I am not fond of suggestions to break up big companies, but I do believe that FAANG should be treated as utility companies and not be allowed to deny service to anyone; any termination decision should be left to an independent 3rd party, ideally a public authority, so the big company will not be liable for any account misconduct.
Google disabled my husband's account
41–50 of 499 posts
Re: Google disabled my husband's account
#42I have been thinking about this for a while. Considering I prefer to keep the important data/emails on Gmail or Google drive for security and I really consider it important. Would it help if Google had a paid tier? Say, if you can get into an annual plan, similar to what's there for hardware devices like Apple Care+. Just that, in this there is someone to help you through issues. We used to pay 10% of our AWS bill fo…
> I have been thinking about this for a while. Considering I prefer to keep the important data/emails on Gmail or Google drive for security and I really consider it important. Would it help if Google had a paid tier? It wouldn't, because Google is averse to any kind of customer support even for paying services. Even the "support" people that get attached to highly paid YouTube, GSuite, and other accounts get regularl…
That's a partial solution. The author noted that account logins tied to the google account would no longer be usable either. The sites can do nothing to help that situation, since most sites do not have a way to "transfer account". I could not imagine losing access on a potential grand scale like that.
Re: Google disabled my husband's account
#43This is a good reminder to always backup your photos/docs elsewhere - if you have one Synology has a good Google integration that will do this automatically (I then send it up to Glacier for off-site). And also - eschew the convenience of OAUTH - just create an account at every site - it's annoying but at least you avoid you're entire life being locked out.
This is a reminder to get away from google services. It’s just not worth it. Give a few bucks Each month to a company where you are the customer and not the product.
Re: Google disabled my husband's account
#44I have been thinking about this for a while. Considering I prefer to keep the important data/emails on Gmail or Google drive for security and I really consider it important. Would it help if Google had a paid tier? Say, if you can get into an annual plan, similar to what's there for hardware devices like Apple Care+. Just that, in this there is someone to help you through issues. We used to pay 10% of our AWS bill fo…
Why would Google treat a TOS violation differently for a paid account?
Maybe there was a TOS violation here but it would help if someone can explain what went wrong with some SLA unless there is a reason they can't reveal it.
Re: Google disabled my husband's account
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reporting chain wasn't helping him. This is obviously his last resort. I pay for Google services and stuff like this is motivating me to look into migrating away (the only thing I _actually_ care about is mail).
So he's going to piss away a $300k+ job over this. And then what? The account will still be locked out.
Some people have principles. If my company took a shit on my whole life like this you bet I'd be out the door.
Re: Google disabled my husband's account
#46Right now I have everything tied up to my Google account (primary email, drive, photos). Has anyone moved away and if so, to what?
I don't really use google for anything; I never did, which probably made it easier than for those who had to switch. For e-mail I run a standard dovecot and postfix set up. For drive, I just scp files to a server. I don't take many photos or care. If I did, I suppose I'd just copy them over to my server as well. I run all of this stuff on a few old boxes at home (ancient laptops, old towers, what-have-you).
As a side question, to those who use google drive or similar, how do you stand it? I hate having to click through a bunch of dialogues to do stuff. Just being able to use a plain HTTP link is much better. I put stuff I want private in a directory that requires HTTP basic auth and it's so much easier. I can copy to/from on a phone by VPNing into my house and using a samba client. So much easier.
Re: Google disabled my husband's account
#47I have been thinking about this for a while. Considering I prefer to keep the important data/emails on Gmail or Google drive for security and I really consider it important. Would it help if Google had a paid tier? Say, if you can get into an annual plan, similar to what's there for hardware devices like Apple Care+. Just that, in this there is someone to help you through issues. We used to pay 10% of our AWS bill fo…
What makes you think Google treats paying customers any better? https://medium.com/bling-financial/google-has-threatened-to-... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17494518
You can pay them millions of dollars a year and they don't give a shit.
Re: Google disabled my husband's account
#48[deleted]
Re: Google disabled my husband's account
#49Right now I have everything tied up to my Google account (primary email, drive, photos). Has anyone moved away and if so, to what?
I moved my email + contacts + calendar to Fastmail, for files I use dropbox or iCloud it depends on the purpose and I use Apple Photos for photos. All services are much better than Google services.
I would never again trust Google with anything important on consumer services, I had similar experience as the OP.
Re: Google disabled my husband's account
#50Another example of why we need public internet services that aren't run by private companies. Imagine if your mailing address was run by a private company and they could take your mailbox, erase your address, and forever prevent you from receiving mail sent to that address ever again. Every human deserves an email account, linked to if not publicly exposing their real identity, access to which is not revocable except…
> linked to if not publicly exposing their real identity, access to which is not revocable except by court order.
Not too sure about that. There are some pretty poorly behaved people in the world that like hurting people for various reasons (including none.) I'd rather things stay on the anonymity side.