Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Thanks HN: Lessons learned after Google nearly killed my site

uploader.win

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 296 posts

Re: Thanks HN: Lessons learned after Google nearly killed my site

#71

Post by guerby »

denysvitali wrote: post #50

Ironically I had the opposite issue a couple of weeks ago: I've found a phishing website (for Facebook) that was hosted on a Google server and was actively used. I sent an email to Google's abuse email address - got an automated reply back saying basically "use this other form instead". Did that, never got a reply back. I have reported the website to their SecureSearch (or whatever the name is) product, entered the U…

Let's do an experiment, please post the URL here and see if someone at google takes notice :)

Re: Thanks HN: Lessons learned after Google nearly killed my site

#72

Post by mushbino »

rakoo wrote: post #43
franklampard wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really just feudalism. But how most parts of the world work

A secret set of rules, a single party that is the judge, jury and executioner, an opaque resolution process that involves backchannels rather than merit, and no oversight ? Is that really something to accept as inevitable ?

Yes, networking is inevitable. Transparency and accountability are hedges against this, but incentives aren't there short of some sort of massive public pressure.

Re: Thanks HN: Lessons learned after Google nearly killed my site

#75

Post by doliveira »

ttt0 wrote: post #18

They can remove your YouTube account, app, entire Google account or even your website at any time and you can only make guesses why did that happen, because they always make the rules really vague and it's never clear what is or is not allowed. And even when they do admit the mistake and get you back up, they still won't explain anything and nothing is ever fixed. Thank you Google, very cool.

I am now left wondering about the .dev gTLD, isn't it owned by Google?

Re: Thanks HN: Lessons learned after Google nearly killed my site

#76

Post by davidmurdoch »

martin_a wrote: post #20

> But there are plenty of Google engineers and good helpful people on Hacker news. > (from a screenshot) I work at Google [...] so I escalated your issue [...] > I believe the HN thread getting on the homepage tremendously helped me and somebody from Google saw it and expedited the review after all So, once more an issue with FAANG could only be fixed because somebody knew somebody else and went out of his way to get…

I can't access my 13+ year old gmail account because Google now requires I verify I have access to a phone number I've never owned. There is no 2FA on this account, I know my password, and have access to the "Recovery Email" (which gets emailed a "Somebody knows your password" warning whenever I attempt to sign in to the account with my password).

I reached a real person at Google Domains and managed to get things escalated to "Specialist". Their response: "we can't help you, post about it on the community forums" (which I had already done 20 days prior).

This account "owns" digital goods, thousands of songs, and many domain names. Google is actively stealing these things, but they don't care and, "can't help".

Re: Thanks HN: Lessons learned after Google nearly killed my site

#77

Post by deckard1 »

martin_a wrote: post #20

> But there are plenty of Google engineers and good helpful people on Hacker news. > (from a screenshot) I work at Google [...] so I escalated your issue [...] > I believe the HN thread getting on the homepage tremendously helped me and somebody from Google saw it and expedited the review after all So, once more an issue with FAANG could only be fixed because somebody knew somebody else and went out of his way to get…

The worst part is that we are just conditioning people to accept this as normal. Just like EULA and cookie banners.

It's always the same story. Some guy gets on Twitter or HN who happens to get noticed, then FAANG releases a statement saying they made a "mistake". Mistakes in the aggregate that affect millions of people aren't "mistakes." That's deliberate malfeasance at scale.

Funny they never ask you that design question in interviews. "Design a system which will harm at most 5% of your users while scaling up to billions of people." Maybe if more people understood the sobering dark side of scale, they would stop gleefully promoting runaway scale-at-any-cost engineering.

Just kidding. Profit is God.

I'm also reminded of the dystopian movie Brazil. You're always at danger of getting eaten by the bureaucratic machine today, with only the most absurd recourse available. Just read the passive indifference of the email that Google sent this guy. "Google has received and processed...", "Google systems indicate...". This is one shit dystopia are are living.

Re: Thanks HN: Lessons learned after Google nearly killed my site

#78

Post by dencodev »

davidmurdoch wrote: post #76
martin_a wrote: post #20

> But there are plenty of Google engineers and good helpful people on Hacker news. > (from a screenshot) I work at Google [...] so I escalated your issue [...] > I believe the HN thread getting on the homepage tremendously helped me and somebody from Google saw it and expedited the review after all So, once more an issue with FAANG could only be fixed because somebody knew somebody else and went out of his way to get…

I can't access my 13+ year old gmail account because Google now requires I verify I have access to a phone number I've never owned. There is no 2FA on this account, I know my password, and have access to the "Recovery Email" (which gets emailed a "Somebody knows your password" warning whenever I attempt to sign in to the account with my password). I reached a real person at Google Domains and managed to get things es…

Have you considered calling the number tied to the account and asking them to help?

Re: Thanks HN: Lessons learned after Google nearly killed my site

#79

Post by jabo »

dencodev wrote: post #78
davidmurdoch wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't access my 13+ year old gmail account because Google now requires I verify I have access to a phone number I've never owned. There is no 2FA on this account, I know my password, and have access to the "Recovery Email" (which gets emailed a "Somebody knows your password" warning whenever I attempt to sign in to the account with my password). I reached a real person at Google Domains and managed to get things es…

Have you considered calling the number tied to the account and asking them to help?

IIRC only the last 4 digits of the phone number are shown.

Re: Thanks HN: Lessons learned after Google nearly killed my site

#80

Post by davidmurdoch »

dencodev wrote: post #78
davidmurdoch wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't access my 13+ year old gmail account because Google now requires I verify I have access to a phone number I've never owned. There is no 2FA on this account, I know my password, and have access to the "Recovery Email" (which gets emailed a "Somebody knows your password" warning whenever I attempt to sign in to the account with my password). I reached a real person at Google Domains and managed to get things es…

Have you considered calling the number tied to the account and asking them to help?

They only show the last two digits of the number. And I've only ever had two phone numbers in my life, and neither of them end with those digits.
Post reply on HN