called "escheatment". https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/answersescheathtm.html

I can’t think of a more apt sounding term. (After theft)

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#288

Post by Dylan16807 »

kllrnohj wrote: post #22
sorenjan wrote: post #7

From the email I got from Google a few minutes ago: > Summary of the new policies (effective June 1, 2021): > • If you're inactive for 2 years (24 months) in Gmail, Drive or Photos, we may delete the content in the product(s) in which you're inactive. Google One members who are within their storage quota and in good-standing will not be impacted by this new inactive policy. > • If you exceed your storage limit for 2…

If the users are inactive they aren't seeing ads. Google isn't a charity, why would they pay for storage that isn't being used? Also, somewhat morbidly, dead people don't really need their photos and emails hosted perpetually.

They're not even checking if the entire user account is inactive.

And it can be very important to people for the public galleries of dead people to stay up.

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#289

Post by cromwellian »

aketchum wrote: post #55
gtirloni wrote: post #48

These posts bashing Google are getting tiring. No sensible free email service will hold your emails forever, especially if you're not using your account. I'd invite people without knowledge of running a business to take the time and think this through before jumping in the outrage bandwagon.

While I would normally agree with you, Google has advertised unlimited, free storage forever for things like photos and email. They should not have made that promise and I understand why they are breaking the promise now, but if you break a promise it seems reasonable for people to be irate about it.

All you've got to do is log in at least once every two years and use the account so it isn't inactive. If you have data stored in an account you haven't touched for 2 years, how important is it really to you?

Re: An update to storage policies across your Google Account

#290

Post by thekyle »

notimetorelax wrote: post #41
blacksmith_tb wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't, but as a society we would all benefit from some way to archive at least some of that. Future historians will curse us for not leaving behind letters, photos, etc. (which is especially ironic given how much more of them we're each generating).

Heh, now try to win the privacy debate that’s on the other side of your argument.

One argument I've heard is that you can encrypt your data now to gain privacy while you're alive. Then by the time the data would be useful for historians they'll probably have enough compute to break 21st century encryption.
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