Google account disabled for 6+ days. Some thoughts

I have been called a retro-grouch for my firm stance against keeping my data in "the cloud", but this is a perfect example of how the cloud can go wrong.

How do you protect yourself from a similar fate? The way I do it is by managing all of my data locally on my laptop (and of course making religious, at-least-once-daily backups of said data). I download all my email using POP3, from a VPS that I am paying for into fetchmail / procmail / mutt on my laptop. My address book is managed locally in a YAML database, and my calendar is managed using flat text files and Remind. Note that none of this precludes remote access to my data, either; I carry a copy of PuTTY on my USB drive, and with the appropriate SSH key and/or S/Key password I can access my data, securely, from anywhere in the world.

That's just one way of going about it, of course; you don't have to go all Unix-retro to achieve the same peace of mind. The theory is simple: just find a way to consolidate the master copies of your important data on machines that are physically under your control, and then make frequent backups of these machines. If possible, also make sure that you have some sort of service agreement with the servers you rely upon for email, Web service, XMPP, and so on. Yes, it is more expensive, and yes it's more difficult than just signing up for a free GMail account, but your data is worth it.

One piece of advice: Keep local copies of all your email. This bit me once when I needed to make a meeting downtown and only had the address on GMail. I couldn't get a connection (low signal to noise ratio) and I almost missed the thing.

Luckily, I conjured up the street number from memory as I glanced at the many building numbers on the 1700 block of K, and the company I was meeting with was listed on the matching building's directory.

That evening I connected Thunderbird with GMail (POP) and changed my settings to delete all mail from the server. I have local copies of everything with the added benefit that, theoretically, less of my email is floating around Google's server rooms.

I must say, the failure of Google to adequately communicate the reason behind an account suspension scares me. As someone who depends on Google just as much day to day, and even sets up Google for Business accounts for some of our customers, it worries me.

I'm a "superuser" over on Google Groups to support different Google products (free schwag...)

This kind of thing happens all of the time. Sometimes it gets resolved, sometimes it does not. Everytime, it takes longer to fix than it should.

Google does not support any of these services you have mentioned (other than adwords). Think long and hard about this. If you rely on any of these services, this same situation could happen to you. Be prepared: Have backups and a backup plan ready just in case.

My wife was once in a similar situation: gmail, blogs, contacts, everything was blocked. After one week they finally unblocked the account. It seems they have not enough staff to solve these issues.

Or maybe they are trying to get people scared, so they will start paying for Gmail and similar services just to have better support (http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=...)

Google's profit model relies on a high volume of customers, all of whom they make a very small amount off of. Thus it's understandable that their customer support is non-existent. If they had someone to answer the amount of queries they'd receive from their billion users, they'd be financially unsustainable.

That's one of the many reasons we just pay $8 a month for Exchange hosting.

This is partly why my @jgc.org email is forwarded to gmail and not managed by Google. I retain control of the domain and the receiving MX which then forwards to gmail. If gmail were to die I can reroute around it in seconds.

That's unfortunate. I think it'll get resolved soon, but still, what a pain!

I pay for the premium google apps service. I like to think the turnaround will be pretty quick if I run into any issues like this. I think it's worth it for imo the best email client and storage around with the least hassle.

I used to use oddpost (paid for that as well), but then they were swallowed by Yahoo. I can't stand Yahoo's mail. Way too cluttered for my taste.

Email is such an important application for me, day to day, that I have absolutely no problem paying google a modest yearly fee for their service. Sure there are plenty of free options out there, but I bet their support is equally dismal. Good customer support is expensive because there are a lot of whiny user's out there that also need to be supported. Pay the premium.

Sympathies to the OP, but my general rule for all data: if it doesn't exist in two places, it doesn't exist. (A lesson I also learned the hard way.)

One more reason why I have my own server with a reputable host. Not only can I configure my spam filters however I want, forward my emails however I please, keep local and online copies simultaneously... yadi yada, I have full control over my email.

It makes me think: what do I like about Gmail?

* the interface (discussions especially)

* the speed

* the search features (and its speed)

I suppose most of it could be recreated on top of a "regular" mail server but what would be involved?

I'm not saying that would be easy but, wouldn't that be an interesting offering? (open-source or not actually)

I couldn't imagine myself without gmail even for a day. I made up my mind to use thunderbird moving further.

FWIW - I would gladly pay to use gmail (and receive support) ahh business models are beautiful.

There is some phishing going on in Google's name. I just tried to alert them (I just received the email)-- we'll see how they respond.

Phishing email:

<http://adwords.google.com/select/images/adwords_home/new_log...;

Renew Your Account Now!

Dear Member,

This is your official notification from Google Inc. that the service(s) listed below will be deactivated and deleted if not renewed immediately.

As the Primary Contact, you must renew the service(s) listed below or it will be deactivated and deleted.

Renew Now your Google AdWords services. <http://adwords.google.com.session-27120581839530682797.38412...;

SERVICE: Google AdWords EXPIRATION: Wed, 5 Nov 2008 19:12:37 +0300

Thank you for using Google Inc service. We appreciate your business and the opportunity to serve you.

Google AdWords Service .

Note : Your Google AdWords Password is NOT your Google Email password! © 2008 Google

------------------------------------------------------------------ This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message. If you have any questions, please visit the Google AdWords Help Centre at https://adwords.google.com/support/?hl=en_GB to find answers to frequently asked questions and a 'contact us' link near the bottom of the page. ----------------------------------------------------------------

What is the other half of this story?

I don't know anything about the author, but has he done anything to enrage the G?

If this is truly just a random account disablement, then it would seem that Google needs to augment their customer support accessibility and procedures. If the author is/was somehow "competing" with Google on some level, or making anti-G remarks, I would be curious about such details.

I think there is more to this story.

> I swear I've seen this story on HN a week ago where a very nice google employee decided to step in and help the guy out. In fact the first paragraph was exactly the same as I remembered the bit about Adwords being cut off as well as other services.

Edit; knew I saw this on HN - I thought this had been resolved.

As brk said I also think there is more to this. I doubt any service with a reputation to uphold would just randomly give a block without any detail at all.

I love Google, I'm a sucker for the whole cloud concept and I think Google is the place to go for this - they're open, they're free and they're not going to go away anytime soon. I don't keep my extra confidential documents on Docs and am sensible enough to make backups - therefore I've got nothing to worry about in that respect.

Ashamed to admit it (especially here) but I still use Hotmail. Why? You can use a local client and send/recieve via WebDav.

As a consultant I'm regularly working on site at companies where they have everything except port 80 blocked. So IMAP, POP and (especially) SMTP are out. If you want a local copy of your mail in this situation WebDav's really the best solution.

I would be happy to pay a monthly / yearly fee to Google in exchange for support and access guarantees on my account.

Obviously and rather sadly a big drawback of freemium services is lack of support. Before signing up for these services,you need to ask yourself a question: How long can I live without accessing my data?

If the answer is "Not very long" then you will have to crack open your wallet.

Right there on the home page mibbit.com is asking for Yahoo!Messenger passwords. So it is essentially a phishing operation, no? Google is right to disassociate itself from that.

Cf. http://adactio.com/journal/1357

Update: I just spent a couple of hours getting imap-ssl and smtp-ssl setup with mysql auth etc on my server. Mail config isn't something I enjoy, but I guess if you want something done properly...

Have you thought about trying google apps? The premier version gives you a phone number to call, 99.9% uptime guarantee, and they handle backups for you.

Have you any enemies at Google? This just sounds absurd!

The real question is: what are you disposed to do / give up just for convenience?

Both MS and Google are all after that (so human) fact.

One online mail service has failed him, and he goes to another online mail service rather than to Thunderbird, POP and IMAP? Lame.

1) He goes on about how secure his password is, but then admits that someone got into his secondary email account. His secondary account should be just as secure. This calls to doubt his security savvy.

2) "loose" instead of "lose" -- always a bad sign