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Comment by srik | Hacker News Reader

> Google also reserves the right to delete data in a product if you are inactive in that product for at least two years.

This part is unreasonable no? I sometimes don't use a product for a while, like google drive for instance, and the prospect of coming back to it and discovering that all my data has been deleted is a bit on the dreadful side. I don't want to have to keep track of which product Ive been using and how long since I last signed into all the time.

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Are you finding the "delete data" part unreasonable, or the "two years" part? If it's the duration, I am curious what time limit you might find reasonable.

If it's the "delete data" part, I can see why a company might not serve a piece of data in perpetuity when an user appear to have abandoned it, unless we want the company to assume ownership of that data.

I think, it's the "can't keep all alive by using one sub product" part. If I use e.g. email, my drive should be fine. From this, it's not even clear if adding and removing content to drive via email would maintain drive for "activity"

My reading of https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/12418290 is that any activity on the account that required login counts as activity, independent of which sub-product is being used. Although it would help if they could clarify.

I think the product is the bad part. Should be if an account is inactive then they can delete data not if a product hasn’t been used. If you use gmail, your gdrive shouldn’t empty even if it has been 2+ years since you used the drive.

If you care about having your data stored permanently, I think it is fair to say you should pay for it (eg: Google One subscription) or buy something on the Google Play Store as listed under the inactivity exceptions policy.

If you expect to get something served to you for free forever, Google has a bridge to sell you.

We already pay with our data. None of these services are free and you know it.

Consider, with how much data Google has, that they don't care about having your data, especially if it's clearly been untouched for years.

Though either way, my point stands: If you value Google storing your data, pay for it. If you don't, that implies you don't actually care about your data because you refused to place any explicit value on it.

No, my point stands. We already paid, and continue to pay, Google. Google is wanting to double dip.

Yes. I think it's pretty Awful. "Reserves the right" isn't "will" but it becomes clear it could be "at will"

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