Slashdot Mirror
Google+ Account Suspensions Over ToS Drawing Fire
ideonexus writes "Reports of Google+ deleting user accounts are all over, including Limor Fried — AKA Lady Ada / Adafruit Industries (recently featured in Wired Magazine) and former Google employee Kirrily 'Skud' Robert for violating Google's identity ToS. Other users are finding themselves locked out of their accounts without an explanation of how they violated the ToS. The worst part for these individuals is that a lock-out of Google+ includes being locked out of all Google services, including email, calendar, and documents."
would get his account suspended, too...
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I've been locked in Google+ for a week now....please send help...running low on air...heeeellllllppppp!
There have been some claims that this is an example Google being evil but this seems more like incompetence and hamfistedness than evil. This would be silly and minor if not for the reports that some of these people can't access their other Google products they use. Many people use gmail for their primary email. If any of these people use it for business they could be actively losing money from this. But this does lead to two basic lessons which are apparently not repeated enough: First, when you use a free service you get what you paid for. Second, backing things up is always a good idea.
You know for all of Facebook's privacy infringement, there is one ace in the sleeve Google+ has over their users that Facebook does not: Gmail.
...and they don't make exceptions to celebrities? I think if Google allowed some people to have fake identities and some not, this same article would be front page Slashdot and the haters will still be hatin'
mov ah, 4ch
int 21h
Lets not forget that Facebook has been deactivating user accounts on the suspicion that they're using an alias for many years, they have a small dictionary of banned names to do this automatically. Have a unique first name like "Husky Smithson"? Too bad.
Only difference is Facebook accounts are not also used for email and other essential services.
Getting all your services from one company sure is convenient until you have problems with one part of their service but not the other.
Like getting you Internet shut off because you are in dispute with the cell phone devision. We don't learn shit from history.
Kobnyc in TFA comments:
"The article refers to deletions "en masse" and "striking number" and "dam had burst" etc but nowhere provides any hard or soft numbers to go with these clearly inflammatory adjectives."
I, too, want some numbers.
The worst part for these individuals is that a lock-out of Google+ includes being locked out of all Google services, including email, calendar, and documents.
Which is why it's always important avoid concentrating your services in just one provider.
Lady Ada's account was restored yesterday. https://plus.google.com/108772200278976934119/posts
-dammit!
its a good way to lose business. google should congratulate the morons running these policies. they killed google+ before it started for me.
and on another note, this situation basically drew my attention to the fact that relying on google is not a good thing.
Read radical news here
Dealing with invididual eggs is just too cumbersome.
So instead, I carry all in one large basket.
What could possibly go wrong?
I wonder how g+ can know if a name is real or not. I mean, it is obious that "lady ada" is a pseudonym, but what if someone was called bya peculiar and also strange name? how would g+ handle that?
I think google is too afraid that its social network will be used for nefarious purposes. I think Google worries too much: possibly evil people will register with a name as realisitc as possible, but it will not be their real name, while many legitimate users that go by their pseuodyms will suffer.
G+ also does not let you login from the same ip address twice, from what I see so far. How can this work for families with many members but only one computef? or machines shared by different people in different shifts in a business setting?
...is that they both had their handles as part of their name, in quotes, on their profile. It would be interesting to see what proportion of locked accounts have handles embedded in their real name.
Makes me reconsider if I wish to use it. If Google shut down my G+ account, or Facebook shut down my account or the like I'd lose no sleep over it. I really am not in to social networking and I think it is mostly a silly way for people to waste time at work (I've got better ways to waste time at work, like Slashdot :). However I would be rather angry if my G-mail account was shut down. I have a lot of important things directed to it and it would be rather inconvenient if shut down.
I signed up because friends invited me. I'll have to think if I want to stay signed up as G+ is just something silly to keep my friends happy, G-mail is something I use a lot and I don't want one to risk the other.
I read the article and the biggest and most fearful thing that many people who were affected by this was that all of their Google services, including Gmail were affected and disabled.
I only use Gmail for e-mail functionality because it is free and convenient and it is my primary e-mail address that has stayed universal through ISP changes and moves. I was quite well aware of Google's privacy policy and advertisement angle along with the fact that all of them will be available forever to Google, before I signed up to Gmail and have been weary every since. The offer of convenient, free, reliable, spam-free, managed by someone else, and universally accepted Gmail account had a lot of benefits since I didn't have to buy my own domain, maintain my own e-mail server, and deal with spam filtering
I still haven't been burned by Gmail but I'm now wondering that since Google has become such a large entity it is surely going to suffer the fate of a behemoth afflicted by blind bureaucracy and the e-mails that they have forever will somehow get out to agencies, companies, or people who I don't want them to see.
I'm going to seriously look into the technical and logical feasibility of install a mail server on my Linux box in my house which is going to require that I manage my own services and spam filtering along with dealing with the hoops of trying to run a mail server behind an ISP with my own domain name.
mods before you mark this a troll, please consider my point carefully as it has validity.
the people in question would not have ToS violations for their names if they had put their real names in the "real name" fields and their nickname/alias in the "nickname" field.
Kirrily "Skud" Robert is not his real name. Kirrily Robert is his real name and Skud is his nickname.
Limor Fried “Ladyada” is not a real name but Limor Fried is.
While heavy-handed and without warning, these users did actually violate the ToS. That said, it seems Google should inform users that adding their nickname to their real name is not ok.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I still have a shitload of unknown people blocked on buzz because they don't let you poll your contacts.
Though I don't have G+ or Adsense etc, after reading this, Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life (http://consumerist.com/2011/07/google-deletes-last-7-years-of-users-digital-life-shrugs.html), I've started taking gmail, gdocs backups.
Gmail : http://www.gmail-backup.com/
Google Docs: http://code.google.com/p/gdocbackup/downloads/list
Though the ideal solution would be to have your own domain. I got mine, a .me from Namecheap for $7.49 just a few weeks ago and using it with free Windows Live (http://domains.live.com/) for email (and you can have 500 emails, 25GB Skydrive, 5GB synced storage etc), which I can change anytime I want by changing MX records at Namecheap.
"If a Web site demands that you give them your real phone number so that they can call you up to verify who you are, in order to use their "free" services, then that "free" service isn't worth using."
Really? Because I've had China hack my GMail a couple of times, and they couldn't get access because the confirmation call went to my phone number.
Granted that's a bit of a pain because they like to assume you have text capabilities (I have to use their voice cal) but it definitely stopped some illegitimate access to some sensitive design documents.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
So this is just like they've been locking up AdSense accounts, with no reason and no information given, with (sometimes lots of) money on them? Just a lot less serious.
Moreover, I can only ascribe the suggestion that his account be suspended merely on grounds of him being deceased to the most blatant vitalism.
I hear that Verizon at least acts as an equal-opportunity provider in this respect. Especially if the account is on direct-debit.
If there are security reasons that you as a customer would want Google (et al) to verify your phone number and ID then they can always make it optional.
So far, the (public) Internet has survived for over two decades without much problem being a largely anonymous service. There is no good (overwhelming reason) why it should be degraded into a corporate/government spy mechanism.
This is a pretty absurd thing, and I don't want to take the risk to fall into the same trap.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Trading modest convenience for the a greatly increased risk of service disruption.
Of course, while you're all worried about that, no-one is talking about the modest convenience of Google+ being able to hide your drunken weekend party photos from your boss being traded for the risk that the Big G gets to know everything about you and track your current whereabouts via your phone.
I thought I would let everyone know one thing I noticed since google plus launched is that you can't change the primary email address on your google account. So if you created a google account not using the email address you normally use and instead say a gmail address then you will have a problem. As Google plus sends all its notifications to your primary email address (you cant change this either) you cant use it properly. Make sure if you create a google plus account you use a google account that has a primary address you monitor often as you cant change it later.
Funny and Interesting things from all around the net
I won't be getting a Google+ account. I don't care whether this is doing evil or sheer incompetence (I'm betting on the latter), but to lose access to all Google-related services especially Gmail, is complete and utter BS. The fact that a company the size of Google can get by without any sort of customer service is beyond me.
The only answer.
Don't like the policies of the node? Leave. You lose nothing - and your friends can freely follow too.
I have no sympathy for those who buy into these closed "networks" -- and a Data Liberation Tool is no substitute for actual openness.
Please stop posting any news articles that are written by violet blue. She poses as a journalist when all she writes is op-ed.
Seriously, the less people wasting time reading her articles the better technology will be.
This is why Federated Services Rock!
Centralized services blow.
Google can do whatever they like. They alway could. They are like a drug dealer gaining users by giving away the first "taste." You've known this all along.
Facebook is worse that Google because to use it in the most useful way, you have to bring 200 of your friends with you. I don't have any friends on Facebook - on purpose. The social links scare me. Those associations are simply too powerful to be allowed in advertising companies.
Google and Facebook and LinkedIn are never cross connected either. All that data together would be soo scary - but that is the holy grail for advertisers. That's what they want to know ... er ... everything about you AND your friends.
You've known this for years. Put it together and be smarter about this stuff.
In another comment someone called Facebook "essential services" - talk about an idiot. There is NOTHING essential about facebook. I know this since I have a facebook account and only use it to redirect people to other, federated services hosted elsewhere.
I wonder if we should start to worry for Pussypopptimus Prime? It would be sad to see her go! She is, as she says, "the ALPHA and OMEGA in this crazy ass thing called life" after all. Her about page: https://plus.google.com/112816236983095089898/about
(originally found by Xeni Jardin from Boing Boing)
as I wrote yesterday:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2343964&cid=36854874
this kind of integration has the potential to disrupt other services you use. Logged in the news search is now totally broken, showing only a tiny fraction of the results I got before, while logged out, it continues to work just fine. The mystery as to what is causing this and how it can be solved has yet to be solved, but it probably has a lot to do with a large company thinking it knows what's best for you based on where you create your account/where you use your account regardless of language settings, the site you actually try to use, etc.
used for email and other essential services
Seriously, having one email address is just as dumb as only having one front-door key. If you lose it you're screwed. Everybody with any sense or experience has more than one, a backup, a fallback. In fact the more email accounts you have the greater is your ability to tip the social media power in your favour, rather than the advertisers.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
In today's world of free email it sounds silly to pay for personal email but I would happily pay $20-$50 a year for an email account if I was assured that if I had problem with my account or get locked out, I can actually call a customer support number and talk to a human who will help me with the problem. I know Yahoo offers premium email service for $35 a year. What I don't know is there is any customer support associated with it (if there is it is likely to be better than Google's as the latter doesn't have any at all).
I've always hated the way google are forcing you to create one login all over the place, its bad and evil of them.
(Note to fools: Yeah, you could create different google accounts, but then you have to login and out all the time in one hell of a logout circus, something you wouldn't have to do if it was with different companies not using a global login)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
You get up tomorrow and log into GMail. You can't get in. Your account is locked. Your mail, calendar, documents — all gone. What do you do now?
Remember that Google has no customer service, even for paying customers. If your account is locked for any reason, spurious or not, you're utterly fucked.
I keep a regular backup of my GMail. The official interface is IMAP, but GMail's IMAP implementation is really flaky (e.g. Thunderbird or mail.app won't suck everything down). The way to do this that actually works is with OfflineIMAP. It's command-line and geeky, but by crikey it works.
Using it on Ubuntu or Debian is absurdly simple:
This will create a folder with all your mail in it, in mbox format (readable plain text). You will have duplicate messages in different folders. I'm just doing this to get an archive, so zipped the result.
GMail's IMAP interface is subtly broken, to the point where it can crash offlineimap. Just start it running again, repeat as often as necessary. (If you like, get a more current version.)
GMail is still the best email interface I've ever used, and I wish Thunderbird would just get the hint and clone it to the last detail. But this way I also have all my stuff myself, just because I can.
I haven't tried this on a Mac or Windows. Could someone do this and write up instructions?
For other Google services, you can get your data from Google Takeout. While your account's not locked.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
.... individuals is that a lock-out of Google+ includes being locked out of all Google services, including email, calendar, and documents."
So how's that fucking Cloudy thingy working out for you now?
My email, calendar, and documents are thoroughly backed up, and though I use online email if it were lost tomorrow I can get more email addresses and alert my contact list easily.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
A friend of mine had some twat post a blog on Google's Blogger, using their name and photo, impersonating them, claiming that they are the "number one pedophile rights activist" and other such things in that vein. He has been hounded by social services and questioned about it by his son's school (a picture of his son also features on the blog). If you Google his name, that blog is the first result.
This friend has now spent over a year trying to get Google to remove this blog. Despite being a clear victim of vindictive impersonation, and despite him REPEATEDLY faxing in copies of his driver's license and such as per Google's impersonation policy, it's still up there. And as previously noted, it has affected his wife and kid before, to the point of nearly getting his son taken away. And Google won't do anything.
Funny how when they're trying to launch a whole new social network, they suddenly spring into action.
I write bullshit
Google could be running the world, they're just too damn incompetent.
Gmail's user interface is fine if you check your e-mail address only from computers permanently connected to the Internet. But if you like to use e-mail while on the road, and you don't pay a luxury price for mobile broadband, then you have what's called an "intermittent connection to the Internet", and you need a way to read e-mail while offline. According to this page, Gmail's offline support wasn't working with Chrome, IE 9, or Firefox 5 two months ago.
Social networks = strangers spying on your life and selling that information to others. Eventually companies like Facebook and Twitter will just end up as the next big bubble. Facebook is a perfect example of this. Their revenue for 2010 was close to 2 billion dollars but Since Goldman Sachs gave them money they are now "supposedly" valued at 50 billion. WTF!! Are they using the social network as a cover for a large counterfiet ring? It's all hype and there's no reason a company like this should be valued this high. Goldman Sachs = hump and dump then looking for a bail out. Nothing new here. Move along.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
I've had China hack my GMail a couple of times, and they couldn't get access because the confirmation call went to my phone number. Granted that's a bit of a pain because they like to assume you have text capabilities (I have to use their voice cal) but it definitely stopped some illegitimate access to some sensitive design documents.
But google has access to your sensitive design documents because they're in gmail?
There was a reason why people wanted their own PCs instead of relying on mainframe access.
You mean 'no mainframes at home'?
You keep your data in the cloud because looking for a decentralized way seems too much work. Now live with the consequences. (And yes, this is the logical consequence, not just a glitch.)
You should save this argument for a naturally occurring event (i.e. going out of business) instead of an isolated case of policy-based-asshattery. I get that that's the point you're trying to make, but the real issue here is about consolidation of services, not that it's on the 'cloud'.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
OK, this is quite a good scam they have going. They first get you to get an account, which means you agree to give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services (chapter 11, see 11.2 why the limitation in 11.1 doesn't matter for much). Then they throw you out, so they don't even have to provide a service for it.
Not sure what that is called, but amounts to contracting under false pretenses. Could get entertaining.
However, IANAL, but it is mildly amusing to see all those people suddenly realising what "free" actually means..
Google being Google.
A similar thing happened to me back in '08 with my AdWords account. They just made all advertising suddenly cost 10 times the price because certain things they wanted on my website were missing. It took about a year before I got a straight answer so I could make the changes and start advertising again.
I don't know if it's the strong engineering culture, but Google have always been terrible at client services. I love their products, but whenever I have client relationship to them (a.k.a. giving them money), I'm always left severely wanting. It's too bad, because not only do I love their other services, I really appreciate their contributions to the world. I would much rather spend money there then Bing or Yahoo if only they didn't make it so frustrating.
Google needs to mature a bit if they are going to be the world's IT server.
a friend at google sent me an invite a while ago. out of respect for him, I gave it a try.
one hour later, I deleted my profile. it just did not feel right and I have heard about the 'risk' of losing gmail if google 'didnt like you' in some way or another.
they do have TOO MUCH POWER. its our fault for coming to depend on gmail too much. I'm now in the process of migrating OFF gmail but this will take some time.
I could see g+ being nothing but trouble and trying to watch google watching me. no thanks. even for an hour, it felt spooky being part of it.
as soon as I can get off gmail, I'll say goodbye to google services. I already use other search engines. not sure what else there is that I 'need' from google.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Can't tell you why your account was locked, it's top secret. We would have to shoot you after telling you.
It would be bad if I lost my Gmail account but I do have a DRP (Disaster Recovery Plan) for that. I download everything each month via IMAP to have a local backup and for all registrations instead of just using my Gmail address I use an e-mail address in my own domain which redirects to my Gmail address. It would be bad if I lost my Gmail account but I do have a DRP for that.
Question to anyone whose Google account has been suspended (for whatever reason): Is the gmail account still accessible and functional via IMAP4/POP3, or is it a total lock-out?
--Udo.
I think it makes sense. Social networking and anonymity have very small over lap. Google probably wants to serve only those who want social networking without anonymity with some level of privacy controls. As long as they don't block anonymous users from other services, it is not bad.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
This, and other account lock-out issues, are good examples of why Google+ is still an invite only, BETA service. Everyone can calm down now.
Off-topic, but why does the zdnet article use this picture of the Vietnam Memorial (well actually, a picture of a US silver dollar depicting the memorial)? Just because it has a list of names, and the article is about names? Couldn't they have found something a little more appropriate? And it's not like they found the image without knowing what it was, the title on the flickr page clearly states what it is.
We always knew Comcast was corrupt, here's the proof: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1909890&cid=34545432
So... You're evil, huh? It's always something...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
quite an apt comment.
Read radical news here
Why would anyone put their important data on any free SaaS (latest buzzword = "cloud") site? Why would you use gmail for anything other than a spam trap?
What is the disaster recovery plan and SLA for your google data?
Do you think Google makes money by respecting your privacy and making sure your data is always safe and available?
Finally, why would you trust your data to services, even if they were paid and you had some recourse should there be a failure, that are always in beta test?
Also the image acompanying the article is extremely inappropriate, equating mass loss of life during war with losing access to your free google services. I'd have commented on the article's site but you have to register with them to comment, I won't give them free content and spend time registering with my spamtrap google email :).
why the hell aren't you using POP3 for e-mail if you need to read it off line?
To lose my google accounts would be very harmful to my general well being because I have so much work related crap in there, and now I am wondering if that was a good idea at all. Having hundreds of documents in Google Accounts that can just be summarily shut off at a whim is like just leaving your wallet on the sidewalk for safekeeping. I don't like this.
The irony is that Lady Gaga isn't her actual name.
Governments provide a framework for legally recognized aliases: p/k/a (professionally known as) and d/b/a (doing business as).
There are plenty of people named Suparman, and Batman is a city on the Batman River in another Muslim part of the world.
why the hell aren't you using POP3 for e-mail if you need to read it off line?
So we agree. (By "T-bird" in the title I meant Mozilla Thunderbird, a mail user agent supporting IMAP and POP3.)
They'd have to break the encryption on them, first.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Maybe Google should "fucking follow their own terms of service" which says you can use nicknames that you commonly go by.
Liberty in your lifetime
Single sign-on could become an antitrust issue. A single sign-on system which supports sign-on to third-party sites, yet can be arbitrarily turned off by the provider of the sign-on system at their discretion, creates "restraint of trade" issues. Google's sign-on system reaches beyond Google; Zoho, a business email system, accepts Google signons. Facebook's sign-on system reaches far beyond Facebook.
Arguably, single sign on systems should be split off as separate companies to comply with antitrust law. This may come up when Schmidt testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September.
So you don't approve of their evil privacy violating TOS in one app, your personality is applied to all services?
Good luck keeping business with that attitude. Normally companies don't try pulling stunts like that until after they have eradicated the competition.
Don't get me wrong, i do like Google, but this is way out of line. ( so is the original TOS )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The whole TOS suspension for non-real-name thing stopped me in my tracks. What really irks me is that I started to sign up and nowhere did it explicitly say that I couldn't use a pseudonym. Maybe it's because I canceled it when it tried to reassign my Picasa account to the profile - I don't want that to change, thank you.
I've gone by my Nome-de-net of since I first started using the Internet and have used it in my web site since I first registered that in 1998.
There are probably more people who know me by that name or by my SCA name than know me by my "real name". I don't intentionally go out of my way to hide it, but I do normally kind of keep my identities separate (mostly for organizational purposes). I really don't like the idea of directly linking all three on a single profile though.
My family and employer are the only ones who regularly call me by my "real name". Most of my real life friends call me by my SCA name because that's how I was originally introduced to them, and anyone who knows me only on-line knows me by DigitalSorceress. All three are me, and I am the same person / personality throughout,... but I like to keep the distinction as it helps me keep track of "where do you know me from".
The Digital Sorceress
Make that penalty, not personality.. Grrrr!
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The biggest issue is that once someone creates a G+ account, all their existing Google content comes under that account, thus a suspension of the G+ account means goodbye to gmail, YouTube, blogger, Calendar and so on.. all content is disabled and it's almost impossible to get it back (unless you are a celebrity or your story gets published in media).
Sort of hurts people with an android phone ( or tablet ) too..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I mean, locking you out of your account, where you have all of your data?
Sure, the service is free, and they have the right to cancel you at any time ... but cancelling should be giving you all of your data back. Restricting access to your own information doesn't sound very legal to me. A hotel has the right to kick you out, but they need to give you your belongings first. My point is, they should disable all features of your account, but still allow you to log in. Just redirect your log-in to a blank page with a single link ... a link to a zip file containing everything you had stored in there. It doesn't matter if the service is online or offline, free or paid, your data is your data.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
If anyone cares, I've started a Google Detox, and will slowly start quitting their services.
I wrote a bit about it on my site, http://k3rnel.net/2011/07/24/starting-the-google-detox-rsslounge/ and in fact have already quit G+ and Buzz and all (And gave them a link to this Slashdot post as the reason for doing so).
Leaving Gmail will be a gigantic pain in the ass, as most of my other online accounts link to that email address, but I'll get over it in the next few weeks.
Check out Unsealed: Whispers of Wisdom! http://unsealed.k3rnel.net It's an action-RPG about Open Sourcerers.
That is good thinking. there is a lot of whining here but I'm more interested in solutions such as those you mention. I've got a similar setup but I haven't done the IMAP backup. I use to use Eudora, but that eventually died with a failed Hard Drive I stupidly didn't backup (or rather I assumed RAID was an adequate backup strategy)
Someone entrepaneurial could make a good living from a Google backup service no doubt.
My own small experience: My blogger account was once suspended. It was an automatic thing. I presume it happened because a performance art event (we'll call it that for simplicity) I featured on my blog there flagged as something like porn (it was not, but there was a lot of skin shown in pictures and the names and titles were all weird names perhaps as spam sometimes is). There was no warning and I was upset. But I did some googling (LOL) read the forums about people who had blogs automatically flagged by mistake... I wrote a message in a forum somewhere as I was advised to by my research. Within a few days the account was re-instated good as new. It was scary but a good learning experience. Fortunately at that time I was stilll using Eudora and nothing was super crucial during those few days. It it happened now that I'm much more enmeshed with the gmail, docs, tasks, etc etc I would be up the creek. Also, I don't think a less geeky user would as easily be able to complain in the right forum and navigate getting the account unsuspended.
Another solution is to have different (throwaway) accounts on Google for different things such that if one gets suspended the damage is limited. That would be counter to Googles goals for centralising their data on you but if they want to change that they need to factor in the risk of mistaken takedown to the user.
On the other side of the coin:
it must be a real tough job for Google to police and shutdown the thousands of spam accounts setup each day and I really don't envy them --- it is spam that causes them to have overzealous flagging. Given the scope of the problem it's wonderful how they do it with so FEW problems - they are not overwhelmed. But that requires brute force automation to stay on top of. If they are not vigilant enough that is a big problem fast as well.
In the long term I do think Google and all other 'free' online service operators are going to have to evolve a better dispute resolution systems for these spam filter mistakes. Of course then they open themselves up to spam robots attacking the dispute resolution process ;-)
One strategy I think they should look into would be a kind of seperation between different services of theirs so that if there is a flag on your blog or Google+ it only takes down that at first instead of your gmail, youtube, picasa etc.
Stupidity is its own reward.
Google staffers need to read this: Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names
The assumptions Google+ makes about "real names" don't even apply for that many people in Mountain View, California, let alone the full range of people in the global Internet culture. Just for one example, it's common for Javanese people to have just one name, not a first and last name, as in the case of an important figure in modern Indonesian history, Sukarno. That's his entire name.
Holy crap people. Google has been one of the most magnanimous companies out there in regards to what it provides every day Joe and Jane Shmoes like us. It has grown so much that it is unreasonable to expect one of their tens of thousands of new employees to not make a small blip on the otherwise aptly followed "don't do evil" slate of google. Simmer down. Shutting down ALL of your google services because of a google+ mixup couldn't be considered intentional by any rational person.
So much for Google's blog post in February, "The freedom to be who you want to be..." which extolled the "great benefits" of pseudonymity. http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/02/freedom-to-be-who-you-want-to-be.html
Other recent suspensions:
Lists of suspensions:
Examples of Google's double standard and inconsistency:
the JoshMeister on Security
Some people such as "Soulja Boy" (a recording artist) and "Violet Blue" (the author of the linked ZDNet article) get special treatment and have not been suspended for using their pseudonyms on Google+
It turns out that Violet Blue is her real name (my mistake; sorry, Violet!). Reference: https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts/YnzXfbpe9Nj
That actually brings up another problem: people with real names that are unusual or creative who have to live in fear of Google employees mistakenly suspending their accounts!
the JoshMeister on Security
Since Google knows full well that they intend to enforce their TOS terms with automated scripts that will certainly have some residual false positive rate no matter how much they burnish and buff, and they never intend to provide manpower to handle all of the complaints (which potentially includes every account they lock out for legitimate reasons) they need to take a more moderate view on the terms of suspension.
One of the consequences is that you lose access to your own personal information. Google should certainly provide a mechanism for a locked-out user to retrieve a copy of their email and calendar as of the time of lock-out.
An automated system with no human appeal mechanism should not be flirting with disenfranchisement.
I am simply amazed that all the usually "Blame Microsoft" lunatics have not come out in force and blamed them for this outrage. Honestly, if Microsoft had pulled this brain dead move it would have been jumped over by the readers of this forum like a nude virgin in a men's prison. However, since it is Google, it is basically getting a pass.
Google is everything the Microsoft haters have been accusing Microsoft of and worse. I would not trust Google as far as I would trust a pedophile around a young child. They both have the same intentions.
Pigskin-Referee
Linux: Yesterday's technology, tomorrow
> So Google will suspend my social media and email account if I break their TOS.
Google also controls nearly everything that makes ownership of an Android phone worthwhile, and provides SSO to growing numbers of unrelated sites.
The problem isn't so much Google's suspension of Google+ accounts as it is their seemingly indiscriminate willingness to play Judge Dredd, pull out the BFG2000, and incinerate everything in sight on the slightest whim, for any reason or no reason at all. Other companies have poor customer service, but Google has none whatsoever -- not even for paid customers, or customers whose affiliation has generated real revenue for Google even if no actual cash changed hands between Google and the individual. It's almost like they hired executives with Asperger's to write and implement the company's business plan.
I think part of the problem is that Google itself has no grasp of the impact its actions have on the lives and livelihoods of real people. They aren't evil so much as oblivious and indifferent. They're kind of like a moody child with a magic wand, unlimited powers they're barely aware of, a vague sense of chaotic-good morality, and growing history of operating with complete disregard of the trail of collateral damage they leave around them.
That said, the problems of Facebook and/or Twitter suspension DO go a bit beyond social networking, too. Both companies have increasingly positioned themselves as universal "single sign-on" providers (as does Google). In real-world terms, it would be like having your landlord change the locks and dispose of your belongings some random Tuesday afternoon because you made a credit card purchase from somebody in China before work that triggered your bank's fraud algorithm (even if the bank itself has long since unfrozen the account after being satisfied that the purchase was legitimate). In Google's universe, you wouldn't even be told WHY you were locked out, let alone made whole afterward. You'd just be fucked.
A few months ago, I tried uploading a Word document to Google Docs and shared it with some friends. Then I discovered that the import process had damaged the doc, so I deleted it.
I guess because my doc was shared and its removal took it away from my friends, my account was immediately suspended "for suspicious activity." I was locked out of my email and my blog disappeared. The only way back in was to "prove" I'm me by giving Google a telephone number (!), which a hacker (if there had really been one) could have done to take over my identity.
I like the sound of Google+, but I am afraid to try it because there is no telling what minor misstep may get a user locked out of everything at once.
When she first opened her G+ profile, it was under "Adafruit Industries" not under Limor or Lady Ada. This was against Google's policy (remember they told businesses to hold off until they had features rolled out for business users). How do I know that? I had her in my circles and she only changed it over a week/week.5 later. I mention this because this detail doesn't seem to be getting any airplay.
Reply to That ||
For the time being, it never hurts to make backups regularly, as with any other data on your systems. I believe in addition to that, GMail has it's own exporting. I agree with your statements though.
Reply to That ||
There are several things you should be aware of:
1. Google is evil, and will continue being evil because, contrary to what you think:
2. For a mega-corporation, being evil makes good business sense.
If everyone on Google+ has to use their "real name", then how the hell am I gonna find all my real friends?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
"People hold online anonymity up as a virtue and necessity. I say it is the root cause of a social disease, and should be greatly limited." — Matt Greenfield
That is the root of this "holier than thou", aka koolaid, disease. When somebody thinks freedom of speech is evil and needs limitation. Yes, anonymity equals freedom of speech. Otherwise, every post should be 100% public to stamp out hidden grumbling disease; it also begs the question of why do Circles even exist? It also assumes you can trust a "real name" more than any pseudonym. Where's the CV and double-verified references first?
There's a great amount of historical, anonymous authorship, besides old and new revolutions, that back this.
Commingling of all services where one negative affects the others directly has shades of "universal default" that's already been outlawed, besides monopolistic policies. Google already has the ability to track the individual through this "suspension" system so blaming pseudonyms is nothing but a straw-man distraction.
Draconian, Stalinist policies have no place in continued history.
"People hold online anonymity up as a virtue and necessity. I say it is the root cause of a social disease, and should be greatly limited." — Matt Greenfield
This is probably the basis why Google wants only real names. But, they're only lying to themselves in their hubric white-towers: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/
As a user currently caught up in the Purge, I'm very disappointed. Google+ promised they would have a different approach to Privacy than the nosy and intrusive FaceBook. And now a month later Google+ is requiring users to mail in copies of their Government ID in order to be allowed to continue using the service? And even then they won't let users keep their government name private. And what'll it be next month? Maybe a pay stub? At this rate, by wintertime Google will want blood samples and fingerprints. Just so we can look at and share pics of LOL Cats? Who do they think they are?
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -- Philip K. Dick
I want to see this guy http://www.monkeyreview.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/7q824.jpg get an account :)
Shakespeare poems - infinite monkeys with infinite time.Computer tech support - a few trained ones working from 9 to 5.