Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw • Hacker News Board

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#671

Post by mschuster91 » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:12 PM UTC

tda wrote: post #667

mschuster91 wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You treasure these little tricks, use them cautiously, and only share them sparingly. They can last for years if you carefully fly under the radar, before they're fixed by accident when another system is changed. THEN you share tales of your exploits for fame and internet points. It's the same with vulnerabilities in slot machines. Damn rare but they exist - in 2014, when I worked in that industry, one gang made a…

I fondly remember finding and exploiting a buggy slot machine on the night the Euro got introduced. A classmate (I never played slot machines) made some money but didn't understand what was going on. I observed and it became apparent (in my slightly intoxicated state) the machine would pay out 2 Euro coins where is should pay out 20 cents. And when playing a 1 Euro game, you would often "win" 80 cents. Pay-out immedi…

that was possibly just some attendant accidentally messing up which hopper they refilled (or with which coins), or someone screwed up the assignment on the control board which hopper was connected to which bus identifier.

Reminds me I gotta eventually write up what I found reverse-engineering the one armed bandit in my basement LOL

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#672

Post by ValentineC » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:14 PM UTC

miroljub wrote: post #628

saalweachter wrote: post #624

So purely from a hacker perspective, I'm amused at the whining . Like, a corporation had a weakness you could exploit to get free/cheap thing. Fair game. Then someone shares the exploit with a bunch of script kiddies, they exploit it to the Nth degree, and the company immediately notices and shuts everyone down. Like, my dudes, what did you think was going to happen? You treasure these little tricks, use them cautiou…

> So purely from a hacker perspective, I'm amused at the whining. > Like, a corporation had a weakness you could exploit to get free/cheap thing. Fair game. From a pure hacker perspective, I'm surprised there are people calling a legitimate usage a "weakness you could exploit"? What weakness? What exploit? People have been using it in a way that was technically possible. And they paid for it, many purchased the produ…

> What weakness? What exploit? People have been using it in a way that was technically possible. And they paid for it, many purchased the product specifically because of it.

It's technically possible, but Google didn't provide a feature allowing the creation of Antigravity or Gemini CLI API keys for use outside the respective apps.

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#673

Post by ValentineC » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:17 PM UTC

tda wrote: post #667

mschuster91 wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You treasure these little tricks, use them cautiously, and only share them sparingly. They can last for years if you carefully fly under the radar, before they're fixed by accident when another system is changed. THEN you share tales of your exploits for fame and internet points. It's the same with vulnerabilities in slot machines. Damn rare but they exist - in 2014, when I worked in that industry, one gang made a…

I fondly remember finding and exploiting a buggy slot machine on the night the Euro got introduced. A classmate (I never played slot machines) made some money but didn't understand what was going on. I observed and it became apparent (in my slightly intoxicated state) the machine would pay out 2 Euro coins where is should pay out 20 cents. And when playing a 1 Euro game, you would often "win" 80 cents. Pay-out immedi…

How did something like this not pass a Monte Carlo simulation, which I'd assume they'd conduct in an audit?

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#674

Post by s3p » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:32 PM UTC

DavidPiper wrote: post #371

stevage wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is shocked that they don't allow this. Everyone is shocked that they silently, permanently banned the user with no recourse and it took significant effort even to find out that much.

Sorry to be that guy, but given how often Google has done this for lesser infringements (some reported here on HN), is anyone really "shocked" by the permabans? The apparent shock around this sort of thing always feels like cope for the fact that we (myself included) understand the power imbalance between Google and its customers but don't want to admit it. There's plenty of evidence at this point, and I feel like we…

>Sorry to be that guy, but given how often Google has done this for lesser infringements (some reported here on HN), is anyone really "shocked" by the permabans?

Yes, we are surprised. Google understands our surprise, too. To quote the Google employee another commenter mentioned: "We understand that a subset of these users were not aware that this was against our ToS and will get a path for them to come back on"

https://x.com/_mohansolo/status/2025766889205739899

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#675

Post by bigyabai » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:33 PM UTC

miroljub wrote: post #628

saalweachter wrote: post #624

So purely from a hacker perspective, I'm amused at the whining . Like, a corporation had a weakness you could exploit to get free/cheap thing. Fair game. Then someone shares the exploit with a bunch of script kiddies, they exploit it to the Nth degree, and the company immediately notices and shuts everyone down. Like, my dudes, what did you think was going to happen? You treasure these little tricks, use them cautiou…

> So purely from a hacker perspective, I'm amused at the whining. > Like, a corporation had a weakness you could exploit to get free/cheap thing. Fair game. From a pure hacker perspective, I'm surprised there are people calling a legitimate usage a "weakness you could exploit"? What weakness? What exploit? People have been using it in a way that was technically possible. And they paid for it, many purchased the produ…

> they call people calling out Google for their monopolistic behavior whining.

Google's monopoly is not in AI, it's advertisement. When you accuse them of ridiculous and unfounded crimes, you're diluting the chance of Google being held accountable. As someone that wants to see Google ripped apart by the FTC, we can't just lie and say everything Google does is criminal.

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#676

Post by lelanthran » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:34 PM UTC

ninjagoo wrote: post #657

lelanthran wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Terms of Service that span multiple pages of legalese and require an attorney to parse, for something that is either 'free' or a few $ per month, and can result in loss of service across multiple product lines, AND has binding lopsided arbitration requirements, is not only draconian, it is unconscionable. In the general case, I broadly agree, but in this specific case: 1. This wasn't a term buried 2/3rds in a 200 p…

Oh, do you mean the terms in Section 6 of the Additional Terms of Service, in which Section 2, four paragraphs before Section 6, exhorts one to read "... carefully, starting with the Universal Terms ...", which is 23 pages long when printed? 'the plans for the destruction of your house were on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Le…

>> 2. Even for the people who claim they didn't know, when doing the auth, the message specifically asks the user to authorise the antigravity application, not the OpenClaw application.

> Oh, do you mean the terms in Section 6 of the Additional Terms of Service, in which Section 2, four paragraphs before Section 6, exhorts one to read "... carefully, starting with the Universal Terms ...", which is 23 pages long when printed?

It was literally a single sentence on the permissions screen that google pops up.

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#677

Post by ndriscoll » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:35 PM UTC

infecto wrote: post #663

ndriscoll wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone knows no one reads terms and that it isn't feasible for a normal person to do so, so I don't know why it would "obviously" be against them to anyone. If you're paying for a subscription with known limits, you'd expect you can use up to those limits. It's no more obvious to me than if you used the API token and got banned for using another client, or if a website decided to ban Firefox users.

I just fail to see your argument. You are paying for Claude code or Antigravity. Not for the raw underlying compute. It’s not about reading T&Cs but the expectation is just because you are paying for a service does not give you the right to freely use the API however you want. Hence why I said it really reminds me of a private vs public API. Don’t be surprised if you get shutout of the private API. All subscriptions…

I wouldn't expect consumers to even be aware that API keys exist, much less know the pricing differences. When I go to the Google One plans page, it just says I get all these AI things with higher limits. Then there's some tools that can use my account to do cool stuff. I wouldn't expect that a program that's logging into an AI service that I pay for as me to do AI things is it all untoward? No more than running a bot that just did high level control and delegated to their specific program (which is what all of this AI stuff and really software in general is about: automating whatever you're doing). Or when I give codex an auth token to use Jira or Gitlab. I expect that's the intended purpose of the auth token: let me perform whatever actions I need to do that I'm authorized to do within whatever limits the service sets.

Literally the entire buzz around all this AI stuff is that it lets you automate stuff and do more things faster. Why would you not expect people to automate their interactions with the AI service itself? AI automating its own interactions with itself is what all the AI companies are pushing as the immediate future and paradigm shift for everyone to hop onto.

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#678

Post by saturnite » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

tda wrote: post #667

mschuster91 wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You treasure these little tricks, use them cautiously, and only share them sparingly. They can last for years if you carefully fly under the radar, before they're fixed by accident when another system is changed. THEN you share tales of your exploits for fame and internet points. It's the same with vulnerabilities in slot machines. Damn rare but they exist - in 2014, when I worked in that industry, one gang made a…

I fondly remember finding and exploiting a buggy slot machine on the night the Euro got introduced. A classmate (I never played slot machines) made some money but didn't understand what was going on. I observed and it became apparent (in my slightly intoxicated state) the machine would pay out 2 Euro coins where is should pay out 20 cents. And when playing a 1 Euro game, you would often "win" 80 cents. Pay-out immedi…

That reminds me of a vending machine ran into as a little kid. It was in a private place and it had an out of order sign posted. Being hungry and young, I plugged it back in so I could take my chances. Every time I put in a quarter, three or four would fall into the coin return. When it was time to leave, all of the pockets on my cargo shorts were bulging so much that I had to hold my shorts up.

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#679

Post by olyjohn » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:51 PM UTC

oger wrote: post #513

xnx wrote: post #492

Additional information from Google employee https://x.com/_mohansolo/status/2025766889205739899 : "We’ve been seeing a massive increase in malicious usage of the Anitgravity backend that has tremendously degraded the quality of service for our users. We needed to find a path to quickly shut off access to these users that are not using the product as intended. We understand that a subset of these users were not aware…

While I see the point of limited capacity, it also shows that Google did not plan for rate limiting / throttling of high usage customers. This is ALWAYS the problem with flatrate pricing models. 2% of your customers burn 80+% of your capacity. Did see that in former times with DSL, not too long ago with mobile and now with AI subscriptions. If you want to provide a "good" service for all customers better implement (a…

A fair usage model isn't some handwavey bullshit throttled quota buried in the ToS and marketed as "Unlimited." Its applying a realistic usage quota equally to everybody in the same payment tier that is spelled out right up front so that people know exactly what to expect.

The whole concept of service "abusers" is made up bullshit by companies that over promise, over sell and under deliver.

Re: Google restricting Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers for using OpenClaw

#680

Post by ljm » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:57 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #633

ljm wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting your Google Workspace account nuked because an employee hooked their company Gemini account to OpenClaw would certainly be a novel business risk.

Isn't that pretty much par for the course for these megacorps? Account gets banned as a disproportionate response to something minor, or in many cases for no explicable reason at all, and anyone without enough of a platform to do "bad PR escalation" via social media or traditional media gets to learn the hard way that their "customer service" is just a brick wall that can't or won't do anything about it. Adopting a m…

You're not wrong but Google in particular paved the way for not doing support, or doing as little support as possible, and oftentimes things only get actioned if you generate enough clout on social media to attract a Google engineer's attention.

It's hard to avoid the massive dependencies, especially if you're starting small and moving fast, because something like Google Workspace or MS 360 or Slack is cost-competitive compared to spinning up your own internal stack of tooling. At least until it isn't, but hopefully your startup has grown enough by then that it can afford to address these concerns.