
Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers - dotBen
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/google-plus-deleting-accounts-en-masse-no-clear-answers/567?tag=mantle_skin;content
======
tshtf
I use Google for everything from Google Apps to Google Voice. Given this
recent behaviour of Google, I'm doing something wrong.

Over the next few weeks, I plan to do the following:

1) Transition my gmail account over to a domain I own. I'll email everyone I
know, and change all my known addresses. Thankfully, Google lets me connect
via IMAP to retrieve all of this.

2) Move my Google Voice number to my VOIP carrier. The directions are here:
[http://kevinpaffrath.com/2011/06/22/port-number-google-
voice...](http://kevinpaffrath.com/2011/06/22/port-number-google-voice-to-
provider)

Life is too short to worry about when Google will delete your account for
silly reasons.

~~~
sliverstorm
Every time I see these posts with alarmists giving bullet-lists of things they
are "going to do", it sounds a lot to me like they are trying to threaten
Google.

Just so you're not surprised and disappointed later, I'll let you in on a
secret- _they don't care_. Even besides the part where they are Google, I have
witnessed a long history of complaints to different companies, and the more
false bravado and chest- and/or drum-beating you display, the less they care
about you.

~~~
jdunlop
You sir, aren't thinking things through. If you want to risk losing critically
important emails because google decided it didn't like your google+ picture,
you be my guest.

I for one am deleting my g+ account until they fix all this garbage. If they
don't, then I won't use it, simple as that. I'm using it for fun, I don't
really need it (everyone's on facebook).

BTW, let me know if you ever run any companies, I want to know who to short
and what software not to use.

~~~
sliverstorm
And you sir, are shockingly bitter. That's an uncalled for level of hate.

~~~
TillE
Really, you're shocked at a hostile reaction when you accuse someone of "false
bravado and chest- and/or drum-beating" in a post dripping with condescension?
If you're going to dish it out...

~~~
electromagnetic
Grow up or GTFO, HN is a place for adults. If someone is impolite, your
response shouldn't be a trollish immature response.

If your life is so grossly devastated by a google action then you're an idiot.
All my data on google is backed up multiple times, because I'm a responsible
adult and want to ensure the safety of my data. I don't trust google simply
because it's google. They're a mega corp that's going to ditch you, screw you
and abuse you for a penny if they can.

As I said, it's time for people to grow up or get out.

------
narrator
The whole real name thing was the deal killer for me. The last thing I need is
more crap that will be stored forever, probably sold, analyzed, run through a
bunch of machine learning algorithms and used to give me a multitude of
bayesian probabilities forever and ever with my real name attached. The whole
thing is just creepy. Google + isn't a financial institution or a military
contractor. Why do they need to identify everybody so precisely?

~~~
spot
to prevent spam bots.

~~~
faboo
I don't see how that prevents spam bots better than a "don't be a spam bot"
policy. Plenty of spam bots with real sounding names follow me twitter.

------
cageface
I don't find Google+ any significant improvement over Twitter or Facebook.
That is, in the larger sense it's a mildly amusing diversion and not at all
something I'd miss if it disappeared.

Losing access to my GMail account, on the other hand, would be painful. The
thing that's worrisome about this is that you really have no recourse if
Google's automated systems mess up. For example, I've completely lost access
to a Google Apps account I set up for another domain I own, and many other
people have complained of similar problems on their support forum to no avail.

~~~
ori_b
It's a good idea to own the domain that you run your email on. Whether you run
your own server, use Google's services, or whatever other service you want
doesn't matter anymore -- if something goes wrong, you can transition the
implementation without losing your identity.

------
alayne
How long are people going to tolerate the tyranny of large companies
controlling social interaction? Google+ has all kinds of terms of service that
I find infringing of free speech. Facebook has their own terms.

I think we need to stop being sharecroppers and serfs and develop social
network solutions that are distributed and open, or at least encourage the
projects that are working on it already.

The amount of press Google has been getting seemed like a consumerist
distraction from fundamental problems, until the past few days. Now we see
they are just the new monarchy, same as the old monarchy. Heads are rolling
and maybe people will question these systemic issues.

~~~
iamdave
Everytime I see someone referencing "free speech" in a way that makes it
painfully obvious they skipped over the words "CONGRESS shall make no laws
restricting..." I want to bang my head against a wall.

Google is a company, a company that's providing you a service free of charge.
They are 100% within their right to tell you how not to use their product.

~~~
alayne
Freedom of speech is a basic human right, not a privilege granted by
governments. When companies stifle speech, it's immoral even if it is legal.
However, I think I made it clear that I am talking about not allowing
companies to control speech by adopting a social network system that is
decentralized.

~~~
kevinh
If you're in my house and say things that I don't like, it's not immoral for
me to kick you out. You can go say what you like outside. It's similar to
companies allowing you to post your opinion on their service. If they don't
like what you're saying, they have every right to make you leave.

~~~
alayne
Thank you for the analogy. I think I overstated my case in a way that sounds
too general. I disagree with Google's terms of service. They impose
restrictions that could limit productive discussion. They have control over
identity I think is unreasonable. The concepts of social networks, online
discussion, and identity seem like too big of a deal to let particular
companies control them.

------
sixtofour
I use gmail, but I use it as me@mydomain.com. If they ever suspend/destroy me,
at most I'll lose a few emails before I point my domain elsewhere. I already
maintain an account at fastmail.fm for the few times that gmails smtp has gone
down; they are responsive and I've had email conversations with them a few
times.

I also use thunderbird and have it automatically save the All Mail folder.

Given the years of monolithic indifference shown by Google, I don't know why
anyone with the awareness and ability to use their own domain for email
doesn't do so. It would be terrible to have your identity yanked from you; I
think that's worse than losing copies of emails that you'll probably never
look at anyway.

------
bcl
Google's lack of real customer service is why I decided to move all of my
google app domains over to fastmail.fm -- I'd much rather pay for a service
and have a person I can talk to when there is a problem.

I guess I'm lucky that I decided to setup my G+ profile with my real name
instead of using the actual gmail name I picked.

~~~
rjd
Google has great customer service.

Your misunderstanding lays with the fact you are assuming you are the
customer, when in fact you (as the user) are the product (your data) being
sold (via ad sense automation).

So put simply "if they are not receiving money off you are not the customer".

Your relationship is a raw resource exchange of your data with the payment of
free services from them. In a sense they are farming you.

~~~
spooneybarger
I've paid for google apps for domains in the past and the service has been
barely better than when I was using the free version, so while you point is
valid, the statement that google customer service is lacking for many paying
customers is also true.

~~~
rjd
Fair enough, I've seen some really good service from the ad sense guys, maybe
its jsut the team I dealt with I don't know.

I've never payed for Google Apps so didn't comment on it, and also didn't want
to muddy my point as there is a definite grey area with a lot of Google uses
in terms of thigns like blogger which make users also customers.

------
RocknRolla
I suspect the reason Google wants your real name is to match it with credit
headers. And before anyone calls me a tin-foiler please read the following and
understand that I work in the industry. I'm not making a judgment call one way
or the other as to whether this is "right" or not.

For those that don't know a credit header is information in a credit report
that gives identifying information about a person. Credit headers contain:

Name, AKA's, Maiden Name, Date of Birth, Social Security Number and Issuing
State, Relatives, along with Current and Previous Addresses which can go back
25+ years.

Credit headers have been ruled as to NOT be part of a credit report:

<http://epic.org/privacy/fcra/>

<blockquote>A credit header is identifying information from a credit report.
It includes name, mother's maiden name, date of birth, sex, address, prior
addresses, telephone number, and the Social Security Number.

Credit headers came into use after the FTC changed its definition of a credit
report in the course of settling a case against TRW (now Experian). The FTC
allowed the CRAs to treat headers as "above the line" information and to sell
it with no legal protections for the individual. The reasoning was that this
information did not relate to credit, and thus should not be considered part
of the credit report.

Credit headers are used for location of individuals and for target marketing.
They are sold in bulk by the CRAs and can be purchased online.</blockquote>

Google can simply take your IP address, trace it back and then run your name
against the header database to locate individuals in your area with that name.
The more unique your name the easier you are to identify. If you have a common
name it would be further cross-referenced with other information like relative
names or maiden names. Once identified they have your complete life history.

~~~
rimantas
There are more countries in the world.

~~~
RocknRolla
And? Why would that stop them from getting this information and matching it?
Are you saying because this information isn't available all over the world
they wouldn't collect it it in the U.S.? The U.S. is the biggest consumer
market in the world.

What do you think they could achieve (monetarily) having a personal history
attached to a social account? I can tell you the first thing I'd do is
determine your influence. I could take your addresses/family addresses and
reasonably determine what kind of spending power you have based upon cross
referencing your address with tax information. On top of that I don't have to
necessarily know about you in another country. I can simply define the
influence of an individual here and you may end up in their circle of
influence. Imagine a person that's been voted as highly influential in said
system and they communicate with you on a regular basis. From that I could
infer that you are also potentially influential.

Other countries have similar systems. The information may not be as freely
available but it's there. It just needs to be harvested.

For example, one of the biggest sources of relative information is obituaries.
Something that is freely printed all over the place.

------
naner
Amazing. Google finally starts to make big advances in the coveted social
arena only to shoot themselves in the foot.

------
Aqwis
> It is not a simple matter of using a “real name” - as much of a problematic
> grey area as that is. Another person cited in my Google+ article has now had
> their account deleted for the simple reason that they were using Gmail and
> Google+ with multiple account sign-in:

Does this mean I can actually get banned for using more than one GMail
account? What the fuck?

~~~
dorian-graph
> Does this mean I can actually get banned for using more than one GMail
> account?

If this were the case they wouldn't have [recently ?] allowed people to stay
signed into several accounts at once.

------
parfe
While I don't believe the google account deletion hysterics I did setup dove
cot imap to trial hosting my own email. On friday I got an unshakable feeling
of keeping all my eggs in one basket. squirrel mail is no gmail replacement
but it's good enough so far, and I read mostly via imap

~~~
cageface
I managed my own email sever for a long time but eventually grew tired of
fighting spam. Unfortunately spam is so rampant now that you're going to have
to devote a _lot_ of personal attention to do 1/10th as good a job as GMail to
fight it.

~~~
bhousel
apt-get install postgrey

That's really all I do...

~~~
cageface
Admittedly it's been a few years since I did this. Maybe it's gotten easier.

What about other mail servers rejecting mail originating from your server? I
had a lot of trouble with that too.

~~~
protomyth
make sure you have a valid MX record and make sure the ip you get is not in a
blocked segment in the major spam lists. You might need to do some work.

------
RexRollman
I really like Google but they lack of human interaction when there is a
problem is troubling.

~~~
maigret
Deep rooted in the way they do hiring interviews in the first place maybe?
Look like they target heavy cold problem solving people, can it get them
conflict-solving people?

------
darksaga
Well it was fun while it lasted. If they delete my account, I'm not going to
lose much sleep over it since 95% of the people I interact with are on Twitter
or Facebook. None of them have Google+ accounts yet.

Easy come, easy go.

------
jshen
The bottom line is that you need to own and control your identity online. You
can't leave it in the hands of others if you gain significant value from your
identity. Most people don't gain much value from their identity, but those
that do need to own and control it.

~~~
bugsy
I agree and I don't limit it to online, but real life as well. The idea that a
person's identity is something to be granted, approved of, regulated or
controlled by corporations and governments is outrageous, offensive, and to be
resisted with all necessary force. My identity is my own.

------
smokeyj
NSA told Google they want real names only.

~~~
maigret
Proofs?

------
motters
As someone else remarked, if you think that your online identity has some
value then you really need to own it yourself. Giving the keys to your
identity to Google or anyone else potentially gives them a lot of leverage
over you.

If you're using Google accounts for any business related activities then
you're risking the chance that some bot implementing a set of dodgy heuristics
and with no real accountability can shut down your operations at any time (see
[http://fora.tv/2008/08/08/Daniel_Suarez_Daemon_Bot-
Mediated_...](http://fora.tv/2008/08/08/Daniel_Suarez_Daemon_Bot-
Mediated_Reality))

------
Mithrandir
So if I use 'Mithrandir' as my name, I could get banned?

~~~
jdp23
Yes. One-word names seem to be one of the targets for suspended. Plenty of the
pseudonyms that have gotten banned have well-known existences at other sites.
After appealing you might be able to get it reinstated but there have been a
lot of complaints about the process as well.

------
nekitamo
Interesting. I got banned when using a pseudonym that I usually use in video
games. It was 2 words (first name last name) so it shouldn't have come up as
some 1 word spam/business account (which seems to be what they are targeting
for the bans). The account was also active, with me interacting with lots of
real-life friends.

Oh well, never really planned on using Google+ in the first place.

------
delambo
Does anyone miss the pre-facebook days of online social networking where
people mostly used aliases other than their real names?

Back then, we actually networked and found like-minded people or new friends
through the tool. Now, we wait until we meet someone in real life, then find
and friend them on the tool.

------
FaceKicker
Why does the headline say "no clear answers"? It seems obvious they are
suspending accounts that have a fake name (including quoted nicknames).
Whether you agree with this policy is another matter, of course.

------
flocial
Well, we need not look any further than Hacker News to see how using
pseudonyms only hurts interactions behind a veil of anonymity.

These scary posts got me yearning to commit Google+ suicide to minimize risk.
I don't want to play high stakes with my Gmail account because I don't seem
"real" enough to an algorithm. What's next shutting you down because your
friends don't seem real enough?

Google's problem with customers is they come down on you pretty hard and give
you little recourse. It's Kafka-esque unless you're a big ad account holder or
minor celebrity.

Next up Google+ vs the Scoble brigade.

------
karussell
Why not use a name which sounds like a real name but isn't yours? I'm doing so
very successfully ;) ...

~~~
vaksel
that's a mistake.

eventually you'll have to login into your Gmail or Analytics where you gave
your real name. Google will then cross reference your IP and notice that the
information they have on file is fake. So they'll suspend all of your
accounts.

~~~
kragen
I haven't had that trouble so far. But, also, I have a dynamic IP, and I think
I'm behind a couple layers of NAT.

------
flowe
interesting to see such a big company fail early, fail fast... advice startups
are often given (and should take)... they're not perfect, but at least now
they're in the game.

------
johnl
When I played American Army a while back I was placed in jail for a cool down
period when I hit one of my own team mates. Seems like Google ought to do the
same thing, sweep the accounts looking for red flags and place into limbo.
Write a program (I think Google knows how to do this) to globally communicate
the best bet for correcting the red flags and reinstating when acceptable.
It's good customer service, and could be a good startup idea. You solve the
issue and in turn get loyal customers. Now all I need is two good programmers.

------
Groxx
Is there much evidence that this _isn't_ largely a rampaging set of over-
enthusiastic rule-enforcing bots, or an exploit being spread, or something
non-malicious? It seems like people are leaping to conclusions, assuming
Google has _just now_ assigned some incredible amount of (stupid) employees to
go around and wield the ban-hammer.

Why the wait? Why so many at once? It feels more to me like an error than
something intentional.

------
nolite
shame..no better than facebook..

------
yanw
As a change of pace from the usual pattern of comments on a 'someone got their
account suspended' post I would like to offer a practical solution:

Why not provide an optional pseudonym filed? that way you have the real name
to enable searching for people within the service and users can use their
desired display name.

~~~
thristian
In fact, there _is_ a nickname field in the Google Profile page. However, it
seems that this field, even if public, is not displayed anywhere or used when
searching for people.

------
lwat
So let me get this straight Google: I can have a Google+ account for my
business, but I can't have one for my pseudonym?

------
leon_
I guess my paranoia pays out for once ;) I joined G+ with a throwaway google
account.

------
diolpah
I believe I have woken up in an alternate universe today.

Since when are random Google engineers so absurdly popular that a G+ account
suspension is even noticed, let alone reacted to with a flood of tweets,
emails, etc?

Being a Google engineer appears to confer a seat at the popular kids' table,
now.

~~~
nostrademons
Skud was actually Internet-famous before being a Google engineer - she was
pretty well-known in the Perl and open-source communities before joining
Google as part of the Metaweb acquisition:

<http://www.oscon.com/oscon2009/public/schedule/detail/10173>

<http://search.cpan.org/~skud/>

She wasn't actually at Google all that long - hell, I'm more senior than she
was, but I doubt anyone would notice if my G+ account disappeared, because I
don't really put myself out there on the Internet (besides HN).

~~~
frossie
_Skud was actually Internet-famous before being a Google engineer_

Hell, Skud was Internet-famous before Google _existed_

