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Google+ Account Suspended? You Won't Find Out Why
jfruh writes "Dan Tynan is a tech writer and blogger who discovered, while trying to post links to his writing on his Google+ profile, that his account had been suspended. This despite the fact that he used his real name and didn't violate the terms of service in any other way. Upon appeal his account was reinstated, just as mysteriously as it was shut down, but along the way he discovered a rash of people with suspended Google+ accounts who can't figure out what they did to anger the Google gods."
Is Google acting like the TSA?
After last week's YouTube story about being prompted to use one's real name, I went to Google+ and deliberately changed my account to a fake name. Go ahead Google, kick me out of your ghost town. It's even less useful than LinkedIn, so nothing of value will be lost.
I'm starting to think that some of these companies are up to something they aren't saying.
Art thou not aware of thine own future? Art thou so evil, one cannot trust thy anymore? Woe is me. Woe is me...
Honest question. How many of those banned users are fabricated by the facebook anti google pr machine?
Mysterious and known moderations (mostly by editors) can't get you comment banned here and for some unknown length of time. As well as mod points given and taken away.
Slashdot does shady stuff like this all the time, why is what google doing news?
Author Dan Tynan has been writing about Internet privacy for the last 3,247 years.
Uh, what?
I move that Google+ should be renamed Google+ RTM. Rush being the key word. Lack of planning and proper procedural modelling.
Attention leftist free software hippies!
Hows that free Obamacare colonoscopy going?
Iran marching toward a nuclear weapon
Egypt and Libya handed over to the Islamists on a silver platter
45% increase in debt.
Regulatory policies strangling business
That perfect health care for all, casuing businesses to not hire and drop coverage to put more people on the dole.
Unemployment above 8%
GDP Growth below 2%
Changed his mind four times on that OBL kill, which was set up by the hardwork of Bush, Bush worked 8 strong, Obama got the save.
Domestic energy production hamstrung, while billions of tax dollars wasted on masturbatory green energy companies, run by his cronies.
A racist running the Justice Department.
Hundreds of Mexican citizens and a US law enforcement officer dead because of Obama/Holder's agenda on guns.
Photo ID laws being challenged because they interfered with typical Democrat voters, the Dead and Illegal Aliens.
Chrysler bondholders screwed out of their money so the UAW could receive a giant wad of cash in the illegal government takeover of the Auto industry.........
Yeah, he's a raving success.
Even Google has bugs!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
No online 'social' network will ever tell you why, I'm not sure why this is, but the only thing I can think of is "well we got the money and it's a 'free' service, so let them F#CK themselves"
the short, fun version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ymyWS82NsY
The long, serious version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hATC_2I1wZE
The original, analog version
http://www.amazon.com/1984-Signet-Classics-George-Orwell/dp/0451524934
Imagine the comments if this were Verizon or AT&T.
But noooo! Google is God! So sayeth the fanbois.
Right there is your problem. You view them as something they are not: they are mere mortals driven by their own devices and vanity. You cannot rely on them or be accountable especially if the stuff they give you is "free" (not really, you pay dearly with your privacy, the only commodity that matters and that you give up for free so easily).
By shifting our online communication to a few proprietary services like Facebook, Twitter, and G+, this is exactly what we're begging for: censored tweets, data-mining of everything we say for advertisement purposes, EULAs that grant ownership of our pictures and videos to those services, and more.
Collectively, internet users are *begging* for this kind of world, where we can only communicate at someone else's whim.
I thought Google+ stopped requiring real names a while ago?
Once I heard they had stopped this requirement I reopened my G+ account. I've hardly used it, but haven't had any problems with it being suspended.
I wonder if this user's account was hacked and the hackers decided to stir up some shit? Though he'd probably notice this if it were the case.
Either way, I've not used G+ very much. After the whole real name debacle last year, it just felt like a less friendly place.
Stinks like Google's anomaly detection ML algorithms are now also being poisoned.
Preemptively delete your G+ account. I'd like to see them suspend it then. While I can't speak for everyone, it's certainly worked for me. I've never had my deleted G+ account suspended, nor have I faced the uncertainty of determining why an account has been suspended.
don't complain when you get grabs...
Perhaps they used Google to search for the Bing website?
sudo make me a sandwich
Imagine how we felt in the early days of AdSense and PPC advertising with noone to talk to when we ran into issues. And these were services that cost us money and generated actual revenue for Google.
Good luck suckers!
If people don't want to use their real name, then they shouldn't have to. The ONLY reason they want a real name is to track you and pass information to the NSA.
I have no desire to have my real name floating around where anyone can easily look up where I live etc etc. This is why I will never use any online service that requires it.
I wonder if Outlook.com requires a real name, their link to the TOS didn't work when I tried yesterday. Go figure.
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
This has been building for a while and I've been thinking of not using their services for anything important anymore. I think, overall, that using any "ecosystem" is a terrible mistake. I got locked out of my Google account a few months ago and found it very difficult to get access to my docs. Maybe this ecosystem stuff has just run its course, we're living on other people's networks too much and need to start installing and maintaining our our postfix servers agains. I might start on it this weekend. And, yes, requiring real names is a mistake. Sometimes people need to ask "dumb" questions and not look bad in a Google search.
Suspend a tech writer's account and what is he going to do? If there is no such thing as bad publicity. . .
Yet another example of how centralized systems are bad.
Social networks, torrent indexes, search engines, you name it. All of them censored and/or unreliable.
We need decentralization.
Same happens at MS.. upload a file that violates their code of conduct policy to MS sky drive, and your windows 7 phone account will be permanently blocked without telling what file caused it or getting any good response.
Note that that includes files that are not yet shared of, and includes partial nudity
The "block and report for spam" is abused like CRAZY on twitter to censor accounts.
He probably pissed off some faction of jackasses who take opposing opinions as personal attacks and "hate speech," thus justifying abuse of the system.
They can suspend all they want. Who uses this thing seriously?
This sig can be distributed under the LGPL license
You should know that customer service is not really Google's strong suit. Behind every single one of their services is some really smart guy creating an automated algorithm/process that runs said service. Its how their entire company runs (And why they're so good at certain things) Unfortunately, there is no one there to know or care about your petty meat space issues. If it's not part of the system the support goon that reads your emails really has no answers for you.
Other companies with traditional have a gaggle of departments and middle management. It's people driven instead of machine driven. This has it's ups and it's downs, but it means that if you bitch enough you might be able to get someone to cough up an answer.. Or BS you enough to give up.
My bet is that the blogger's account got caught up in some sort of automated sweep.. And upon receipt of the blogger's complaint, the support goon found no obvious violations and simply un-ticked the shit-can-this-account checkbox.
Step 1. Post links sure to get your self banned on G+
2. Don't actually attempt to contact anyone at G+ about your account; simply click "recheck link on profile"
3. Post on Slashdot notice of your banning - make sure to state you didn't break the rules ever, except for those times you did.
4. Tell visitors you didn't miss G+; but you still feel its worth wasting their time by having them read about your lack of missingness of G+
Yes, I just coined the term "missingness" when items aren't simply missing; but they are so unfindable they have a high missingness rating.
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
“Do not meddle in the affairs of the Google, for it is not subtle and quick to anger.”
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Yup - good plan trusting third parties to take care of all your services for you.
A few years back, I set up a Google banner on a forum I run. After my income reached the $100 minimum for payout, it was mysteriously closed down for "illegal clicks". I offered to provide all of my log files as proof there was no illegal activity or repeat clicks but they wouldn't hear it. There is no way to contact them other than email. No phone number. They did not respond to any of my emails. The account is still suspended, to this day. If they decide you are cut off, whether right or wrong, you are gone...permanently. Google sucks.
Google has a real name policy on Google+. However, Dan Tynan's profile wasn't using his real name. He was on G+ as Dan Tynan, whereas if you go to Wikipedia, you can see that his real name is Daniel Tynan.
Q.E.D. :)
(in all seriousness, I wouldn't be surprised if it was something as pedantic as this!)
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
I just don't post anything on my google+ account ever. If my google account was suspended i'd lose email, docs, drive, calendar etc.
Its too dangerous to use. Why risk it. F**k google+
This is the problem with freely offered services. You can be subject to an incredibly arbitrary policy. It might make sense to pay a small monthly fee, therefore you have some true legal recourse.
Inquiring minds want to know:
Does your PC fit in the same number of cubic inches the mini does? And your PC has all the same features out of the box, right? Wifi, bluetooth, usb, network, thunderbolt, hdmi/dvi, dual display output, digital audio, analog audio, firewire 800, SDXC card slot?
And of course you can get all this with an i5 for $599.
And you get OS X, which is pretty much the deal-maker for me.
I'm just asking. Sure, we're all price sensitive, but under some circumstances saving a few hundred bucks is shooting yourself in the foot. Every time I've looked at a PC, that's the impression I've walked away with: Yeah, I'd spend less money, but I'd have less computer, lose more desk space, spend more time on maintenance, and be stuck using a really crappy OS. Divide that few hundred bucks over years of ownership, and it just looks like not spending it would be... a bad idea.
what Kathy replied I cannot believe that some one can earn $8648 in 4 weeks on the internet. Have you seen this site http://www.makecash16.com
Business isn't around to "hire", as every right winger I've ever met is so quick to point out, yet every time I hear one spouting tax cuts for business (so they'll hire) and less regulation (so they'll hire). It seems to me you right wing freaks should take your own advice. Business is there to make money.
You see, this is where we America in particular got lost. We lost sight of the fact that we are a society and that Capitalism was originally intended as a better system for encouraging everyone to collaborate for the common good of all citizens. Those that offer jobs and those that fulfill the needs of the jobs are in a symbiotic relationship. The executive boards of the corporations are small in numbers, not able to do the actual amount of work their companies need to bring in the revenue and everyone needs a job to feed and clothe their families and things they need to be able to go to work. The idea is that there is a supposed to be a balance between these two parties that produces the ideal amount of economic output, making the lives of everyone in the country as good as possible. To not acknowledge this and not try to do your best to facilitate this or even worse trying to circumvent or abuse it for your own gain is being a bad citizen. What good are corporations that take so much money out of the system that there is no money left for everyone else? They wouldn't survive very long because eventually they wouldn't have any employees and that would result in a total economic collapse.
This reminds me of the song by Alice Cooper, "Lost in America"
"I can't get a girl
cuz I ain't got a car
I can't get a car
cuz I ain't got a job
I can't get a job
cuz I ain't got a car
So I'm looking for a girl with a job and a car
Don't you know where you are
Lost in America"
We'll make great pets
Whoops, bug in automated code. People think they're being targeted.
Why would you have an account on Google? Their search works fine without it. Their video streaming works fine without it. If your ISP has an IMAP server and maybe some form of webmail for emergencies, that takes care of mail. None of their other services are worth much.
it's amusing how personally people take these things. I'm sure Google has millions of accounts, many of them fake, and they cannot commit great amounts of personal attention to investigate each one. So many likely get lumped in with some sort of an anti-spam or anti-abuse system. And do you figure Google can personally respond to each and every request for clarification? I dunno, people are just so personally tied to these online entities of themselves that they expect an equally personal treatment, but with the amount of data Google deals with, I doubt that that's possible.
Personally, I think anybody who uses Google+ as part of their way of doing business has a screw loose.
You are putting your business at the mercy of an organization that has proven itself to be capricious, if not malicious. Not to mention their downtime. This is just more proof.
Get a clue.
It is my real name
Nullius in verba
Once again Slashdot links to a woefully inadequate article that only details one side of the story as a blatant attack on whatever service the author decides to pull out of his ass.
If you could anyone could actually be bothered to take a few minutes to find more informative articles, you'll come across Google's Official response:
"Google tries to provide a World-Class Social Networking Service. In order to meet the high standards of our users, we must be diligent in monitoring the behavior of our users to identify and block parties that may be a threat to the enjoyment of our site and safety to other users. In this case we saw that this particular user was using Google+ far too much, essentially using it for more than 5 minutes a day, which is a big red flag, since everyone knows that no one uses Google+ for anything. As such, he was blocked for being a spam bot. However, since receiving his butt-hurt email, we have reinstated his account, since spam-bots are incapable of getting their jimmies rustled."
Consider how many people are served by Google's services. Gmail alone has approximately 425 million users, the vast majority of whom pay no money for the service. Despite what they may think, they are not "customers," they are a "resource." Google's customers are the advertisers who want access to Google's resource. Therefore it is reasonable to expect that Google has staff devoted to answer the questions of its customers, but not the people who make up its resource. It could not afford to pay a support staff to be available to speak/write to each of those people on-demand, so it doesn't. Similar large, non-paid services are the same.
In fact, years ago when I was paying Yahoo for Web hosting and mysteriously lost access to my account, a Yahoo CSR told me I wasn't paying enough money for the privilege of talking to someone and hung up on me after I listened to hold music for three hours. I got an email form letter three days later telling me there was nothing they could do. And that was for a paid service. I was a little fish in a big pond. With non-paid services, you're not even a little fish. You're a speck of bacteria living on the algae in the pond. That's not to say that these services are bad, but you have to understand what they are, who you are to them and gauge the risks before you invest too much in them.
..without warning or good reason: http://eccentricintelligenceagency.info/archives/6373 -- You may find reason behind the suspension, but according to their own stated reason, I didn't meet the criteria for it. And logically, ethically, and for all practical purposes, their action was completely absurd, especially considering that you can easily watch videos of people being eaten by lions in front of their own families, gators tearing off arms, and scores of other terribly violent things -- without even logging in!
In my most arrogant opinion: Google = DoD, NSA, and before long, probably fascism too, if not already.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
You do know the point of competition is to try to be better than your competitors, right?
Especially so when you're the underdog. No one cheers for a stupid underdog.
A couple weeks ago I was blocked from posting comments on slashdot. When I tried, i got the accusatory message: "You are not allowed to use this resource.", as if I was trying to do something I shouldn't be doing. I felt unfairly targeted.
It may have been some kind of ban on my mobile broadband ip address. The problem hasn't recurred. (I get a new IP every time I log on.)
If that's what it was, it points out how unfair ip-based blocks are.
Google is more evil than Microsoft ever was.
Sounds like they may have a robotic that bans accounts that are posting similar URLs over and over. I can imagine a blogger linking to his own blog over and over in google+ posts, being flagged by a robotic, and getting banned automatically. As long as they have a solid process to reinstate legitimate accounts who were banned unfairly, I'm fully in favor of this approach to reducing spam.
And proudly wearing a hairshirt can drive beaucoup page views...
other than "I will as soon as you F4ing write it!!" would be
"and what part of the Kama Sutra covers %product_or_service%"
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
"The 55-year-old New Yorker said that computer users should be keen to keep their information in their own hands, rather than hand it over to a third party."
15TW = 15,000 Nuclear Reactors. (Approx. one accident a month.)
... "pray that we will not suspend it any further".
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
When it comes to customer service, there is no such thing with them.
It's always try to ferret out a non-definitive answer on their forums if you have an issue, rather than "here's the issue, this is what you need to fix it, and how we can help you do that."
Maybe they should try investing some of those profits in customer service. But yeah, it's the internet, if you have a problem it must be your fault.
If you, like me, disapprove of the way how Google deals with that matter, tell them! Send them your opinion as feedback. Rate down this page - http://support.google.com/plus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1228271 - and click "the solution is not ideal". Comment on posts of Google employees.
As long this is just a matter that affects a couple dozen people amont millions, Google won't give a shit, but if a large group of people complains, they will have start to start moving their asses.
So, it is the same effort but the effect will be bigger if you post/address Google instead of the Slashdot forums.
All this cloud shit makes me sick.
One of the persons suspended by Google has an "unusual name". She didn't say what.... maybe Blossom or Flower or something. In any case she pointed-out the name on G+ is the same as the name on her credit card (which she registered to make paymentws), but that's not good enough for the Microsoft... Apple... ooops, I mean Google fuckup corporation. It deserves to be boycotted.
The name on the credit card is a vanity plate. The thing that matters is the credit card number + security code. The name is, if anything, decorative, although it's sometimes used by diligent companies to cross-check order name, delivery location, and so on. Most companies are not that diligent.
I'm going to guess there are a lot of people with common names who have the same name on their credit card, but that doesn't mean that they'd all get the same "John Smith" Google+ account; some of them would have to live with "John Smith in Ottumwa" or something like that to make the account identifier unique.
Entered the wrong password 3 times?
Curse those evil bastards at Google!!!!
That is why I never want to keep all my web site accounts in one basket. No way.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I think the text was meant to read "and did not violate ... in any way", saying "in any other way" implies there was some violation...am I the only one to be bothered by the? Extra words....
Google+ is just a copy of Facebook with a slightly different look. Except it sucks, no one uses it, and Google wasted a lot of money on it. Innovation isn't about copying success of others.
If everyone could use correct grammar, then you would no longer be superior to them.
Proper command of the English language makes one a better person. True, it can get lonely at the top, but the benefits are real.
Nobody ever thinks of themselves as evil, except in the movies.
eBay did the same thing to me years ago. Created an account a few years back before I fired off a question asking a seller if he can ship the item to my country, and I got banned Tried to communicate with eBay and they refused to tell me why. So, I never use eBay anymore.
I agree 100%
News reports FB had about 83 million bogus accounts. So maybe Google is being hyper-sensitive to not let the same thing happen.
I dont think its a 'Corporate' fault, you see its more likely a fuck up, because of the dumb americans that google may hire. People that have no foreigner friends or who have no idea theres non-western names, ie the usual yankee dumb-fuck hill billy.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
"advocates, or expresses pornography, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity, hatred, bigotry, racism, or gratuitous violence."
That can describe 50% of the movies available on google play, and 100% of their rap music.
So does that mean google itself is violating its own policies.
Yep.
Douchbag Hypocrites.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
And a name like Page, or Jobs.
They are 100% fakes, no one has names like that.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Rumor is, if you turn off all the lights in your bathroom and spin around three times, every time saying "Bing," then turn on the lights, Google will ban your Google+ account.
On my generic cheap ass PC, I can insert 16gig and 1/5th apple cost, and install ESXi, then run a few different linux OSs, windows7, windows Server 2008, and OSX 10.5 or 10.6 easy.
Do that on a mac.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I don't believe enough people use google+ to even qualify as a "rash". (let alone enough that have been banned)
The real takeaway is that he didn't even notice for a month.
(And secondarily, that the only way to get customer service at Google is to be a tech journalist. I would say "the users are not the customers but the product", but even Google's customers famously don't get service.)
G+ is the greatest thing its fans have ever used. They love it to bits. They spend their whole day on it, doing good stuff with it. Just like they did with Buzz.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
But make sure to stream it on Youtube or else the sacrifice will go in vein.
My google account was recently suspended with no notice and no reason. After about 3 weeks of going back and forth with the google demigods I was able to locate my original welcome to your google account email. The ID questions they were asking me were absurd, such as who sponsored my Gmail invitation? After 7 years? Are they kidding? Apparently proving it was my account using the original welcome email was all it took to be reinstated...why, I have no idea. I detest google, but until and unless someone other than Yahoo or Microsoft offers some similar services, I am stuck. I tried Thunderbird and Eudora, but it stays with your computer. I am an international traveler and I need my email to stay on the server, not related to what computer I am on.
I've got a friend with the second name of Hay. He can't even get a Google+ account. This is getting worse than Orwell thought it was going to be ...
Love without logic is insanity. And vice versa.
Google is NOT the only game in town. perhaps YOU all should just vote and leave for some other form of social network. YOU will not win against those that provide "free" stuff. NOTHING is free. it ALL comes with some kind of bullshit terms, which , most of you have NEVER read. i can hear you all now. WHAT?? READ??? US???? no way , is too time consuming. as i said. Google is just so much dreck. have an awesome day.
We are committing a mistake... letting internet seem like NATURAL LIFE, a JUNGLE, against which you can do nothing, a MYSTERIOUS NATURAL FORCE. Once burnt... such situation can produce permanent fright but they do not perceive it. Maybe the State should open an office to handle these cases?