
Don’t Mess with The Google - mendelk
http://www.dansdeals.com/archives/98444
======
setq
First post, might as well be a cautionary tale. My father, a pretty old
programmer by anyone's standards, regularly warns me of this sort of thing. He
was pretty much shafted by CompuServe many years ago on a miniscule scale
compared to what is possible now. He lives his life in what I previously
described as a paranoid bubble of data control.

Until I inevitably burned myself with Google. I have no idea what happened but
my account was terminated suddenly. No warning and no explanation as my backup
address was no longer valid. This was two years ago. I lost documents, account
details, contacts, calendars, email history, conversations between people on
hangouts plus my phone decided to ask me to sign in again and became as
useless as a dumbphone instantly.

Took about a month to reorganise my life and I lost contact with people,
failed to complete tasks because my record was gone, lost control over my
personal finances which were in Google sheets. Probably burned a week of my
life on this as well.

Now using a cheap Nokia 106, POP3 box with gandi.net, mozilla Firefox and
lightning, encrypted USB sticks for backup and LibreOffice. Never been
happier.

I am genuinely afraid of going through this again. Everything remains portable
between OS and provider now. Things are more volatile than we realise. I
understand my father now.

I'm not against using all in services like Google but you need backups, an
exit plan and a DR strategy explaining where all the services will go plus the
time to carry it out. If you don't have these or it's too expensive to do this
even for a personal user, don't even cross the starting line with the product.

Edit: Also beware of potential mergers, political whim and products being
redacted or broken for long periods of time. All of these have affected me
over the years.

~~~
perlpimp
Going on a tangent, there should probably be a set of universal backup formats
that can be advertised as being somewhat portable. So that, if you need to can
take your mail and other online business stuff elsewhere if need be. Beyond
this article a user might start working for some place that does not allow
external app use, but they can bring their data with, to be loaded onto the
service. I guess like github and git. but with mail and calendar stuff.

my 2c.

~~~
jdietrich
We do have those formats. Mbox for mail, iCalendar for calendars, vCard for
contacts. They're all IETF standards.

Google provide data export from nearly all of their services in standard
formats. Where no established open standard exists, they provide clean HTML or
JSON.

[https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout](https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout)

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I wouldn't actually call Mbox a standard. Thunderbird supports it, but I'd
argue it sucks as a way to escape Gmail, because no competitor to Gmail
supports it as an import method. In fact, even Gmail itself can't import from
Mbox. It may be a standard in that it's defined somewhere officially, but it's
not really a standard in the definition that it's commonly used.

As someone who has nearly completed their GExit, I'd say I found Takeout to be
borderline useless as an export strategy.

~~~
claudius
Couldn’t you import the Mbox archive in Thunderbird/Claws-Mail/something and
then copy the mails to whatever cloud provider you wish to use?

~~~
oridecon
And it's pretty easy. I have a few accounts on Thunderbird and I can drag and
drop e-mail directly from one account to another, I think they are .eml files.
You can also have local accounts just for storage.

------
vilhelm_s
This really seems like it needs to be regulated in law. For telephone
companies, there are rules about when they may disconnect you, e.g. the
Arizona Utilities Division write

> f I am unable to pay my entire bill, what can I do to maintain local dial
> tone?

> The Arizona Administrative Code specifically states that a telephone company
> may not disconnect a customer for failure to pay an unregulated portion of
> their bill. To maintain local service, you must pay for the regulated
> (landline) charges on your telephone bill while you work to resolve problems
> with the other portion of your bill. If you fail to pay the unregulated
> charges on your bill, those services may be subject to disconnection and a
> deposit to reestablish. (R14-2-509)

> How much notice does a telephone company have to give before disconnecting
> service?

> A telephone company is required to give 5 days advance written notice before
> disconnecting service. (R14-5-509 Section E)

In this case, Google killed people's email without any prior warning, and in
retaliation for an unrelated business transaction (selling smartphones).
Having your email disrupted like that is at least as bad as getting your phone
cut off.

~~~
a3n
Fastmail. I'm just a regular (paying) customer, not a business or anything.
I've opened a small number of tickets, one or two of the RTFM variety. I've
always got a human response and satisfaction, even a "here, let me RTFM that
for you."

I can't imagine being locked out of my fastmail account for anything other
than _abuse of my fastmail account_. Or not paying my bill.

~~~
brongondwana
We also stalk you on... I mean, we read the same tech news sites you do.

(I'm on third line ticket duty right now, so if you have something
significantly more complex than RTFM, or an actual bug, you'll probably be
talking to me this week)

The most common cause of getting locked out other than you abusing your
fastmail account is having your credentials stolen and used for spam/fraud,
which is why we recommend 2 factor authentication:

[https://www.fastmail.com/help/account/securityupgrade.html](https://www.fastmail.com/help/account/securityupgrade.html)

But yeah, even then we don't lock you out forever - just need you to reconfirm
your identity and re-secure your account.

~~~
josephg
Awesome - I moved across to fastmail a couple of days ago. I've been using a
custom domain for email for awhile (josephg.com), merged with a gmail account.
I'm very happy I set that up because moving to fastmail was a cinch - there's
no forwarding to do, just a few DNS records to reconfigure. And with a custom
domain I'll have that email address for life, no matter what happens to
fastmail.

My gmail account (josephg@) gets a tremendous amount of email for other
people. Earlier this year I was getting a lot of marketing trash from a
particularly excited group of car dealerships in Illinois. Around the same
time youtube suspiciously started advertising new cars to me. Its all way too
creepy, and reading articles like this about people's gmail accounts getting
locked out I'm very happy to reinforce my digital independence from google.

~~~
PuffinBlue
The only thing that has put me off Fastmail very recently, and indeed I moved
to another provider (Runbox), is the loss of their Family plans.

Requiring three accounts now for instance would cost $150 a year minimum for
the size I would have needed and unfortunately because I needed to rearrange
my old grandfathered plan to re-organise accounts I'd have lost my previous
plan.

Basically, Fastmail is good (very good), and you can still do admin type stuff
by creating your master account first and creating your 'users' under it, but
do look around if you are price conscious.

NOTE - I know you can't please everyone and that doesn't detract from the fact
Fastmail was extremely stable, fast and had excellent customer support so
don't take this as a 'Fastmail is bad' type post, because it isn't. Just look
around and make sure you're getting the rid price/value for your needs.

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
Fastmail killed their Family plan?

Damn. I was going to move to them at the end of this year when my VM (where I
currently run my mail) is up for renewal. But if I now need to buy several
Standard plans instead, and get several gigabytes of storage I don't need,
then that's less appealing.

Runbox looks good. Any other suggested alternatives?

~~~
PuffinBlue
PloarisMail is pretty 'barebones' on the face of it but works well:

[https://www.polarismail.com/](https://www.polarismail.com/)

Zoho is actually very good too but they (like Gmail) enforce IMAP connection
limits, so it you have a lot of folders etc or use mobile clients like K9 that
open a connection per folder then you can get errors very regularly.

The above is true for Zoho on the free plans anyway, but it may be different
for the paid ones. But the free ones have pretty much all you could need if
you don't run into the high number of IMAP connections issues.

[https://www.zoho.com/mail/](https://www.zoho.com/mail/)

If you have enough accounts to make it worthwhile I think Rackspace is
supposed to be very good, but last I looked you needed a minimum of 5 accounts
(I only had 4) so it didn't work out:

[https://www.rackspace.com/email-
hosting/webmail](https://www.rackspace.com/email-hosting/webmail)

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
Really helpful. Thanks.

------
kajecounterhack
Disclaimer: I don't speak for Google and don't have any real context into why
this occurred. Speaking as myself, a private citizen.

I work in Spam & Abuse and it's possible that this is the result of some
clustering algorithm that was trying to take down sharders / phone buying
rings. It's very possible that the SWEs responsible didn't consider this
possibility (that legitimate customers would be used to shard purchases) and
I'm pretty sure if the affected customers appeal they'll be reinstated, maybe
with a warning. I certainly wouldn't characterize this as intentionally
punishing the individuals who purchased phones on Google's part -- notice that
only users who directly sent their phones to the reseller's address were taken
down. Smells like automation to me.

The "deleting all their data if the appeal doesn't go through" thing is
actually because of privacy policy and Google can't keep your data around for
longer than 90 days give or take after your account is suspended. Again it
seems heavy-handed but is more a perfect storm of big-company policy decisions
with good intentions overall. Know that if you ask Google to remove your
account, you'll actually get everything wiped! (That's a good thing imho!)

It really is unfortunate that FPs (or "mostly-FP"s) in Google's systems impact
people so badly. FWIW for most Google services if you abuse them you usually
get a service level suspension rather than your entire account suspended,
probably for this exact reason.

~~~
throwaway98237
If you watch an old tech talk re: Google disaster recovery topic, the Googler
explains that a user's info is never fully deleted because it's too expensive
to do so given back-up duplication is processed multiple times in multiple
locations and sometimes over multiple technologies. In other words, cancel
your google account today and your data may be "deleted" but it's really, as
in _actually really_ , still on magnetic back-up in several locations, but
it's just really hard to get to and put back together, so is considered
"gone". Unless you're a really big organization with the means to go to such
troubles, like maybe the government or Google.

~~~
majewsky
How is that compatible with legal requirements for deletion? I think that, at
least in Germany, you can demand that a company delete all data associated
with you, and the company has to comply with it.

(Whether German data protection law applies in Google's datacenters is a wholy
different story though.)

~~~
easychris
It's not required in Germany either. The data protection law allows to "lock"
data instead of really deleting it from all devices. And IMO that's the only
sane solution to deletion requests.

Otherwise, any kind of backups would be unlawful for a company.

------
alistproducer2
The world's growing dependence on mega-services provided by the likes of
Google is why I started the Free Data Foundation.

The goal of the project is to support OSS that can replace "free" services
that subsist on our data. Interestingly enough the maiden project is
tentatively called Tmail (short for torrent mail).

It works somewhat like TOR in that it will depend on volunteers to host nodes
that will communicate with existing email providers (outlook, gmail, yahoo,
etc) and relay the mail over 80 to RPis preloaded with MDA (mail delivery
agent) software.

The goal is be able to expand the service to allow people to sign up for email
accounts without running their own software (a la gmail).

It gets way deeper than that, but I'll leave it there. You can follow the
project at
[https://github.com/freedatafound/](https://github.com/freedatafound/). I've
also bought [http://freedatafoundation.org](http://freedatafoundation.org) but
there's currently nothing there.

------
jdietrich
Rule Zero: Never rely on a URL that you don't control. Use your own domain
name for your e-mail addresses. Use your own domain name for canonical links
to content. If you control the URLs, you do not depend on any one provider.

Rule One: If you only have one copy, you have no copies. It is an act of faith
to assume that a Youtube video or a file in Google Drive will remain
available, just as it's an act of faith to assume that a hard drive will never
fail. Anything from a hacker to a natural disaster could destroy your data.
The "cloud" is made of servers, not magic.

If you follow these two rules, you have nothing to fear. Google could suspend
my account tomorrow and it would be nothing more than an inconvenience. I
change a couple of DNS records, restore some data from nearline and I'm back
in business like nothing happened.

~~~
indiv0
While I'm in complete agreement with you (everyone should be responsible for
protecting and ensuring the integrity of their data), it seems a little
unreasonable to expect the average gmail user to purchase a domain name, link
it to an email provider, (optionally) migrate their emails, etc.

Same goes for YouTube videos. Content creators typically maintain copies of
their work, but casual youtubers don't.

~~~
jdietrich
I don't think it is unreasonable. I think we've fallen into a culture of low
expectations regarding the ability of "normal users". Many people will
(perfectly legitimately) choose convenience over quality or reliability, but I
think we should be pushing users to engage more seriously with the tools that
they use.

We can certainly do more as developers to make things easier, but I think we
have a tendency to pander to an imaginary "AOL granny". We often present
oversimplified advice, because we expect too little of users. To pick a random
example, I think we're too eager to say "use Dropbox" rather than "use
Dropbox, but buy yourself a NAS too because X, Y and Z".

I think that there's a substantial latent desire among ordinary users to have
more control over their technological lives. People are increasingly worried
about the power of big tech companies, but they don't know what to do. We
aren't doing a good enough job of informing users; those big companies have an
obvious incentive to keep users uninformed. We're not communicating the risks
and benefits well enough, we're not providing clear explanations of the
alternatives to the Big Five.

In the process of writing this comment, I've had several startup ideas. I hope
that the people reading this are having ideas of their own. I think that there
are substantial opportunities to start returning control to users.

~~~
xyzzy123
For a whole variety of reasons, you need know what you're doing to properly
host your own email now.

From the risk of domain name takeover, to hosting provider takeover, to modern
spam requirements (ip reputation, dkim, spf, dmarc), to just plain sysadmin
ability and ideally run an HA system.

Agree that there are probably some startup opportunities, but the the reality
is that you'll just be transferring the user's trust from AmaGooFaceSoft to
you. You might be more trustworthy... or you might go out of business.

EDIT: To be fair, I'm probably missing a whole bunch of creative solutions
that give the user control without requiring them to run a service.

~~~
kuschku
Quite a few you're missing indeed.

Many ISPs give out a domain name and email service for free with internet
contracts — you can set it to redirect to gmail until you need it, then just
switch it over.

Tada, problem solved.

~~~
ucaetano
Until your ISP closes your account for whatever reason.

~~~
kuschku
That’s why you use a trustworthy ISP.

My current ISP, for example, is actually a local company providing datacenter
colocation and consulting services to the state’s government and local and
national companies, but they also run a small ISP as side business.

~~~
ucaetano
_> they also run a small ISP as side business_

Which means their small ISP business is something they wouldn't mind so much
getting rid of, along with your account.

The point is, you'll always depend on someone else. Your data will always flow
through someone else's network. The cloud is someone's computer, and the
internet is someone's cable.

~~~
jdietrich
You always have to rely on _someone_ , but you can structure your affairs so
that you're only temporarily reliant on them to provide service _today_ , not
to provide service _indefinitely_.

If your email address is "me@gmail.com", you're stuck with Google. If they
suspend your account, you're in big trouble. If your email address is
"me@myname.com", you're a free agent. You can use Gmail or Fastmail or some
random hosting company or a mailserver on a Raspberry Pi. You can use DNS or
forwarding to send your mail wherever you like, you can transfer your domain
name to any registrar you like. Rule zero.

If all your files are in Google Drive or Dropbox and nowhere else, suspension
of your account could mean total data loss. If you have a local backup on a
NAS or a mirror on Glacier or Backblaze, you're just mildly inconvenienced.
Rule two.

Eliminate single points of failure wherever possible. Avoid vendor lock-in.
Don't rely on a service unless you have a contingency plan if that service
fails. Treat everything as if it were hopelessly unreliable.

------
hn_user2
This is a big wake up call for me.

I have everything in google: Drive, email, voice, docs, sheets, etc. I was
actually about to sign up for Fi. The convenience of everything in one place
is great. But I don't think I had quite thought through a disaster like this.

With this article in mind, need to reevaluate. I guess either regular local
backups and/or diversification of service providers would be a good step.

~~~
zhte415
1\. Have your own domain name. You can change provider from Z to Y at the
flash a DNS record gets updated. Email is designed as a federated service, but
to be so your email _address_ needs to be too.

2\. For files, use a cloud solution and have 2-3 computers updating their
local copy (home PC, work PC, phone, small Pi box acting as server). I have a
Digital Ocean box running ownCloud, soon to change to nextCloud. Put your code
or next essay on Git.

3\. Don't trust any service provider, especially if they're not dependent on
explicit income. You can still have everything in one place, but that place is
many places at the same time.

4\. Don't store what you don't need to. Complication and confusion also comes
from hording. Don't need it? Delete it, and be assured it is completely
deleted.

~~~
hellofunk
Don't forget about the guy whose twitter account was stolen because a hacker
got access to his email _because_ the weak link was a custom domain and poor
security at Godaddy. The domain was hacked, giving the attacker full access to
email, and therefore ability to change passwords, transfer ownership of a
prized twitter account and more. It has been discussed here quite a bit. The
folks that answer phones at domain registrars don't usually have adequate
training and social engineering is common.

~~~
kuschku
Then don't trust a registrar.

Get a domain directly through a NIC that offers that directly.

~~~
hellofunk
Can you recommend one? I've never heard of this.

~~~
hellweaver666
Many NIC's support this but they aren't really setup to handle individuals
(they prefer resellers do that) expect to pay a lot more for the privilege.
You can usually find the Registrar by just going to nic.tld (e.g.
[http://nic.io/](http://nic.io/))

------
bad_user
The worst thing about it is that it's almost impossible to talk to a human
about the problems you're having with Google's free services. Even if this was
a honest mistake, there's no human to talk to in order to correct it. And yes,
you could pay for Google's G Suite (former Apps), which does have support
available, but then again that locks you in, because you can't migrate
purchases and connections to a free account later.

Free stuff is never free, you end up paying one way or another.

I have long since migrated off Google Apps and am paying for FastMail and
Dropbox (with the 1-year history add-on), which ends up being about $243 per
year, or about $20 per month. Now that's kind of expensive. Along with other
recurring payments for online services, I end up paying about $38 per month
for online stuff.

Now I'm being a frugal kind of guy, having suffered from poverty in the past
and I'm not paying for useless shit I don't need, but if you can afford it,
then allocating about $50 per month for your online independence is worth it,
because the alternative is to be held hostage by companies like Google.

------
taurath
Pretty incredible - especially with how little that a hardware product
purchase has to do with a user's data. Imagine for a moment that google
required people to have an account to access all their services - that they
have the ability to cut you off arbitrarily across ALL their services for a
TOS violation should scare anyone. Imagine if facebook cut your account and
thereby ties to many of your friends and acquaintances for promoting a
competing ad company?

These companies have lulled us into their systems with good intentions and
free services, and now they wield tremendous power over our lives. I don't
actually want to go back before the days where these services were fragmented
and it was very difficult to juggle many closed services instead of a few.
Still, its what happens when the company owns the whole vertical of individual
user's data.

~~~
duaneb
> Imagine if facebook cut your account and thereby ties to many of your
> friends and acquaintances for promoting a competing ad company?

This is very imaginable. Facebook has never attempted to be privacy or user
friendly; DO NOT USE IT. You are the only product they have of value.

In general, do not use third party login for anything personal you care about.
It's not a password; it's nothing you control.

~~~
brazzledazzle
I remember when Spotify switched to requiring facebook for signup and were
pushing linking the accounts on existing users. Perhaps it was a bug but at
one point they made finding and following other users very difficult without
facebook integration. Apparently they switched back to allowing email signup
again some time ago but it left a very sour taste in my mouth. I still have my
account today so I suppose that's a testament to how well they've run their
service outside of that issue.

Anyway, I hope developers keep incidents like this Google one in mind and let
people create standalone accounts. Certainly at the very least supporting more
than one provider and allowing you to link another email address if they don't
feel comfortable dealing with the very serious responsibility of managing and
encrypting usernames and passwords.

------
rdtsc
> he people affected don’t have access to Gmail, Google Drive, Google Voice,
> or anything from Google. They don’t have any access to gift cards, bills,
> travel confirmations, work documents, etc that were saved in their Gmail
> accounts.

Yikes. That is scary. A large part of my online life is tied to Google. I was
even debating getting a Project Fi phone too. Because well it is convenient
and cheaper, but it would mean sink everything even deeper into Google.

For fun though, let's imagine if Google or Facebook ran a country. They would
control the news you read, the apps you can install, they know where you are
at every single instant (via your phone), they know all your secrets (who you
talked to, what sites you visit, how often), they know who you know
(contacts), Nest thermostat at home even controls how warm or cold you should
be. In return you get all the super shiny and new stuff: latest technology,
watches which measure your cholesterol, VR games, best email experience,
unlimited archiving of your photos, really fast tear-free rendering of web
pages. But if you make a wrong step your plug is pulled and you have no
recourse. You go to the store to buy something, you just don't exist in the
system - no access to you account. Can't travel because it refuses to route
you. You can't talk to email or chat to other people because they can't reach
you.

~~~
prebrov
Yeah, that's why they don't want to run countries (be a government) -
legitimacy of political power comes with a social contract, fluid and quite
vague, unlike TOS.

Violating it often ends up in bloodshed and revolutions.

------
csomar
Most people are missing the important piece here: The terms of service is
preventing you of doing whatever you want with a physical product you bought.

The F!. You bought the phone with full retail price. You didn't break any laws
(as far as I understand it). Why does Google has a say on what you can do with
"your" phone.

2018: You can't sell your phone (as a used phone).

2020: Google Drone picks up user phone from his apartment as he is banned from
Google.

~~~
ryporter
Google doesn't have a say on what you can do with your phone.

Google does have a say on what you can do with their service.

These people were clearly trying to game the system. Google caught them red-
handed and has now exercised their rights.

~~~
dvirsky
But the phone's terms did state (according to TFA): “You may only purchase
Devices for your personal use. You may not commercially resell any Device, but
you may give the Device as a gift.”

~~~
csomar
That's exactly my point. I'm critiquing their policy.

~~~
dvirsky
Sorry, I read it as protecting their policy

------
coolaj86
I'm co-founder of Daplie ([https://Daplie.com](https://Daplie.com)) and we
offer a home cloud (pointedly dubbed "Cloud") that competes with some (or
potentially all) of Google's G Suite.

The Internet never seemed so small, closed, and locked as when we got our
notice that our ads account was suspended (and we got no explanation other
than that the reason was 'on a list they weren't allowed to talk about'). It
suddenly became super clear just how much Google monopolizes the web and had
the power to censor products and services and ideas they don't want.

Not evil, eh?

...

------
apatters
Google has simply gotten too big and too impersonal. If they were smaller,
only did one or two things, and locked you out of those things because of a
ToS violation it'd be frustrating but it wouldn't be catastrophic. Similarly
if they just had more humans interacting with their customers, then incidents
like this would get resolved in a more humane way (but can you really do that
at Google scale?).

We live in the era of tech giants owning vast swathes of worldwide markets
because they got there first and developed proprietary IP to make it work.
Which they deserve plenty of credit and have been rewarded richly for but I
would prefer to see the pendulum swing back at this point to businesses which
have a more personal touch. Fewer giants, more mom'n'pop shops which might not
ever make anyone a billionaire but would create jobs for people who interact
with other people.

Customer service, consulting, service businesses built on open source IP,
humans running the machine--that is one possible future. The other is a couple
of tech giants controlling everything and the machine running the humans. I
know which one I'd rather live in. One change we can all make to promote this
is simply limiting the business we do with companies that make it hard for you
to get in touch with a person. If the market starts to value the human touch
more then these companies will improve or be replaced.

------
vvanders
Wow, way to burn trust in your brand over a few hundred phones.

------
barnacs
Besides not depending on centralized (especially 'free') offerings of any
single company ourselves and spreading the word, warning people with less
technical insight, there are some things we can do when building services to
help the average user avoid this:

\- Offer at least one properly decentralized authentication option. Do not
force your users to depend on google/facebook/github/whatever authentication
services.

\- Provide a way for registered users to change their email address and/or
authentication method.

\- Even on your backend, try your best to avoid locking yourself in to the
services of a single provider, be it hosting, storage, email or anything. By
doing so, you are not only locking in yourself, but indirectly your users as
well. Prefer open source and self hosted services.

------
ryanmarsh
This is why Apple and Google will eventually become horrible evil companies. I
won't do anything to piss off Google or Apple because my life is stored in
their ecosystems. This, they can get away with being shittier than AT&T.

The financial loss I would sustain if Google locked me out would be
substantial. The emotional loss if Apple locked me out would also be
substantial. My entire personal life is basically in iCloud in some form or
another.

My situation might be a little extreme because I travel constantly and stay in
touch with my family digitally but my tight coupling with a digital ecosystem
will become the norm.

~~~
lloeki
> My entire personal life is basically in iCloud in some form or another.

True enough, only for me it's just not stored _only_ in iCloud, (something
that is cumbersome to accomplish with Google services). If I get locked out of
my iCloud account, everything (that matters) is right there locally on my Mac.

------
DavidWanjiru
Is it legally enforceable for a company to dictate what you can or cannot do
with a phone that you bought from them? Sure, the terms said whatever they
said, but is it enforceable/constitutional? I mean, people sell their phones
all the time for whatever reason.

~~~
taneq
I would have thought the Doctrine of First Sale protects you legally (as in,
they can't _sue you_ for reselling a phone), but I don't think there's any
legal protections on provision of a service.

Bottom line: Never rely on a corporation.

~~~
kevin_b_er
The doctrine of first sale is dead. It died to the copyright cartels. You own
nothing where a copyright is involved. The copyright maintains ownership of
the device, not you.

The courts may have once done something about books with shrinkwrap agreements
forbidding sale, but the same does not apply to software or things containing
software.

------
arkitaip
I would shit bricks if my Google account was suspended. It is the super node
that connects pretty much every other service that I use.

~~~
kinkdr
Then these news should be a wake up call for you.

------
throwaway76543
I recently made a decision to stop running my own mail server, figured it was
long, long overdue to pay someone to handle my email for me.

Stories like this are why I didn't pick gmail for this service, which would
have otherwise been my first choice.

~~~
alistproducer2
Can I ask what your email stack was? I'm working on a project that's a cross
between TOR and bit torrent to provide free (encrypted) email to the masses
that doesn't monetize data. I've been on a crash course of all things email
lately.

~~~
throwaway76543
Ancient, set up maybe 15 years ago. Postfix, spamassassin (which wasn't
effective, spam being the bulk of the problem pun intended), RBLs, and a nice
almost two decade old .procmailrc for categorization.

I'm still in the process of trialling new providers. I'll be using fetchmail
along with my existing procmailrc. The part I'm outsourcing is the spam
filtering and availability on the MX.

------
p2t2p
That is exactly why I transferred my email to paid fastmail account. That is
why I'm gradually resigning from usage of any Google services except search.
That is why I'll never ever buy anything from google.

I had figured out everything when they closed Google Reader. I understood that
they give no flying whatever about their users.

Because you, people, are not their customers. You are their commodity and
advertisers are their customers. So yeah, don't mess with your owner.

update: spelling

~~~
pmyjavec
Try DuckDuckGo, it's really quite good!

------
majewsky
> At a bare minimum Google should have allowed emails to be sent to their
> accounts and not bounce back to the sender as undeliverable during the
> appeal process.

I don't know. When an email is delivered to the destination mail server, that
counts similarly to having a letter delivered to your physical mailbox. The
time of delivery is important for any deadlines mentioned in the letter/email.
If I'm locked out of my Gmail for 4 weeks, and then find a 3-week-old mail
that had a 2-week objection period, I'm out of luck. (Unless I've got a good
attorney and the willingness to defend my case in court.)

Also, when a mail is bounced as undeliverable, the sender will notice that I
won't be able to react to the mail, which might prompt them to contact me on
another mode of communication if the matter is urgent.

------
kinkdr
We have to stop being naive about our email accounts.

My recommendation is to buy a domain name use that as the primary email.

It may cost in total around $100/year but it is definitely worth it.

~~~
relics443
I hear clintonemail.com is available

~~~
relics443
Too soon?

~~~
lern_too_spel
It isn't available.

------
fest
I just did a cursory search for options to backup google account.

The most comprehensive option seems to be
[https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout](https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout),
which offers to save data from almost all google services to a downloadable
ZIP file. That is manual solution though, with no official way to automate.

Other option is to back up data from each service separately with different
tools:

    
    
      * offlineimap for GMail,
      * goobook for Google Contacts (mainly for Android contacts),
      * gdrive for Google Drive.
      * other tools for other services.
    

I'm curious to hear other's thoughts on their experiences with this.

------
brazzledazzle
Could this have been fraud detection automation? I would be shocked if they
didn't at least let you dump the contents of your account and setup temporary
mail forwarding. It's their service and these people didn't follow the rules
but when they ask us to essentially entrust our digital lives to them they owe
even the misbehaving users (as opposed to criminal users) who broke a TOS
agreement something more than just scorched earth tactics.

------
stillAbnormal
But there's one option they didn't mention:

    
    
      DON'T BUY THE GOOGLE PIXEL.
    

I mean, that's the real message I'm getting from all this.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
You mean:

    
    
        DON'T USE ANY GOOGLE SERVICE.

------
mmagin
Reminds me a lot of
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town)

------
vvanders
Slightly OT: Is there something funny going on with this post? 1 hour, 103
points and it's already at the bottom of HN?

~~~
ocdtrekkie
It's often quite stunning how quickly posts showing malpractice by Google
disappears off the front page of HN. I wouldn't dare speculate as to why, but
it's pretty common.

------
pmyjavec
_" Quite frankly it’s scary to think about how much I rely upon Google for
everyday life. Losing everything that I’ve accumulated with Google for the
past 15 years would be devastating."_

It's probably best not to lean on a private entity like Google so heavily.
People are literally giving them their whole lives. I've stopped using
practically all of their services (maybe a search here or there), for this and
many other reasons. I've hardly been inconvenienced at all.

------
woliveirajr
It's gaining media coverage:
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/17/google-
su...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/17/google-suspends-
customer-accounts-for-reselling-pixel-phones)

------
euske
I can't help but wonder how many people had this kind of account suspension
for random reasons? I bet most of them aren't noticed. These people should be
more vocal, because regular folks just have no idea how risky to rely on just
one company for everything they do online.

In future, I'd hope some sort of digital risk management become a common
practice, just like a fire drill or food storage in real life. They should
also be taught in schools.

~~~
jdc0589
I had an account suspended, I still don't know why. It was a generic account
my roomate and I used to manage stuff that we shared at the time. I still have
some stuff hooked up to it. Logged in one day to get my new credentials from
PIA and it was disabled. All I did was open a ticket from the backup account
listed (my main account) asking what the deal was, and....POOF! account
reactivated.

------
Mikho
The same Gmail block happened to me circa 2010 without any explanation. It
just stated that I "may be violated one of the service policies". Lost all
data and access to every service that I didn't remember password for. Since
then:

1\. Use my own domain for email w/ Google apps to be able to reset it to
different mail provider fast if something happens w/ Google access. Office 365
allows to use own domain--while paying for Office and cloud anyway why not
connect own domain to the service.

2\. Never use Facebook etc to authenticate anywhere--the same thing could
happen w/ Facebook access. Access to services should not be directly connected
to social activity. Now always password and email so access to a service could
be easily recovered via email.

------
rsp1984
_1\. Don’t mess around with Google or any company that you simply can’t live
without._

I know a better rule: Organize your life and data so you don't depend on a
company.

Many people forget that Google isn't some sort of official service provided by
the government but a public for-profit company that's largely guided by
shareholder value maximization. While there's no doubt that the latter has big
advantages over the former in many areas, there's a lack of public education
on this matter. People (unfortunately including me) trust Google with so many
kinds of personal data, it's scary.

~~~
kowdermeister
> I know a better rule: Organize your life and data so you don't depend on a
> company.

Quite unfeasible request. You'll meet companies at the end of one line or
another. You have to trust some company. You still need server providers, you
still need a domain name, you still need reliable hardware manufactured by
a... company.

------
bawana
This is a watershed moment for Google. Providing free email service was a way
for them to get lots of data. The goal of course being to learn to massively
scale computer networks, how to maintain them, back them up etc. Your data was
the equivalent of 'cannon fodder' in their secret goal of controlling the
world. Clearly, email has now become a burden. They can get orders of
magnitude more data from the internet of things whose number now exceeds the
human population on this planet. And all these things are talking to each
other, sending data, etc. Our lives are inextricably dependent on these things
- like automobiles, telephones, electricity, factories, etc- When google
learns to optimize these networks, supply chains, distribution channels, etc.
they will control the substrate on which we base our lives. People's
behaviors, choices, values , etc will be manipulated without them even knowing
it. Witness the first and most superficial attempt at this game - facebooks'
'fake news' campaign. Eventually, the AI that will inform these choices will
be so complex that humans will not even know how to recognize it, let alone
stop it.

------
ocdtrekkie
I'd say I'm surprised that Google would lock you out of your own data despite
their claims that you still own your own data, but Google has repeatedly
demonstrated that this is not the case. I would be surprised if any of these
users get their data or their accounts back without involving a lawyer, based
on prior examples. The author says they've contacted the EFF, and hopefully
the EFF will offer assistance.

This is one of the biggest problems with these vertically-integrated
ecosystems, your entire online life becomes managed by a single company, which
can revoke your access at will, effectively deleting your existence from the
Internet. Don't be the sort of person who falls for this. Get a domain you
control, direct mail from it to a mail service controlled by a different
company than the domain. Make sure you have a contingency for issues with
either one. Ideally make sure neither of those services are run by Google.

~~~
manicdee
You own your data, just not the box it is stored in or the gate you pass
through to get to the box.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Much like a landowner owning all of the land around your property cannot
reasonably deny you the right to cross their property to get to yours, I'd
argue if Google does not own your data on their service, they must grant you
access to that data at bare minimum.

I'm not super well versed in the details, but my suggested reading would be
discussion of easement rights:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easement)

------
macinjosh
This just disgusts me. This is the problem with giving everything we rely on
to a for profit corporation like Google, et al.

It's not your data if they can take it away from you. Your data is their
profit center so we should demand more of these companies or simply avoid them
as much as possible.

~~~
jerf
Cheese off the government enough, and they'll freeze _everything_ , bank
accounts, ability to be hired, your freedom to not be in jail, everything, not
just "your account with them".

The problem isn't the "profit" bit, it's the "everything" bit.

~~~
xaa
I agree that the "for profit" bit isn't the problem, it's the sheer size of
Google. Everyone who has been paying attention has watched with dismay as
Apple and "don't be evil" Google (along with other, smaller, actors) have
become increasingly amoral over the last decade. Same goes, of course, for the
government.

I don't see any reason to believe that there's anything other to it than sheer
size: as a company gets larger, it becomes less driven by humans and more
driven by its corporate structure, or whatever.

I use FastMail, and I don't imagine for a second that it would act any more
ethically if it were in the same position of market dominance.

~~~
brongondwana
I'll let you know if we ever get to that point :p

Right now we're very much driven by humans.

------
pksadiq
The good (really, the bad) news is that whatever seems to have happened,
haven't really happened.

No user's data is ever deleted by Google (or any other company) ever, even if
you have deleted your account.

If you run some hosting company, you know it. You have backups and backups of
backups.

Once I contacted a website who frequently SMS'd me to scrub my phone number
and to not do that again. They did it right, but after a few weeks I began
receiving SMS again. Probably they ran into some issues and some of their data
were restored from their backup.

Some companies could even have read-only backups so that they can have their
data saved even in a massive attack.

Some developers have argued me not to ever delete user data. Just mark it is
deleted, and never show it to user again. Having a way to actually delete your
data may be used by some attacker to bring your service down.

~~~
londons_explore
At Googles scale you can be sure that if they didn't delete things they said
they did they would be in big trouble.

In the modern world it isn't acceptable to keep backups indefinitely. Big web
companies keep backups for 14 days. When you close your account, 30 days later
they delete it off the main servers, 44 days later they delete it from the
backups, which might take 4 days in case of a national holiday or strike in
the drive-crushing department, so 48 days.

------
shmerl
Hm. Another lesson - avoid Google for critical accounts. Having your account
handled by someone who can suspend it because they didn't like how you bought
your hardware is simply too risky, besides just how weird it sounds. It
highlights that Google wields too much power over their users.

------
albertTJames
That's it. I will never use google for anything vital anymore.

------
digi_owl
Didn't some kid get their email shut down because they were under the age for
having a G+ account?

It is insane how coarse grained Google is regarding all this. You would think
they could shut down one part of the account without killing the whole
account.

------
addicted
Wow, this is so messed up.

And for doing something that I believe the law mandates companies to allow
their customers to do, i.e. resell their purchases.

------
cammil
I think this would be illegal in the UK due to the Data Protection Act:

Some excerpts from Wikipedia on DPA:

"Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date."

\- Would Google be allowed to discard emails sent to you from others? Would
this constitute personal information?

"Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against
unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental
loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data."

\- Would Google be allowed to prevent access to your personal information?

Seems like the DPA should protect against this...

~~~
LukeB_UK
I believe that personal data in the context of the Data Protection Act means
data about you, so it wouldn't.

------
rebootthesystem
This sort of thing truly needs to run into regulatory force. I don't believe
in government being up our collective skirts for everything but regulation
does have its place and this, I think, would be appropriate use of such power.

And this does not apply to just Google. We've had run-ins with Google,
Facebook and Amazon on different fronts and for different issues. And, in all
cases, our clients had their accounts suspended forever, permanently, done, no
more.

One case happened about six years ago. Google opened-up a product called, if I
remember correctly, "AdSense for Domains". The idea was that, rather than park
your domains with GoDaddy (or whoever) and have GoDaddy earn $0.02 and give
you $0.005 on ads placed on your domains you could, instead, park them
directly with Google and get paid directly.

One of our clients had over 250 domains on GoDaddy. They decided to move them
ALL to Google. The process entailed moving them over to the Google provided
DNS, followed by an automated approval process that took minutes. All 250+
domains got moved and all 250+ domains got approved.

About three days later: "All your Google accounts have been suspended due to
fraudulent activity on your Google for Domains pages". Upon digging, it
appears they claimed excessive clicks on ads. Well, nobody clicked on any of
them. At least not our client. The domains were many years old and were
logging ad clicks on a regular basis when parked with GoDaddy for years. In
other words, normal behavior.

So, Google acted like a totalitarian regime run by an asshole and cut off our
client. All for the $50 a month these parked domains were going to earn him.
What really sucked was that his AdWords account got rolled into that as well,
so they lost all ability to use AdWords to promote their legitimate business.
No appeal. No email. No way to communicate.

Can't get more despicable than that.

Oh, wait, you can!

A different client. They had been advertising their products on Facebook with
some results. Nothing great, but they were learning. Their product, for women,
featured images of a woman wearing a normal bikini. No, nothing racy, just a
normal looking bikini worn by a model. Facebook flagged the ads as
inappropriate despite the fact that, during the same period of time, you could
regularly see half-naked Victoria's Secret ads on FB all the time. So these
guys, not wanting to get into trouble, changed-up their ads to simple
graphics. No problem.

About six months later they decide to take advantage of a lucrative affiliate
program for a business course. They decided on a budget and started to
advertise it on FB. No scam, a course tens of thousands of people had taken.
Legit through and through. About a week into this FB emails: "Your advertising
account has been suspended permanently." No reason given.

They reached out to FB with their appeal form. No reply. Tried again. Snotty
reply saying "Please consider this decision final. This will be our last
communication".

And so, this company, a valuable and upstanding member of society, is now
cutoff from advertising on Facebook forever. Done. For life.

This, in no uncertain terms, is pure highly refined bullshit totalitarian
crap. This is NOT how business is done outside of the realm of games played by
petulant children. It is disgusting, to say the least.

In the real world business people engage in conversations to find common
ground. If a magazine doesn't like your ads, the editor will discuss them with
you and seek modifications. They don't cut you off for life. That's some
violent bullshit there.

No, I think it's high time the likes of Google and Facebook visit the
receiving end of a good government style reaming. I'm so sick of it I am more
than willing to get the ball rolling. What's the best course of action? Any
law firms who read HN interested in a nice fat class action lawsuit?

Consumers can't be treated like this. It has been going on for many years.
High time we put an end to it. Any takers?

~~~
sacradix
I don't know if it's so much attributable to malice as it is that it's their
business model of working hard to satisfy the 99% but neglecting the concerns
of the 1% that cause trouble and take up a lot of labor without yielding
commensurate return to the bottom line. I don't know if regulation is the
solution, but at the least, we should be mindful of this and try to arrange
their lives to be anti-fragile to these unexpected shocks.

~~~
rebootthesystem
I am going to be harsh here. It's not malice. It's the lack of an education.
No, I am not talking about college.

I am talking about manners, caring, being considerate, respectful and not
insolent, petulant and completely oblivious to what human decency and respect
entail.

Places like Facebook are almost entirely populated by a generation of young
people who are intellectually smart yet socially vacuous to an unbelievable
extent. It is an insolent, immature generation where 27 year olds can actually
behave like my 9 year old's do, or worst. And, in many ways, it's like Vulcans
with shitty attitudes. No human part at all. An empty logic machine operating
with a flawed and fucked-up version of logic they have created.

That's what's going on. They now rule the world and have very little in the
way of human decency within them as a guide. And, of course, through intense
age discrimination there are no adults to teach them how to behave in the face
of real human beings, with real lives, kids, businesses, problems, bills to
pay, concerns and needs.

This is the only context within which a person could possibly decide it is OK
to utterly destroy someone's income without as much as a conversation.

And, since they don't seem very interested in correcting their behavior (or
don't even understand why they should) it might be time to throw the only
possible correcting factor people on the outside can reach for: Government
goons.

It sure feels like it's about time. Too many of these stories out there.

------
wyager
Anyone have any good links on how to host your own email with spam blocking
and such?

~~~
morganvachon
It's incredibly difficult and time consuming. I've found that a good
compromise is to buy a domain name (or use one you already have), and pay for
a reseller hosting account with a reputable service provider. You'll get a
level of customer support that is far above a standard hosting account, full
control over your email settings, and you'll have full root/WHM access to your
account. As a bonus you can spin up a website whenever you want for testing or
production, and make back your monthly fees by selling webspace to a single
client. It sounds like a lot to just have good managed email, but I only pay
about $15/month for the reseller account, barely more than a regular hosted
account.

I went with A Small Orange, they have incredible support and they stay on top
of abuse reports so their emails servers never get blacklisted. I've also used
Tiger Technologies in the past and they are superb as well.

With that said, I'm still considering replacing Gmail with something like
Fastmail even though I'm satisfied with the email service from ASO. Having a
web-based account outside the reseller hosting umbrella makes two-factor auth
a lot easier to manage.

------
chrismcb
Is this even legal? To hide something life this in terms and conditions? It
goes against what most people consider "to purchase"

~~~
quickben
Some things are, some things aren't and yet still get put into EULAs of all
sorts.

------
_pmf_
God help you if you use your Google account to sign in to important services.

------
ap22213
Is it unusual to have such terms in a hardware device? I'm guessing that
Google loses money on the hardware but makes up the difference in other ways
(i.e. personal data, etc). But, other industries use the same model without
such terms. Are they trying to lock down identity so that it almost always has
a one-to-one relationship with the device?

------
CJKinni
I've been thinking a lot about my personal dependencies, and how I can
mitigate points of failure. The mental exercise I've been going through is
basically imagining Netflix's Chaos Monkey [1] running loose on my life.

How can I be resiliant to data loss? Job loss? Cognitive loss? There are ways
I can mitigate these risks, and some ways I can test to see if my mitigation
strategies will work in practice. But how do I do that without devoting my
life to it?

It's nice to dream of some kind of antifragile existance going forward, but
for now the easy conclusions tend to come down to the 'two is one and one is
none' variety. Backup everything I can, including but certainly not limited to
my data and services.

[1]: [http://techblog.netflix.com/2012/07/chaos-monkey-released-
in...](http://techblog.netflix.com/2012/07/chaos-monkey-released-into-
wild.html)

------
dingo_bat
Wait you have to have a Google account just to order a pixel phone? How dumb
would you have to be to do that when you're doing shady reselling deals? But
this is why I distrust any online transaction that cannot be done without a
guest account unless there's some solid reason. There's no such reason for
buying a phone.

~~~
whyagaindavid
100 % agree. They tried to outsmart Google and got outsmarted!

------
darreld
Being locked out of my Gmail account is something I have worried about in the
past. I have moved all essential email traffic to a domain I control. I do
worry about my wife and her photos though. She uses Apple photos primarily but
syncs them to Google Photos.

Is there an open-source cloud photo-management solution like Nextcloud or
something?

------
aRationalMoose
This is a cautionary tale for those who buy solely into one eco-system. I know
the convenience makes it tempting, but they control everything and if you do
something they don't like, even unknowingly, you'll pay a price. Amazon too,
has been known to blacklist folks, without warning and with only one chance to
appeal.

------
thinkMOAR
"Don’t mess around with Google or any company that you simply can’t live
without."

If your life/internet usage is that simple i think you might need to take some
computer/internet lessons in learning about alternative services that work
just fine. There is internet beyond google and Facebook.

------
tempestn
I'm mildly uncomfortable with my primary address being outside my control.
(Like most, I use gmail too.) A year or two back I registered stretch.email,
as Stretch is, in fact, my last name. Obviously most of the more common
'stretch' domains are taken, but this one was available and seemed
appropriate. I have since discovered that enough services don't support newer
tlds as to make it basically unusable for authentication purposes.

Anyway, I guess I'll probably end up with mail@[firstname][lastname].com, but
with some disappointment. I suppose I can always keep the .email and just
forward it to the other though.

~~~
matt4077
Strange – I've been using a .coffee domain and haven't run into a problem yet
(although I've only used it maybe 30 times, not adding too many new accounts
these days)

~~~
tempestn
Many things support it, but many don't. I'd say something like 1/4 of the time
I have problems. And often stupid problems, like sign-up works, but
unsubscribe doesn't. _That 's_ frustrating.

~~~
matt4077
Sometimes bugs just happen to be terribly convenient, don't they?

------
facepalm
It's really a problem with Google offering more and more services. On the one
hand it is nice and convenient, but every additional service increased the
risk of everything being lost because of some silly mistake.

------
seanhandley
That's pretty rich, coming from a company that likes to avoid paying taxes.

------
ensiferum
Why would you put your data that matters to something like Google and trust
it?

I keep my data that matters locally on _my_ disk. And a backup of it too on a
removable usb-drive. Call me old fashioned.

------
Animats
This sort of thing is why I don't have an active Google account. I don't feel
the need for one.

(I do worry about dependence on Github, though. Github needs a mirror.)

~~~
romanovcode
Just use Gitlab. It's free and open-source.

------
ac166
Bizarrely I wrote a novel last year about this kind of thing happening in the
future. If anyone wants to read it I'd love some feedback ;)

------
chj
A reminder: I need to migrate my email account away from gmail, one service at
a time. Can't imagine the day when same thing happens.

------
jwtadvice
I lost a Google account for using it to post a combative message on the State
Department's youtube channel.

Google didn't tell me that, of course, but I don't use that particular account
for many things and it was the only thing I used that account for in a long
time.

Likely part of the push by Washington to get information companies to guide
what dialogue is acceptable to post online.

------
xj9
This is precisely why use (and pay) a variety of providers for my services. No
single point of failure AND I am directly a customer.

------
tyingq
Yandex mail is a decent and free alternative. You can even use your own domain
with no charge:
[https://domain.yandex.com/domains_add/](https://domain.yandex.com/domains_add/)

They could, of course, do something similar to what Google did here, but using
your own domain mitigates some of that.

~~~
oridecon
In my experience, Google flags most Yandex (and Zoho) e-mails as spam.

They probably justify it with some "you must train our network to accept your
address" bullshit.

------
tracker1
I think I'd be really in deep sh*t if this happened to me, I have all my
domains under google domains now, not to mention the vast majority of my
email/contacts/sheets etc are all google managed... even with a dump, it would
be excessively difficult to move/recover my accounts on other systems tethered
to my gmail.

------
Jeralt
Does a service exist that compresses your entire Google Account
(GDrive/Docs/Gmail/etc.) to an archive and then uploads it to your Dropbox (or
other cloud storage) account?

I don't want to ditch using Google, I'm too integrated, but I would like to
back up everything to a second source just in case.

------
homero
That's really fucked up of Google

~~~
quickben
Well, what do you expect from an advertising company?

------
oygoogle
Why did they let the order go through and cancel their accounts?! they should
of canceled the order

------
davemel37
Looks like Google is reinstating accounts.

[http://www.slashgear.com/pixel-phone-flipping-scheme-
googles...](http://www.slashgear.com/pixel-phone-flipping-scheme-googles-
statement-on-a-ban-hammer-17464528/)

------
gregn610
What happens with someones 2FA accounts that use google authenticator in this
scenario?

------
pascalxus
Executive summary lesson: don't by a new android phone, especially if it's a
google pixel, or Risk getting your account banned. Good job google, great way
to maintain your customer's confidence.

------
lifeformed
This has always scared me but the risk is low enough that I never feel like
spending the time to figure out how to migrate my gmail account.

Is there a paid service out there that just does it for me automatically?

------
qwertyuiop924
And this, Ladies and Gentlemen, is why you back up all of your files
_locally_.

~~~
djsumdog
But e-mail is more than that. It's how many services authentication/re-
authenticate you. You can't even connect a new computer to your Steam account
without 2-factor. And if all you have is an e-mail account, then you loose
access.

------
ajeet_dhaliwal
If this is true it is very disturbing. I have a Google Apps for Work account,
I wonder if anyone of these people did. They would lose their business email
access.

------
StanislavPetrov
The lesson here is not "don't mess with Google". The lesson here is "don't be
entirely dependent on a corporation".

------
wakkaflokka
Not that I plan to spite Google, but this is one reason I use Google Takout to
download all of my data (photos, email, etc.) periodically.

------
anentropic
This should be illegal

Good grief, I'm off to backup my shit now

------
dvcrn
Maybe a bit of a contrary opinion here but I think Google is in the right. You
break the terms that you agreed no when creating your account, you loose your
account.

I was in a similar situation recently where I lost my adsense account. My
appeal got rejected, and once they made the connection to my other adsense
account which was run by a business entity, they banned that adsense account
as well for violating the terms with creating another adsense account. That it
was linked to a YouTube channel that lost monetization and partner status
didn't matter. That it was not even breaking the terms as it was owned by a
legal entity instead of me as a person didn't matter either. Try to contact a
human to get this mistake out of the way? Impossible.

It's important to know how fragile your entire online existence can be. Plan
for these kind of things and backup often. Don't trust cloud services and have
a emergency strategy ready.

For me, I took control over my domain, moved it to fastmail and would be ready
to rewire the mx records to a different server anytime. My dropbox account is
getting auto-pulled to my NAS at home which is powered by a RAID setup, and
once a week the files are compressed and stored somewhere else. It's setup in
a way that if dropbox deletes a file, the NAS doesn't delete it unless
manually given permission to wipe deleted files. Same goes for Google Music -
all files I buy or upload are getting auto-downloaded to the NAS and securely
stored.

I have multiple Google accounts for different things: Music, YouTube,
Analytics and all services that allow it have multiple account managers setup,
just in case a account is getting terminated and login is no longer possible.

Then I still have 1 google account that I am using as login email for very
important things, just because it's the least likely to get compromised.

After signing up somewhere with OAuth, I also immediately go into the settings
and give myself a password and valid email to not rely on the OAuth provider.

Paranoid? Don't think so. Since knowing that my data is waiting at home for me
and can't just disappear, I am sleeping a lot better. It was a bit annoying to
go from the convenient "my google account is my life" to this solution, but
the ease of mind is so worth it.

------
whyagaindavid
1\. Why is everyone here condoning the act of these people to make _extra_
money?

2\. If you are doing such shady stuff create a new Gmail account and do it

~~~
Figs
Regarding question 1:

(1) Because the First Sale Doctrine is supposed to give people the right to
resell their legally acquired goods. Retaliating against people who resell
something they paid for already is extremely bad form on Google's part, even
if they have found a tortuous way to legally do so.

(2) Regardless of whether Google was justified or legally within their rights
to do so, cutting off people's email with no warning is alarming. Many people
depend on Google's email and data storage services; if they're going to cut
off your access because they don't like what you've done on something
_completely unrelated_ that may be a good sign that _all_ of us should stop
using Google's services while we can still do so gracefully. What if next they
decide that they don't want to continue offering email service to people who
bought an iPhone instead of an Android? Or people who voted for Trump? They
could most likely determine both of those facts if you are using GMail as your
primary email provider...

People here aren't really approving of what those folks out to make a quick
buck were doing specifically -- they're concerned about _the way Google does
business_.

~~~
whyagaindavid
Thanks for (1). BTW, if it makes business sense for the folks to resell mainly
for profit; google can also retaliate in a way they like to respond. This is
like tax-evasion - if you find better accountants/tax-consultants you do
better than your govt. In principle -> these people tried to outsmart Google
-> and got outsmarted.

Not that I am justifying Google's actions.

For (2) I look at it from a different point of view. I am glad that Google did
not cut email for some random Joe - just using a random-number-generator. Only
those that did something which _may_ be hurting their business. please note, I
am not supporting G totally.

> What if next they decide that they don't want to continue offering email
> service to people who bought an iPhone instead of an Android?

But what is your problem then? If they do not offer please move away. It is
the same with apple; unless you have a _actual_ apple hardware you cant open
appleID or even watch apple live product launches.

While I am not condoning Google or apple, it is how they want to do business.

------
TheArcane
I shudder at the prospect of getting my Google account disabled. I'm way too
dependant on it for email, Chrome, and Android.

------
whyagaindavid
The OP should have advised people in the forums, do not use your original
userID with google to mess. Create burner account.

------
fredgrott
This is miss-titled, ity should read Do not mess with Google's Pixel TOS when
buying that device.

------
sabujp
What if you pay google a monthly/yearly fee for gmail? Can they cancel your
account then?

~~~
DrAwesome
Apparently so. On the Google Apps/G Suite (which is basically the paid
business version of Google services, including Gmail) page about restoring a
suspended user
([https://support.google.com/a/answer/1110339](https://support.google.com/a/answer/1110339)),
"You can’t restore an account that was suspended for abuse or for breaching
the Google Terms of Service. To see why a user was suspended, click the
exclamation on their account page for an error message. Then see below for
your corresponding recovery options."

------
lubujackson
Taking the "no" out of "Do no evil". Now it's 33% more efficient!

~~~
morganvachon
The phrase is "don't be evil", so it's actually "don't" they should excise.

------
whyagaindavid
is there a google IFTTT that will copy all data from Google to say One drive
-everynight?

------
known
"If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving,
subsidize it." \--Reagan

------
m0llusk
Better yet: Don't do business with fascists.

------
mendelk
TL;DR: At least 200 people participated in a scheme in which they purchased
(multiple) Pixel phones and had them shipped to a dealer in NH for resale to
others, in contravention of the Google ToS.

In response, Google suspended all their accounts, without the option to
download any their stuff, including email and drive data, etc.

~~~
hackits
My response to Google deleting peoples email accounts.

Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work: This makes me laugh my ass
off. This is a bit of a pet peeve I have with people and modern technology.
They believe they have a right to use a service even though they're not paying
for the usage of the service. Then they turn around shocked and angry when the
free service is removed. `Why! why did they do this to me, this is the biggest
injustice! How un-professional of them!`. Kind of like the dicussion I have
with my collegues that `shouldn't you know.... support the open source
frameworks we use to make money with?`... `Why would we do that?` ... Kind of
leaves me speachless.

~~~
Hnrobert42
Someone losing a decade of work makes you laugh your ass off?

~~~
hackits
Yes, when a simple usb hard disk drive could of saved all his work.

------
tiatia
"1\. Don’t mess around with Google or any company that you simply can’t live
without."

Wrong. Get off of google ASAP. I have my own email. Yes I pay, yes it is a
little bit less convenient. But I don't have to worry about such stuff. I
still use the search engine but should actually use startpage.com instead.

Gandi offers Email with domains. If you have your own domain and need email
services, you can also use this guys:
[http://infomaniak.ch/](http://infomaniak.ch/) Less than US$20 per year. And
non EU non US jurisdiction as a bonus.

There are python scripts available that back up your google email data via
IMAP. I downloaded everything before I moved.

------
vacri
It is beyond shitty that the notification mail doesn't even give a clue as to
what the violation was. It's a bit hard to mount an appeal against a genuine
mistake if you're clueless as to what that mistake was.

------
kutkloon7
"Ignorance of the terms isn’t an excuse, so be sure to read them." I stopped
reading after this sentence.

The American legal system is so stuck-up and disconnected from reality it
would be funny if people wouldn't be screwed by it so often. Lawyers are given
way, way to much power and common sense seems to be dead. Lawyers are paid
humongous amounts of money for simple tasks, while big companies can and will
pretty much screw whoever they like.

------
Kenji
_Some people had family photos saved in their drive that are now lost. It’s
the 21st century version of losing priceless mementos in a house fire._

...I feel no pity for them. That's what backups are for. Real backups. Like,
on HDDs that you have in your hands. It has never been cheaper to back up data
than today.

------
mikebay
I really hope people would stop using google. It's quite scary how people
trust these liar companies, that definitely are not your friend. Alternatives
needed from nicer companies..

------
vuanotino
This is so low and childish that I am sure only Google could do something like
this.

~~~
dang
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here, and especially not vitriolic
ones. Throwing acid around is damaging to the kind of discussion we're hoping
for.

------
oygoogle
Why did they let the order go through and cancel their accounts?! they should
of canceled the order

~~~
stefek99
Good thinking, same here.

------
bitmapbrother
>Don’t Mess with The Google

What a bunch of scammers. Not only did they deprive people that actually
wanted the phones for their personal use, but they also engaged in a
coordinated effort to profit from them.

~~~
Singletoned
> What a bunch of scammers. Not only did they deprive people that actually
> wanted the phones for their personal use, but they also engaged in a
> coordinated effort to profit from them.

That's pretty harsh. They weren't depriving anyone of anything. Selling the
phone on means that someone who wants one for personal use, gets one. And
there's nothing inherently immoral about coordinated efforts to make a profit.
That's what businesses are after all.

------
relics443
Just curious here, but why are people outraged over this? They clearly
violated Google's policy, and there were repercussions. Those rules are there
to protect Google; perhaps their only legal recourse to cover themselves after
a rule violation is to suspend the account?

~~~
addicted
What if your landlord cut off access to your apartment, and everything inside,
because you happened to have 3 guests visit and stay with you this month,
instead of the 2 allowed by the lease? Would that be okay with you?

And that wouldn't even be as bad as this, because a lease is a far more
legally applicable document unlike TOS's which no one reads. Further, at least
your violation there is related to your apartment. The TOS being violated here
was for a hardware device that isn't the service being disrupted. And the
worst part is that the act that was in violation is one that governments want
to encourage, to the point that owners are protected from being sued. Since
Google can't attack them the ordinary way, they are using their leverage on
those users with their other products to prevent them from conducting this
act.

This whole thing is terrible in many ways.

~~~
tw04
What if your "landlord" (and by landlord I mean your buddy who is letting you
stay in his apartment complex free of charge other than making you read
through the occasional newspaper flier) cut off access to your apartment, and
everything inside, because you happened to have a raging house party that
encompassed the entire 20th floor of his building. None of those apartments
were occupied so you just broke down the doors and let people run wild. They
destroyed pretty much every apartment on the floor.

Would you expect that to happen? Would you want a lot of sympathy from other
people because he just cut you off without prior warning? No?

The whole thing is terrible only in the way that people like this and the
dealer who buy up products that are high in demand and low in supply are the
scum of the earth. They provide absolutely no value to the supply chain and
make life more difficult for honest buyers.

~~~
snowwrestler
Even under the worst lease violations you can think of, it is illegal for a
landlord to keep your stuff. They can throw it out on the curb, but they
cannot keep it.

Google not only cut off services, they cut off access to remove users'
content. I don't see how that is defensible.

~~~
tw04
They cut off access to a COPY of a users content. They didn't TAKE anything
from a user. If, in 2016, you're relying on a free service as your only copy
of important data, you're a fool.

Countless governments across the world could literally, without any notice,
delete all of your data at the drop of a hat on ANY public service. See:
megaupload. It's not the job of a free service provider, who literally makes
_0_ promises of data integrity, to provide you unlimited access to your data
until the end of time.

~~~
snowwrestler
"You don't need to worry about keeping your data anywhere else" is the heart
of Google's pitch for all their services, including Gmail, Docs, Drive, and
most recently Photos. I mean, the ads for Photos are literally people feeling
better knowing that their stuff is safely stored with Google.

It seems reasonable to hold Google responsible for what they say.

~~~
chebum
Google quite frequently lose photos people store with their services:
[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/photos/QuKiYj...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/photos/QuKiYjKCXPM)
[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/photos/bNSFIy...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/photos/bNSFIy0Mx0Q)
[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/photos/7Xf0Cj6_...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/photos/7Xf0Cj6_ixU/1JbVu4fbCAAJ)
[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/maps/njdwFPaq...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/maps/njdwFPaqSeo)

Personally, I lost photos of my kid's Sep 1.

------
stefek99
I ratified peace treaty with Google - I trust their service more than my
ability do properly configure backups and servers.

Example here? Someone abusing T&C and making profit on their phones... It's
just like printing counterfeit money, stealing profit from the gov. No wonder
why they got unhappy.

