Comment by octosphere | Hacker News Reader

Comment by octosphere | Hacker News Reader

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I haven't had a Google account for over 5 years now, after my account got suspended for no apparent reason. The only thing I can think of that raised the alarm at Google was that I created two other accounts using the same IP and device, and Google must have thought I was gaming their system and engaging in some sort of Sybil attack[0] on their network. Two other accounts is hardly grounds for suspension. But 100 or even 1000 other accounts and Google are within their rights to ban me.

Anyways I since switched to Protonmail for frivolous web signups & registering on sites, and then I use Fastmail for various business dealings / freelancing / anything related to finance like Paypal, online banking, etc. I simply can't afford to be arbitrarily banned by Google again.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack

I use to have three Gmail accounts (notifications, mailing lists and personal). After the 2012 domestic spying revelations, I deleted all of them, extracted all my Gmail and hosted my own. It's so much nicer than dealing with Google's fucking terribly broken IMAP interface and over aggressive spam filter (which has bitten me too):

https://battlepenguin.com/tech/how-google-and-microsoft-made...

..although e-mail delivery has seemed to be getting better in the past year.

My current Google account has no g-mail connected to it, which has lead to some interested bugs in Hangouts (you can't search for Google contacts once G+ went away, even if you clearly see them in current chats).

I also host my own Calendar/Contacts using Radicale + DavX (formerly DavDroid)

> over aggressive spam filter

I want to emphasize just how bad the spam filtering has gotten. I didn't realize it for a long time, but now that I check the spam folder regularly I've realized that a LOT of legit emails get flagged by Google. Even ridiculously obvious stuff, like a non-automated reply to an email that I initiated sometimes gets flagged as spam.

Unless I'm wrong Google explicitly allows you to use multiple Google Accounts for different purposes, unlike say Facebook. Were all your accounts banned together or your main account was closed for creating the rest? In any case they should give valid reason for account closure... this is just unethical.

I was about to mention this. I've been setting up some things for a new business and somewhere along the lines Google explicitly recommended creating a new account.

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