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It is absolutely true that Google has their support issues, and they should be criticized for them, but...

Do you seriously think there is any other US provider (i.e. subject to US child pornography laws) that would have behaved any better? Given the allegation, it probably was legally risky for Google to keep his data at all. There are laws that criminalize even the "innocent possession" of child pornography. Had things gone another way, I presume Google would have argued they were preserving evidence, but they have to be very, very careful regardless. I'm absolutely certain there are many providers who would have behaved worse (account closed, no comment, no investigation, no appeal, data given to the police then deleted).

In the alternative scenario, many of the things you want Google to do could easily be illegal. After an allegation, any warning, contact or access to data could easily have been construed as aiding and abetting a crime in progress and/or obstruction of justice (particularly by an ambitious, headline-seeking prosecutor). What you don't seem to understand is that, once the allegation was made Google couldn't do squat for @thomasmonopoly without risking criminal charges until they determined the allegation was false. And that determination was going to take time no matter how you slice it.

Personally, I find it hard to think of what Google could do better in this sort of situation. My two suggestions (and I'm not sure they're practical):

1. Commit to manually reviewing every automatic suspension for these kinds of potential criminal allegations.

2. Be clear about when an account is being suspended and investigated versus suspended with a final determination made.




Why not remove/disable the offending material? From what I've read he didn't have any calendar appointments like "Friday 12:30pm Take windowless van to the candy store". Why kill access to completely unrelated services because an automated (possibly error-prone) process flagged a picture?




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