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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?
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.
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 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.
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
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
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