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How Google Killing Accounts Can Leave Androids Orphaned
jfruhlinger writes "As we've heard in cases of pseudonym-users in Google+, or in the case of Dylan Marcheschi that went viral last week, Google can kill your account at any time — and since Google is keen on tying your account to its entire range of services, that means you could lose data stored everywhere from Gmail to Picasa. Blogger Dan Tynan examined one particular aspect of this problem — namely, the plight of someone who's been Google-executed and who uses an Android phone."
Google doesn't suspend Gmail and Picasa when it disables Google+ profile, only Google+ and unfortunately Google Reader gets suspended. And in case of Dylan - well, just don't put anything resembling child porno in Picasa, and you'd be ok.
And then every purchased market app suddenly goes byebye...
A few days ago my account was suddenly suspended - with vague references to breaking T&Cs. I had done nothing new with the account bar signing up to Google+ and was using my real name for the profile. ALL my Google services were blocked (at the account level).
I submitted a query and the following day the account was reinstated - again without explanation of what had happened or why. While that is obviously a 'good thing' the lack of explanation means I have no way of knowing if it will happen again.
It is completely bass-ackwards for them to lock access to one service on the basis of your apparent - unproven, inexplained - indiscretions on another. It would be a simple situation to resolve - flagging the service as disabled not the user - if they wanted to.
Stopped me recommending Google+ to anyone anyway. It now gets a "don't bother you might lose your account".
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