
Getting Google to ban our entire company - highace
https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/8kvias/tifu_by_getting_google_to_ban_our_entire_company/
======
crazygringo
None of this makes any sense, I simply don't believe it.

G Suite for Business is an enterprise product costing $5-25/user/month with
24x7 phone support, escalation paths, contractual SLA's, etc. It competes
heavily and directly with Microsoft. A company doesn't get "banned".

This smells like black PR to me... playing on Google's lack of
support/transparency around free consumer accounts and trying to get people to
associate it with their Enterprise division.

I mean come on, just the way it's written: "One of the girls at work was
fucking bawling her eyes out since she couldn't access her e-mail either." and
the final "I do not know why Google has a scorched-earth policy when it comes
to this kind of stuff, but I fucked up and our boss is looking to migrate away
from Google even though we just recently signed on not too long ago." It just
feels too obvious.

(Also, G Suite for Business accounts don't have recovery e-mails -- your admin
takes care of your account -- so the supposed personal bans sound made-up too.
EDIT thanks to ballenf below -- by default users can't set recovery e-mails,
but a G Suite admin can enable that option for their domain.)

~~~
ballenf
G Suite Business accounts absolutely do have recovery emails that can be, and
often are, personal accounts. I'm in my gsuite account looking at the setting
right now. And wondering if I should change it.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the whole incident as conspiracy. It sounds
relatively plausible to me, but agree that there are clear holes in the guy's
knowledge or explanation.

~~~
ajross
> It sounds relatively plausible to me

Grandparent gave a ton of reasons, though, why this situation is particularly
_implausible_. Why exactly do you disagree?

Again, B2B services like this are bound by actual, legal, signed contracts and
real, monentary consideration, not EULAs and "free with ads" business models.
Service providers don't have the freedom to unilaterally "ban" you, and that's
literally one of the things you pay for.

It didn't happen, at least not as detailed in the post.

~~~
alexozer
> Grandparent gave a ton of reasons, though, why this situation is
> particularly implausible. Why exactly do you disagree?

None of grandparent's reasons are smoking guns, they're just "things that
would fit the conspiracy if it was a conspiracy". The probability that it's
fake given those reasons isn't high enough (like by Bayes' Rule) to deem the
whole story "definitely implausible".

> "I do not know why Google has a scorched-earth policy when it comes to this
> kind of stuff, but I fucked up and our boss is looking to migrate away from
> Google even though we just recently signed on not too long ago."

That seems like something you would definitely overhear your boss talking
about if you also heard that they were trying furiously to contact Google.

The best reason it's maybe a conspiracy is that Google would be hesitant to
"ban a whole company", but who knows, maybe if the perceived ToS violation
appears severe enough (they didn't know OP's _persistent piracy_ was a joke)
Google has zero tolerance.

------
realusername
And people wonder why I don't want to use Google products... The fact that you
might be locked of all your accounts for a random bullshit reason (with no
support either) is completely insane. People reading this here on HN, please
don't use Google products for any important matter or it might bite you back
one day (basically only what you can afford to lose).

~~~
pzh
This reminds me to download and remove all my emails from Google’s GMail
servers. Does anyone know of a good automated solution to do this on a regular
basis?

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
Google Takeout can probably be scripted somehow.

~~~
erichurkman
If you're on G Suite you can use GAM
([https://github.com/jay0lee/GAM](https://github.com/jay0lee/GAM)) to automate
mailbox exports directly to mbox files.

------
kelvin0
I've posted many times on HN an anecdote of mine regarding using Google (paid)
services. Basically got my ex-employer (30 people) company on board to using
google docs accounts to share documents. Since this is a corporation we
decided to go with the 50$/user/year, which we duly paid each year.

Things went swimmingly well, until a user reported seeing an error message,
and then not being able to access the document at all. Escalation was a joke,
and after a whole week of not having access to the critical google
spreadsheet, Google was still fumbling around. Finally we got the document
back, because one of the employees had kept the email containing the URL of
the document (sent out when a document is shared with a group of people).

If it wasn't for that old email kept by an employee, we'd probably never would
have 'found' the document again. Google's support was at best incompetent.

Beware dancing with the Dragon that is Google! Backup your files, keep
important document URLS!

Hope this helps a poor soul somewhere.

~~~
hungerstrike
This is basically the opposite of Microsoft. I've only had to call Microsoft
less than a handful of times in my career because for the most part, their
stuff just works... however on those occasions when I did call them I was able
to get quickly through to a person and have my issue resolved within 24 hours.

As a matter of fact, with every MSDN subscription - you get two support
incidents worth $500 each and if you tell them it's an emergency, they'll stay
on the phone with you until the matter is resolved.

~~~
pc86
> _if you tell them it 's an emergency, they'll stay on the phone with you
> until the matter is resolved._

That seems like a terrible idea. How many times has someone entered a
"CRITICAL URGENT" support ticket regarding not being able to change their
background image, or being blocked from downloading a game or something?

~~~
ndespres
Those support calls are screened- "is this a work-stopping event for some % of
your business" is a standard screening question. They are also expensive.

------
jarym
Where to begin with this.. hmm..

First you:

"I have a friend who creates Android apps on the side. I do something similar
to this, but instead my apps revolve around cloning .apk files and restoring
them". Why not be clear and just admit you're pirating software off an App
Store? Ok, not the smartest activity in the world BUT did you have to do it at
work?

Then Google:

"We were all freaking out, our IT guys were trying to get a hold of Google but
couldn't get in touch with anyone." \- So yea, unless you're one of Google's
'poster' customers, good luck trying to get help when something goes wrong!

"Their policy is to not share any information about what caused this and they
will not reverse these actions." \- Yup, that's Google. Unless you're one of
the customers on this list:
[https://gsuite.google.com/customers/](https://gsuite.google.com/customers/)
you are totally screwed when something goes wrong.

I introduce the world to the ToS-DoS Attack - only a matter of time before
this now gets exploited:

\- Hack into a companies GSuite account and create a new account.

\- Use the new account to commit a range of ToS violations.

\- Wait for Google to suspend the entire GSuite account.

~~~
flukus
I got the impression that step 1 isn't needed, it was more:

1\. Create a google account and set your recovery email to the victims.

2\. Use the new account to commit a range of ToS violations.

3\. Wait for Google to suspend the entire GSuite account and every linked
account.

For step 1 I don't think there is (or at least wasn't) any validation, I found
out a family member had me as their recovery address when they changed
passwords.

~~~
hknd
A "victim" would need to approve being used as a recovery account. (click link
in mail etc.)

~~~
aritmo
No. Ironically, this is opt-out, not opt-in.

That is, you (as recovery email holder) would need click the link ONLY if you
want to unlink. The URL is in the footer of the email and it is easy to miss.

~~~
whyagaindavid
No. It is opt-in. You need to type the 6 digit code from recovery email id
into your settings.

~~~
squeaky-clean
I just now added my personal email as a recovery to my work email to test
this. It is opt-out.

> Subject: "Someone added you as their recovery email"

> Someone added <mypersonalemail>@gmail.com as their recovery email

> <myworkemail>@<myworkdomain>.com wants your email address to be their
> recovery email.

> If you don’t recognize this account, it’s likely your email address was
> added in error. You can remove your email address from that account.
> Disconnect email

The "Disconnect email" at the end is an opt-out link.

------
eh78ssxv2f
Wait, are we sure that this really happened? Seems very unlikely, and even the
OP did not present any evidence. I would be really surprised if Google would
be scanning emails, and using that to ban the gsuite account of the entire
company.

A red flag for me is the claim that Google also blocked accounts that were set
for recovery which seems almost close to impossible (or insane).

~~~
pmlnr
This is not the first case like this:

[https://plus.google.com/+RichWarren/posts/QkKTxAbKGdq](https://plus.google.com/+RichWarren/posts/QkKTxAbKGdq)

~~~
eh78ssxv2f
I think the post that you linked to describes a much simpler case: One Google
account violated the policies and could land Google in bad water (privacy laws
around children as well as COPPA), so they blocked access to that specific
account. It can be argued that it is reasonable. It can also be argued that
Google should put more engineering effort in collecting less information
especially when account holder is minor.

However, blocking access of other co-workers as well as blocking access to
personal accounts (which are simply set as recovery accounts, and could as
well be accounts of spouses/partners) because of some other account holder's
mistake is completely different. So, I would argue that the incident described
in Reddit is indeed the first case.

------
marticode
These stories pop up on a regular basis. Someone from Google eventually
reaches out and fixes it because of all the publicity. Meanwhile, the policy
(which is insane, and compounded by the difficulty of reaching a human at
Google support) never changes.

~~~
dx034
If this blows up enough I can believe it changes. Not because Google wants to,
but because suddenly people getting fired realize that they can cause
significant damage that way.. If this suddenly happens a few hundred times
within a week, Google will have to act or will lose a lot of clients.

~~~
verbify
Standard practice when someone is fired is to remove all their access
credentials during or before they're told they are being fired.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
How do you un-verify a recovery email address from outwith the account to be
recovered?

~~~
verbify
You disable the account, which means it isn't active and therefore any
employee action won't affect the company.

------
ssijak
I got my google account banned several times.

Several years ago I had my account payment features banned with no
explanation. That in turn basically banned me from most of Google services
because I could not pay for them or use them because payments were banned. No
adwords, adsense, no google cloud services, no buying android apps, nothing...
With no explanation, no support, and I tried hard just to find out what I did
wrong.

After that I come to terms that I have to leave my email that I used for like
10 years and make a new one. But, this time I first bought a domain name and
then started paying for google apps. This way if they ban me for whatever
reason I could at least take my email address to some other email provider.
Anyhow, sometime later youtube enabled Adsense on videos for my country. I
enabled it out of curiosity, just to see what is the process of doing and
using it. I don`t have videos on my channel except one random from the gym
that I uploaded 1-2 years ago. So, I just enabled adsense poked at that for 1
day and left it unused. Sometime after that I got an email that my adsense and
adword account is banned for violating policy (not saying which one). No
explanation why, nothing!!! I tried to get an explanation like REALLY hard,
but could not. You are just stuck in an endless loop of robot answers, or not
getting answers at all. They even have google forms for complaints which point
me to some URL that I am banned from viewing, lol. And there is some other
form that no one answers when you fill it and I filled it 10 times.

Long story short, I slowly started migrating from Google services. This is
really maddening and scary that they can just cut you off from your data
without explanation. I use Google Photos heavily and even a possibility that
they could cut me off from my photos at any time is sickening. That is why I
bought NAS which backups my Google Photos to physical drives in my apartment.
Now I just need to find something comparable to Google Photos and leave that
service for good...

------
toomanybeersies
And this is why I have my own domain, specifically for my email address. It
doesn't have a website or anything, just a single email address, for my
personal use.

That way I have full control of my domain name, right up until the point where
I forget to renew it, and a domain squatter takes it from me.

There really must be something better than either of these systems. Being at
the whims of Google isn't good, but having your own domain name has its own
set of problems.

This also highlights why companies need to ensure that their systems are
platform agnostic. This is why I don't trust things like Slack for business
critical applications. Once you're locked in, it's bloody hard to get out.

~~~
pentae
How do you know the OP wasn't using his own domain? It's pretty much standard
fare for G Suite.

~~~
toomanybeersies
I was meaning more for individuals, rather than businesses.

If your business is in G Suite, it is possible to migrate off as you do have
your own domain name, just point your DNS records to your new server, and
generate new mail accounts.

I was meaning more for personal use. I don't want my personal email address to
be at the whim of Google, which it would be if I used an @gmail.com email
address.

Obviously my email hosting is still at the whim of the host, who, like Google,
can just cut my service if they want, but that's always a risk. I could host
my email on DigitalOcean, but DO could cut my service. So I could host it on
my home computer, but (ignoring spam filtering problems and uptime) my ISP
could cut my service.

------
alexdiacre
Greetings. This is Alex Diacre here from G Suite Support. This has been
flagged for my team and we’re looking into it. If anyone G Suite customer has
trouble accessing their account they can always contact Google Cloud Support
here:
[https://support.google.com/a/contact/admin_no_access](https://support.google.com/a/contact/admin_no_access)
(this is a special form to use when you cannot access)

~~~
danirod
Once again, it seems the only way to reach actual human support on the Google
ecosystem is by having a "locked out of my account" thread trending on some
social network.

It simply blows my mind that one of the most powerful tech companies in the
world is still doing these mistakes. Not even the G Suite tier, which I would
assume it's a more professional tier than the free one.

(Disclaimer: I'm assuming this Reddit post is true, which may or may not be
the case here.)

~~~
alexdiacre
Hi danirod

For G Suite Basic, Business and Enterprise customers we provide 24 x 7 support
via chat, phone and email.

~~~
flukus
Does this extend to customers who have had their account suspended?

~~~
alexdiacre
Hi flukus

Yes - you can create a case at
[https://support.google.com/a/contact/admin_no_access](https://support.google.com/a/contact/admin_no_access)

------
Yizahi
It not exactly new that Google has zero customer support and not the first
(and for sure not the last) horror story about automatic bans on Google
services. If anyone treats Google accounts in any way as permanent or reliable
- "this" may happen to you too. It may even happen will no fault at all from
your side - e.g. someone would have a linked youtube account and bigcorp will
take it down for a copyright on a white noise video and then whole linked
account structure will crumple down like house of cards. Or any of the
thousands alternative reasons.

~~~
josefresco
"It not exactly new that Google has zero customer support"

It's also not true. Maybe for "free" services but paid G Suite accounts have
telephone, live chat and email support. I've used it frequently.

------
zawerf
It's insane that a mere ToS violation (not even anything criminal or large
scale) on a different Google product got not only his account banned, but all
related accounts across all Google products banned also.

It makes me really worry about things I have done that are truly against their
ToS. For example after Google Cloud Platform announced a $300 credit promo for
new users, I made another gmail account just to try them out. I don't think
what I did is unethical or even against the spirit of their promo so I didn't
bother to hide the connection back to my real gmail. Will google use this to
ban my real google account one day? Probably not, but before this story I
naively believed the answer was definitely no.

~~~
sdhgaiojfsa
> It's insane . . .

Yes. So insane one suspects it may not be true.

------
pdkl95
When mission critical parts, tools, or infrastructure is moved to "the cloud"
(aka computers owned by someone else that you do not control) - often
replacing in-house tools with a SaaSS[1] - a _second source_ [2] is rarely
discussed as a requirement. The "cloud" doesn't magically solve path
dependency.

[1] [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-
really-s...](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-
serve.en.html)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_source)

edit: my father once mentioned that when he was working at Honneywell in
Minneapolis (making home automation in the 80s), some of the engineers
frequented a local bar called literally "The Second Source". "Sorry boss, I'm
busy this afternoon - I have a meeting at the second source!"

------
antocv
Time to

1) grab/download the entire mailbox from Gmail 2) delete the mailbox at Gmail
3) export all gdrive data, use the export function 4) delete the gdrive data

5) register with fastmail, yandex or protonmail 6) start mailpile on your
raspberry pi or similar 7) use mailpile as frontend for
yandex/protonmail/other-imap account.

8) nextcloud as good enough but shitty replacement for gdrive

Self-hosted ftw.

~~~
giancarlostoro
I'm still surprised there's no better alternatives to Nextcloud out there yet.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
There are. I use Sandstorm.io and Cloudron is also out there. They're modern
containerized platforms you can run any number of other open source web apps
on.

~~~
gsich
But how is that an alternative to Nextcloud? An example for that would be
Seafile.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
In Sandstorm.io's case, I use an app called Davros to store files (which is
even compatible with some ownCloud sync clients, actually), and Cloudron.io
has a few other options you can use to work with your files, including,
actually just hosting Nextcloud or ownCloud on it.

Where these sorts of platforms really excel is in the realm of other features,
which Nextcloud tacks onto the existing platform, but a larger app platform
can allow you to use a variety of alternatives which are more tailor-made to
other specific types of web apps.

~~~
gsich
>including, actually just hosting Nextcloud or ownCloud on it.

But that's not an alternative anymore, just the same.

~~~
giancarlostoro
Not really the same either, just inclusive. The rest of the ecosystem could
potentially have more features altogether.

------
jimrandomh
I'd really like to hear Google's side of this story, since the story as-
written doesn't seem plausible.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
Everybody wants to hear it, but Google can't tell it. One part of the fight
with the bad guys is never to tell them how they got caught, so they never
know how to protect themselves.

~~~
scardine
Sure. Let's go ahead and turn the world into a Kafkaesque nightmare where you
are prosecuted but has no right to know why. Justice system is perfect so if
the man says you are guilty it's because you are. /S

~~~
hluska
Isn't Google a private company?

~~~
ocdtrekkie
The fact that a private company can essentially execute you or your business
from the Internet is exactly what's so terrifying.

~~~
simias
Only if you give them that power. The popular wisdom not to put all your eggs
in one basket is still relevant.

You generally can't opt-out from your government, you definitely don't have to
opt-in Google services.

~~~
scardine
You can opt-out from your government by moving to another country - you have
more choice than you have on mobile where there is only Google or Apple... :-)

------
highace
Alternative title: Today I realised why going all-in on Google's platform is
maybe not a great business decision.

Also note: this isn't me personally.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
The idea that one dude on his phone can torch your entire company with no
apparent recourse is borderline insane. The fact that an issue with Google
service x can cause you to lose access to Google services y and z is
_absolutely obscene_.

I don't understand why anyone could possibly take this sort of risk with their
company. As long as Google remains the irresponsible company that it is, they
simply cannot be engaged with for any business purpose whatsoever.

It's possible, of course, this guy isn't actually what triggered the lockout,
but it really wouldn't change the issue: That 150 Google accounts can get
banned, including both personal and work accounts, and that Google can refuse
to explain why.

The OP's bosses should be looking for a good law firm, because there's money
in this case.

~~~
tasubotadas
But Google is so diverse now...

------
notatoad
having unrelated personal accounts locked because they're set as the recovery
account for an account that was tangentially related to a ToS violation is
absolutely unacceptable. there's no plausible reason for that other than to
inconvenience as many people as possible.

~~~
guessmyname
I read that and got genuinely preoccupied.

I immediately started reviewing the recovery options of my corporate account
and de-linked all my personal information _(personal email address, personal
phone number for two-factor authentication, etc)_. I prefer to have my
corporate account hacked for not having 2FA enabled than to risk my personal
Google account to be locked. I went ahead and created a non-personal account
with another email provider for the recovery options and tomorrow morning I
will request my employer for a corporate phone number to set-up 2FA.

~~~
dannyw
Don't worry. even if you don't have any recovery emails set up, Google's anti-
abuse systems still link accounts that it believes are related (same cookies,
same Chrome SafeSearch / phone-home headers and IDs, etc).

~~~
eh78ssxv2f
This seems pretty outrageous. Do you have any source for this?

------
donttrack
So on the last day at my shit job in the shit office, I should just go ahead
and abuse the refund policy? Sounds crazy to me..

~~~
unpopular42
First, you need to make your company rely on 200 consumer Gmail accounts for
their business. I mean, if you can get them to that level of idiocy, nothing
really helps, right?

~~~
xfer
Do you know there is a thing called Gsuite for business? Let me change your
sentence to "First you need to make your company rely on 200 nodes on AWS for
their busineess". I am not sure who looks really stupid here?

~~~
auslander
AWS shit down a business account for consumer policy violation? Example?

~~~
tobyhinloopen
It is not about whether they have done it before. It is about whether that
could, and they could.

------
dx034
Question for those with a bit more knowledge in this area: How large does the
company have to be so that you're excluded from those kind of enforcement
actions? With most companies (e.g. Microsoft), large enterprise customers get
very different terms and are excluded from all the usual "customer service".
Is that the same with Google? Otherwise I couldn't imagine that this would
make it into any large companies.

~~~
jankotek
It is not about size. Google has horrible customer support.

~~~
dx034
I read recently that this is only the case if you don't pay for any of the
products?

~~~
hutzlibu
(you mean pay with money and not only with your data, I assume)

~~~
dx034
I don't like the notion of paying with your data. You pay with your attention
(ad views) and your money (purchases off ads). Data helps making this more
efficient but you don't pay Google at all. I also don't pay a TV station that
shows me ads or a free newspaper.

~~~
hutzlibu
And I don't like the notion of google offering free services, when they are a
commercial company and not a charity.

And "helps making this more efficient" ... well, a tiny bit more. Knowledge is
power. Google posesses a lot of knowledge.

But even "only the ads". There are worlds between showing someone random ads,
or a highly tailored custom one, made out of all the online and much offline
activity of that person.

And knowing allmost all about what a company is doing and controlling their
communication is potential valuable in various ways as well.

------
Fanmade
I made a similar experience with Google, just on a way smaller scale. I still
use their service on a very small scale, but I would newer use them for a
larger scale. While their services are mostly very convenient to use, some of
their rules are ridiculous and even if you make a small mistake, they will ban
you for lifetime. One example I have is when we built a little website for a
school project. It was an obvious fake site about smart homes by a company
that was basically developing the terminator. I included a Google ad on the
site just to make it look more realistic. When it showed ads for robotics
(which I'm very interested in) I clicked on it and so did my classmates. We
suddenly had about three Euros in ad-revenue, when I got banned by AdWords (or
AdSense, I always confuse one with the other). I wrote an email apologizing
and explaining everything and thought they would just reset the account to
zero, but nope. I now have a lifetime ban from any Google Ads service. I even
asked again several years later when I've had a bigger site that I wanted to
put some ads on, but apparently my actions where so incredibly evil, that I
will never be able to use those services ever again (if I don't create a new
Gmail account that is). That doesn't keep them from sending me vouchers and
ads to use those services, of course. Well, good thing there are a lot of
alternatives which I am happily using without any incident and I learned my
lesson soon enough.

------
reza_n
I pay $5 a month for a custom domain gmail account and last year I had an
issue connecting to their POP3 service. Opened a support ticket and got
extremely high quality support immediately. Basically, my experience was the
opposite of all the horror stories which always get echoed in these support
threads.

~~~
pdkl95
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction)

------
megablast
> As a joke, every time my friend releases an app (usually paid), I buy the
> app and clone it with my software, and then refund it. After that, I send
> him an e-mail with the cloned version through Gmail with something along the
> lines of: "Look at this cool app I found on the store, it was completely
> free! Try it out!", or stupid shit like that. It was a bit of a stupid
> inside joke that kind of stuck for a while and was only between us.

This sounds so strange, and surely it wouldn't get you banned. Why would
someone keep doing the same joke.

~~~
dmak
Why not? You never had a family member or a friend who never lets you live
down some silly thing that happened at a Christmas party?

------
Nebasuke
Re-reading the story, it seems to me they had a manual solution, linking
personally made Google email accounts to serve as a corporate email (rather
than using GSuite), which is probably why all the accounts were seen by the
automated banning system as all owned by the reddit OP.

If they actually got GSuite they might have had a semblance of support. Still
a crap response from Google as usual.

------
dvfjsdhgfv
Things like these can happen with any service provider. The key difference is
that no other company has so many popular services linked together. Using
Google this way basically means putting all one's eggs in one basket. We all
know it's an unwise thing to do. An yet, people do it every day, for
convenience.

Personally, I set up separate Gmail accounts for their different services.
First, I don't want them to profile me automatically (they do it through
correlation anyway, but let's not make it too easy), and second, in situations
like these, only some of the eggs are broken.

~~~
dgiol
That's unlikely to work. You are still putting all your eggs in one basket.
This seems to be a variation of the setup this company has/had.

Unless you are using different browser profiles or installations, and IP
addresses for each account every single time you use them, it's very easy for
Google to see that requests are coming from the same computer. If you were
shut down, they would be able to do it as in the example, all accounts closed
at once.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
Well, it works somewhat. I keep my main email account separate from adwords,
adsense, GA (although I now replaced it by Matomo, there is no reason
whatsoever to use GA now), and Google Play. Ditto for their other services. I
had a problem with one of the accounts a while ago - Google didn't "recognize
the device" (this often happens as I have strict browser cleanup policies) and
I lost access to the account because it was linked to a phone number I lost 10
years ago and forgot to change the number in the account settings. In this
case, I lost access to just one account and I didn't care that much. If I used
one account for everything I'd have gone mad.

------
xugo
Not up to date on Google Play developer terms but doesn't a customer
requesting a refund makes the developer still liable for Google fees ? If so
that's a very shitty thing to do to your friend.

------
mark_l_watson
This is a potential problem for medium size businesses. Very large companies
that use Google Office products have dedicated support people at Google.

This also doesn’t have to be a problem for individuals. I often use gmail, but
only by forwarding my fastmail to it. I can stop using gmail at anytime (which
I do often when not travelling and don’t need the extra services). I also back
up my Google data periodically, so the only absolute loss for getting locked
out of my account would be the digital content purchased at Google Play.

But, for small and medium businesses, beware.

------
dandare
Stories like these document how immature Google is for the B2B market.

No sane company can risk being obliterated by Google's bully ToS and ignorant
support.

------
wruza
But what is account association? Do my accounts associate when I log into one
and then into another via google’s log in form (the one with stupid
login/password separation)? Or did they connect all the accounts by hand via
something like backup email?

What if my buddy logs into gmail on my laptop, logs out, and then one of us
violates ToS?

------
tjpnz
If this was indeed GSuite then it really seems like a lawsuit in the making.
It wouldn't be hard for a judge to nullify Google's TOS either as they quite
often include terms that are illegal in some jurisdictions.

Will definitely be sharing this story with our team in the morning.

------
Rainymood
The fact that this is/was upvoted so highly shows how deeply ingrained the
"believe first, fact check later" mentality is in humans when the piece in
question aligns with our personal worldview. This is exactly how fake news
spreads.

------
znpy
I wonder what would have happened if that guy's company also used Google Cloud
(as in "Google Cloud Platform").

Would have google ketp all of their data and services hostage?

This is freaking scary. Just one rogue employee and everything goes down.

------
josefresco
I don't buy the "we couldn't get a hold of Google" claim. I contact Google via
telephone, chat and email all the time for clients - never had a problem
making contact or having my issue resolved. Odd.

~~~
billyjoejoe212
It seems the problem was, they were banned, so Google no longer considered
them a customer. Which is a Kafkaesque nightmare scenario. But the thread (on
reddit) was locked and the guy hasn't updated since yesterday. None of the
people involved with Google (one guy at reddit said he worked with the GSuite
team and would look into it, some guy on here said he was with Google services
and is looking into it, etc.) will update out of the risk of losing their
jobs. So I'm afraid the only hope we have for an update is if the original guy
comes out and gives a play-by-play after this is resolved.

------
telltruth
OP said you can log in to banned accounts but can't do anything. I would
expect an email from Google that tells me why account got banned and whom to
contact. If they are not doing that then that's pretty dumb.

------
Spearchucker
Using a service that can be withdrawn at random without recourse is
irresponsible. Whoever makes a decision like that needs a lesson in risk
management. Blows my mind.

------
pvtmert
IMHO testing payment works and getting apk then sending it to owner (proving
its working) is pretty ok situation. of coursw you will request refund...

given these days deployment stuff can get infected easily (remember a
framework contained malware in many apps in appstore)

there is services providing testflights for such stuff, but if
npm/yarn/pypi/insert pkg manager here loads infected package, you're done

------
amelius
Just call customer service ...

------
yladiz
To me, what's telling about this is not that it may or may not have happened,
but that people could believe it happened (even through a skeptical lens), and
that some people believe that this sort of thing wouldn't happen if you had
Microsoft or Amazon accounts, at least not in the same way.

------
lgregg
So, what are the best alternatives? I know about MS office and I think Zoho
has email, who else is out there?

~~~
flukus
If you think switching to other cloud solutions is the answer here then I
think you missed the problem. The core problem with any of these services is
that you no longer have control over your data.

~~~
lgregg
I do understand the underlying problem, it's more or less looking for the one
that treats the service as that... a service rather than myself as their
product.

I could start my own mail server, but I'm not at that point yet.

------
aogl
This is when I really wish Amazon had a free email service to compete. Their
customer service always rocks!

------
tehwebguy
Google’s “customer service” policies have always been trash.

IMO it’s a part of the culture there that will never change. Good reminder to
switch as many services as possible from Google before something irreversible
happens to our entire company and all of our personal email accounts /
domains.

------
auslander
SkyNet, you signed up voluntarily.

> and our boss is looking to migrate away from Google

only if it is not too late. 'Don't be evil' was removed from the code of
conduct's preface in 2018.

I commented 2 days ago on other thread:

Your kids share their assignments to it, your company uses it for all comms,
you use it for private messages, you tell it your secret desires via searches,
it knows who you're with at any point of time with android location ... Google
Home? My home? SkyNet must be destroyed now.

~~~
jkaplowitz
> only if it is not too late. 'Don't be evil' was removed from the code of
> conduct's preface in 2018.

That is technically true but leaves the wrong impression. The code of conduct
got reworded, leaving "Don't be evil" in a single prominent mention at the
very end.

"Removed" is only accurate for the preface; for the whole document,
"deemphasized" is more correct (and that's only because many people don't read
to the end where they'd now be left with "don't be evil" visible after doing
so).

~~~
auslander
Impression is still right.

While your clarification is technically correct :D, I was talking about the
Trend of moving it to less prominent places over time.

~~~
hahainternet
No you completely lied and are now trying to save face.

~~~
auslander
Lol :)))

For others who missed the joke:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil)

------
gsich
This is why you self-host as much as possible.

------
suhastech
Similar thing happened to me. Google randomly disabled my account for no
reason. There was absolutely no way to contact them. From that day onward, I
do not trust Google or anyone to keep my data.

At least, I got a small product out of the experience:
[https://thehorcrux.com/why-i-built-horcrux-app/](https://thehorcrux.com/why-
i-built-horcrux-app/)

------
dmak
I'm surprised that no one has yet mentioned/promoted a product for
decentralizing GSuite.

------
miaklesp
FastMail for mail Office 365 for office

Don't use Google, diversify with better products in each category.

------
organicmultiloc
I love how the default way to get an actual human to respond to a real problem
at google is now:

1\. Be famous

2\. Make a stink on social media

I feel like I'm back in high school.

------
mito88
Why the toilet scene?

:)

------
jk2323
By the way, the day I went off gmail, I used a script like this to download
all my emails:
[http://taoofmac.com/space/projects/imapbackup](http://taoofmac.com/space/projects/imapbackup)

~~~
duiker101
Pretty sure there's an option in the Google settings to download all your data
from any of their services

~~~
sschueller
Yes, but you can use this script to make a continuous backup so you can keep
using google but have your data when they decide to shut you off.

------
jk2323
"some of their personal e-mails are also blocked as well. "

Never, never ever use a gmail account for anything important. I learned it the
hard way and once nearly lost a domain because of this.

gandi.net offers domains with free IMAP email service

infomaniak.com is also good for email. Switzerland based.

" our IT guys were trying to get a hold of Google but couldn't get in touch
with anyone."

ROTFL.

------
dbg31415
Not the point of this post, but man... the new Reddit design is so bad.

It's like someone new to HTML tried to re-create a Facebook page using a scan
of a screenshot, and just changed it enough to try and say it wasn't a total
knock off.

~~~
jwilk
Use old.reddit.com instead of www.reddit.com to get the old layout.

If you use HTTPS Everywhere, you can abuse it to make redirects like this
automatic.

~~~
RVuRnvbM2e
Firefox has this awesome plugin for exactly this purpose:
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/redirector/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/redirector/)

------
dis-sys
He didn't do anything wrong and the way and excuses how Google refuses to
provide any support for their paying customers is just not acceptable.

It is pretty clear that Google refuses to provide any support to actually
minimize its own costs, it is so obvious.

------
phendrenad2
> our IT guys were trying to get a hold of Google but couldn't get in touch
> with anyone.

Try your legal team, if your badly-run company has one (I am not a lawyer).
lol

