Just read this and was very surprised at how heavy handed and unrelenting and non transparent google is. It makes me fear for my online life since all my emails run through gmail.
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Sounds like some heavy handed compliance agent somewhere pressed a button, ticked a box, and set off a chain of ridiculous consequences.
That Google would remain unresponsive to one of their partners in these circumstances is the bit that irritates me the most. At least acknowledge that you’re aware of the problem, and working on resolving it.
Don’t be evil. Right.
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It’s very worrying that you can easily lose your email address. My email address is linked to everything.
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I think it’s more likely some “AI” (read: kak script) that flagged the account with little to no human intervention. It is really worrying! Selfhosting keeps looking better and better.
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They got rid of that a while ago didn’t they?
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They replaced it with the more generic “Do the right thing” (which still flies in the face of this situation) at Alphabet. The original line was retained in the Google code of conduct, and moved to the end of that.
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I mean, one guy got screwed over for something we don’t know what. He might have been doing something with his accounts that got it triggered by the Google AI system, or perhaps he did something intentionally that we’re not aware of, because we only have one side of the story.
Sure its super scary to think about what would happen if your Google account got lost of locked, but I mean the same thing can happen with your Steam account. Or your Microsoft account. Or your Facebook, Twitter, email or any other account you have online.\
Suffice to say if you live online, you are equally susceptible to losing mountains of data close and dear to you. While Google might be a big data hoarder, this can happen to ANY account.
I’m not being a Google apologist here, just saying that “The exposure of big brother google for what it is” is hyperbole and any massive tech company can screw you just as hard.
The solution, sell all your devices that has an internet connection, buy a wood shack in the forest and live off the land. That’ll show big brother…
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100% agree.
Also this guy now has an idea of how Trump feels…
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Good point!
Disagree with the analogy.
Google cut Spinks off from essential services and data that he needed to run his business. From the sounds of it they nuked his YouTube channel too. They crippled him.
Neither Twitter nor Facebook have nearly that power (unless for some reason you sell exclusively through Facebook marketplace). That’s not to say that Facebook doesn’t have power, but what was done to Spinks—relatively speaking—was far more severe.
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Given how broadly Youtube/Google interprets their own community guidelines, I think it is more likely that someone at Google just didn’t like him and banned him (wouldn’t be the first time). Personally I’ve never been a Google fan but it is insane to think that they ban your whole service stack at google for “violating” a Youtube guideline.
Having your email account blocked isn’t really the same as getting your twitter, steam, etc. accounts blocked. The email address forms the core / basis for all the other accounts, it is like part of your identity. With the other accounts you only lose access to one “service”.
I only have a gmail address for the purpose of having my smartphone connected and synced, but it is a secondary email address. We’ve got our own domain so I own my email address regardless of who hosts it. Also I have Outlook that I use for my emails so I have mailbox archives going back to 2000 
.
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Haha yeah I was being somewhat facetious there. Agree that it is a totally different situation.
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At least with Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and such you have support that you can contact.
I read horror stories this last week where people’s Google accounts were closed and there were no way to contact Google. They force you to make use of their forums and then it’s just a bunch of people complaining to no avail.
And lots of people don’t know why their accounts were closed or their accounts were closed for crazy reasons.
I should just move everything at gmail over to my own domain email to be on the safe side.
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Have you tried getting in contact with Facebook? It’s non existent. My account was hacked and I lost access to it, their automated response is to try and log into it.
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That’s bad, I thought they had support.
The only one of those companies that I know for a fact that have real people you can talk to is Microsoft since I’ve had to contact them a couple of times during my life. And their support have been great.
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Ya, I have to agree with that. I’ve received a couple of callbacks from them and they’ve always been super professional and helpful.
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Shoo you taking a chance saying you not a google fan. lol.
Next thing you know, you have no access to the MEW community forum. haha
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I read a comment on one of these reports about Spinks from someone claiming they had the same problem with Microsoft. Thing is, you just don’t know with anonymous commenters because they could have hacked or cheated on Xbox and got their account banned that way.
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An update on this saga:
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