Comment by Havoc
18 hours ago
Banning the entire account rather than AI access is wildly user hostile. People have years of emails and calendars on their accounts.
And then you get to fight the support bots and eventually go to the actual unofficial Google support - asking hn whether anyone knows someone with a pulse at Google.
My mom’s Gmail account got banned for no reason whatsoever last week. Since then they removed her recovery number and 2FA as they ‘looked suspicious’.
Access to nearly 20 years of emails, photos and docs gone in an instant.
It’s been particularly painful because she used Google to log in to everything too, including for health records that she needs.
There is no way of contacting anyone at Google about it and apparently nothing that can be done anyway. It’s absolutely devastating. They’re still charging her for Google One and she can’t even manage the subscription because she can’t log in.
I urge anyone reading this to do a Google Takeout request and make a local backup of all the data they hold.
I hope this page can provide some guidance in the appeal process https://transparency.google/intl/en-GB_in/tools-programs/rep...
If not directly through what is offered there, under the DSA (eu citizens and residents) have further ways to appeal their decision, and also Google takeout should be a last option even for banned accounts.
If you have any luck post a followup on HN to guide other users having a similar issue.
I had a look at the link and became hopeful when I clicked on “Appeal a disabled account”, but then the page loaded and said this -
“”” Ask us to restore your account
If you own the account, you can request access to it again.
- Sign in to your Google Account on a browser, like Chrome. - Select Start Appeal. - Follow the instructions. “””
C’mon Google, if I could do step 1 then I wouldn’t be on this page.
I will absolutely post a guide if we can figure out a way out of this mess.
Appreciate you trying to help. I’ll do a bit more digging on that page and see if I can find anything.
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Or you can not waste your time and hire an attorney to send them a polite letter saying "put the account back or get sued."
“… There is no way of contacting anyone at Google about it …”
Of course there is: you pay your lawyer to send correspondence by registered mail.
Then you have them send followup correspondence a week or so later.
You will absolutely get a response.
Everyone everywhere has the money and time to keep a lawyer on retainer. This is super equitable and a reasonable way to run society
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Nah, we all pay for a lawyer with our taxes: the attorney general.
What you do is send Google your own correspondence, certified mail, giving them a heads up that you've contacted the attorney general. That usually gets an even quicker response than from a personal lawyer :)
It also gives the attorney general office a heads up if they need to be scrutinizing a company like Google more carefully if they're getting a lot of complaints.
Situations like this are exactly what they're here for.
https://www.naag.org/find-my-ag/
My youtube student account was blocked this week. Google offers a student discount if you register with your school email, so I created a new youtube account for that.
Flagged as a potential bot, gotta tread really carefully or they'll nuke my "normal" google account too.
I have an auto "checkout" every month and I download my data. I don't know if it's readable, I haven't checked, but it feels comforting. My email is also just a private name@domain that forwards to my Gmail. If I ever need to switch, it would be a simple update with my registrar.
(I'm aware domains can be stolen too, but I expect to have some leverage as I'm paying for that in the UK.)
> I don't know if it's readable, I haven't checked, but it feels comforting.
I've been meaning to get back to tinkering with a Immich on a docker container, as a Google Photos competitor I can self-host.
I haven't touched Google's AI suite due to this. I need to migrate my email away from Google - the stakes are too high.
Luckily I use a custom domain so accounts won't need to be updated, just emails exported and DNS changed.
No one has actually had their account banned for this, Google just disables their Antigravity access due to breaking TOS. People just repeat the line that “Google bans accounts” because it’s a bigger headline draw.
This feels like the sort of thing that needs to be legislated. Banning accounts after breaking ToS is a pretty common behavior across many companies. The fact a Google account ends up being used for multiple products makes it more interesting but the overall problem here is not unique to them.
Yes, in general, scale needs to come with more responsibilities, including a requirement to provide due process, not less like it currently does.
Good argument for breaking up the company.
Big companies are all becoming user hostile these days. They act like the customer is an inconvenience rather than a fundamental part of their business. Every interaction exudes this feeling that your primary role is to serve as an unwanted impediment to money flowing out of your bank account and into theirs.
And we are not in The Crash yet! Imagine how will they behave when they become desperate!