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Google users locked out after 15 years' use

businessinsider.com

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Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#681

Post by audience_mem »

fao_ wrote: post #644
ljm wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's honestly nobody's problem but your own. Set it to autorenew or buy it for a longer period of time. I bought 10 years up-front for my own domain.

Hmm, let's look at how feasible this is. Namecheap is quite a popular place to buy domains, isn't it? (myname).xyz - 10 years - £85.29 / $110.15 (myname).com - 10 years - £69.87 / $90.24 (myname).net - 10 years - £98.40 / $127.08 In a world where many people are not able to afford food for themselves[0][1], this is hardly an alternative. At minimum wage ($7.25[2]), a single domain name would take about half a month t…

> $110.15

> At minimum wage ($7.25[2]), a single domain name would take about half a month to earn

I don't understand.

110/7 is 15 hours, not 15 days.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#682

Post by fauigerzigerk »

thu2111 wrote: post #676
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a couple of things that I don't get. Why are accounts suspected of TOS violations not simply put into read-only mode instead of shutting out users completely? If the identity/authorisation of the user is not in doubt it makes zero sense to not let people download their data before closing the account. This simple change would fix all the consumer related horror stories with zero cost to Google. In fact it w…

A lot of abuse is things like posted comments. The locks are retroactive and "account disabled" is a signal to each service to hide content generated by that user. Read only mode would make sense for content that's truly private, or which can be made private. Nothing stops them allowing Google Takeout for disabled accounts, heck maybe they do these days. Paid support: 1. the optics of false positives being held to ra…

>A lot of abuse is things like posted comments.

Right, but removing an offending comment can easily be done indepenently of any other action against the account.

>the optics of false positives being held to ransom to get their account back is terrible.

That's true and I had that thought as well, but it's clearly the lesser evil compared to stories of people losing irreplaceable data.

>many accounts aren't easily verifiable.

True, but as I said, users could be given an option to make their account easily verifiable.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#683

Post by johnchristopher »

Tepix wrote: post #627
johnchristopher wrote: post #183

A lot of comments about setting up your own domain but the cost is prohibitive to a lot a people: - 1 to $5 a month, sometimes per address. It does pile up. - no office suite of the level of google docs/office365 - need some basic know-how to do it - price could go down but then you have to learn about dkim, spf, etc. not your regular customers/consumers thing. Not even your regular HN reader/participant thing. edit:…

You should find an affordable TLD option at https://tld-list.com/ Looks like .cyou is currently the cheapest TLD at $0.65 per year for renewals. There are a lot of other options for just a little bit more. If you can afford it, pay for 10 years in advance. One domain can be used by an unlimited amount of mailboxes. Regarding DKIM etc, most email providers will help you with that. GMail is only a "no brainer" if you d…

> One domain can be used by an unlimited amount of mailboxes.

Not really, most mail only provider I looked at charge you one dollar or more per month per mailboxes (and/or even aliases which is unfortunate)

> Regarding DKIM etc, most email providers will help you with that.

I don't understand: why would they since they are in charge of their infrastructure ?

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#684

Post by crispyambulance »

efreak wrote: post #677
crispyambulance wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...backed up at home and on a Nextcloud instance I keep on a Linode VPS. > Web is not the only way to read e-mails, friends. Use a proper client and back it up. I think your advice is good for you and, perhaps, for some of us who are willing to do the work. But the vast majority of people aren't going to be able to casually fire up, for example, a Nextcloud instance and linode VPS. Not even close. The long-term man…

> I'm now trying to properly tag and curate these media files and host it in some way that I can use it remotely. It's not a trivial job. Foobar2000 with discogs addon will help you with organization; musicbrainz picard will hello you with actually identifying your files if necessary. Airsonic is quite nice for actual hosting, and allows you to create multiple accounts with limited access and time-limited shares for…

Thanks for the recommendations! I will check those out.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#685

Post by wegs »

shaicoleman wrote: post #578
wegs wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Chromebook isn't your own laptop. It's a lease from Google for 0-6 years, after which they effectively disable it. You can look up when your lease ends here: https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en If this scenario happens, you can think of it as Google terminating the lease early. No biggie.

It's not disabled, it just doesn't get new software updates.

It's not disabled, but if you keep using it, but you get a scary warning from Google. If you do keep using it, it will be 0w3nd, and your data will be held ransom for bitcoin.

I guess it beats Android, where the same happens, only without the warning.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#686

Post by wegs »

lima wrote: post #254
wegs wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Chromebook isn't your own laptop. It's a lease from Google for 0-6 years, after which they effectively disable it. You can look up when your lease ends here: https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en If this scenario happens, you can think of it as Google terminating the lease early. No biggie.

You can unlock the bootloader on any Chromebook and install a regular Linux distribution on it.

You can do this on SOME Chromebooks. It'd be great if you could do this on any Chromebook!

There's a whole pile of AC700 Chromebooks around, with no upgrade path as far as I know, at least if you don't want to be p4wn3d.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#687

Post by wegs »

withinboredom wrote: post #343
wegs wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Chromebook isn't your own laptop. It's a lease from Google for 0-6 years, after which they effectively disable it. You can look up when your lease ends here: https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en If this scenario happens, you can think of it as Google terminating the lease early. No biggie.

My chromebook isn't even listed (Acer Cb154-x) seems like the list isn't exhaustive.

Then you paid a fixed quantity for a lease of unknown duration.

Congratulations!

If the model number doesn't have a typo, it might be expired. Most of the ones not listed tend to be expired, and many vendors sell expired ones.

Oh ohs!

If so, you're in good company. Many less affluent, less educated families find themselves there. Some find they wasted $150 on a Chromebook which has a few months left, and some keep using it, and find their data held for a few grand in bitcoin.

Thanks Google!

But I suspect you have the CB514, not CB154, which IS listed, and which expires in 2024. If so, you've got almost four years left. Congratulations!

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#688

Post by audience_mem »

someonehere wrote: post #659

Are we sure this isn’t just a username someone wanted and knew someone with power at Google to hand it over? 15 years ago the author may have had a hard to get Google name. I have one that’s constantly being spammed by people who want it. Wasn’t there a story posted here a couple of months ago where FB or IG employees were stealing usernames for friends and FB/IG refused to respond to use demands ? I almost feel like…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#689

Post by donmcronald »

mhasbini wrote: post #386
donmcronald wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try exporting data from a whole GSuite account. They make it as difficult as possible. IMO it’s intentional, but maybe Google just sucks.

Supporting GSuite/workplace accounts is on my list for things to look at once an MVP is ready. Did you try to process listed here: https://support.google.com/a/answer/100458?hl=en ?

That actually worked for me. I couldn't get it to work last year. It was still a PITA to download the bucket it makes, but at least it's one big bulk operation.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#690

Post by kube-system »

rurp wrote: post #661
kube-system wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is an exchange of services without money not subject to rules and regulations? A contract without consideration is not a valid contract. There are a few laws in some places that require companies to provide service outside of a contractual service agreement, but those are typically limited to public utilities, emergency services, etc.

GP said without money, not without consideration. Google derives a great deal of value by having your attention and data in its various products. The fact that users exchange attention and data rather than dollars doesn't give Google the right to stomp all over them.

> Google derives a great deal of value by having your attention and data

They do. But does their ToS say that your data and attention is consideration for use of their services? I do not believe it does. In fact, it says:

> You have no obligation to provide any content to our services

Throughout their terms, I don't see anything that implies an obligation of exchange.

There are certainly other rights that exist... But contractual rights to a service is not a right you'd have without a valid contract.

You can sue your caterer if they run out of food, but not the soup kitchen.

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