Anyone incarcerated 2+ years is going to return to their Google account deleted | Hacker News Reader

Anyone incarcerated 2+ years is going to return to their Google account deleted

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59 pointsnotRobot27 comments

imagines dystopic future where instead of going to prison, people convicted of crimes get 'outserviced' and all their accounts get deleted and then they exist as ghosts on the outskirts of everyone else's digital lives

Isn’t that basically the premise behind the black mirror Christmas special

While I don't see myself (or others) in a situation where I won't have access to my G account for 2 years, this is one of the many recent Google business decisions that makes me want to move away from the Google platform entirely. Their purchase and cratering of the Nest brand was the first offense and it's built up from there.

If I died unexpectedly, my partner would already need to do a lot of research and upkeep to make sure all the assets linked to the gmail weren't lost - and she's not the kind of people to know about this sort of Google policy, leading me to believe the assets left to her are in jeopardy.

Prisoners are allowed to use internet in many places.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_prisons

There are three ways around this:

1. Stop using Google services as the root node for everything.

2. Make Google change its policy.

3. Make prisons/nations change their policy.

Are they allowed all the requisites for 2 factor?

In France in 2017 we had 60 000 prisoners and they seized 40 000+ smartphones the same year.

https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/prisons-plus-de-40-00...

Keep in mind 2FA is used by like 10% of the population, and I very much doubt the statistics go up for people who go to jail

Dupe of at least:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37090876 (10 days ago, the actual policy, 78 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36791895 (1 month ago, speculation, 29 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35966318 (3 months ago, original announcement, 216 comments)

I believe the FAQ suggests you can suspend your account for longer absences, specifically mentioning prison sentences.

Welcome to the modern world, whenever there is any policy - someone somewhere will shout "wont someone think of this specific intersection of 10 different situations".

The truth is there are many reasons to be against this policy, you dont have to go in search of fake rationales

Barring questions about whether the OP is strictly true, why would you characterize "in prison for 2 or more years" as "the intersection of 10 different situations"? It's a very dismissive stance that makes it hard to assume honesty.

Ooops, I slipped, fell and ended up in jail for 2 years.

Completely, utterly, dangerously false.

Google's inactivity policy has multiple exemptions for people with certain things in their accounts, and I reviewed this policy change to conclude that I safely meet several exemptions, and my account will never be sanctioned for inactivity.

Lock me up, boys!

> Google's inactivity policy has multiple exemptions for people with certain things in their accounts

Such as?

I believe having videos uploaded to YouTube exempts you

[edit] from the inactive account policy page[1]:

> A Google Account is considered active even if it has not been used within a 2-year period if one or more of these applies:

> - Your Google Account was used to make a purchase of a Google product, app, service, or subscription that is current or ongoing.

> - Your Google Account contains a gift card with a monetary balance.

> - Your Google Account owns a published application or game with ongoing, active subscriptions or active financial transactions associated with them. This might be a Google Account that owns an App on the Google Play store.

> - Your Google Account manages an active minor account with Family Link. Your Google Account has been used to purchase a digital item, for example, a book or movie.

[1] https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/12418290

Thanks!

Strangely, listed in the official email they sent to me, but not on their official policy page, is this exception as well:

A Google Account with YouTube channels, videos or comments

I should dial up One support to ask if this is really an exception or a hallucination.

EDIT: it appears that the support tech was able to validate the email I received and also deny that the above exemption applies. So, the email is a lie; possibly deleted from the policy very quickly after sending the email, or mistakenly included in it, or perhaps not-so-mistakenly. It appears that there are no exemptions for YouTube users.

It took the One support tech so, so, so many words to answer a "yes/no" question, though. Wow, 19 minutes on the chat.

- they can use internet

- they ask someone to look into their emails

BS thread.

Probably the least of their problems. For any prospective criminals weighed by this detail, I suggest nominating another person to hold your recovery email (this is a good idea anyway) who will be notified far in advance of said deletion. Also if your crimes are in any way remunerative, you may be able to swing the $1.99 that will keep even unused accounts active indefinitely.

Cite on the $1.99 thing?

https://one.google.com/about/plans

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/12418290?hl=en#zi...

Interestingly, buying a single book or movie also exempts your account from deletion.

As per usual, Google does not care about how damaging it is to people who don't generate significant ad revenue.

Google is downright hostile to the homeless as well, in the name of security. Everyone knows someone whose been permanently locked out of an account with priceless family photos. (Of course, Google will now begin completing that process and deleting them outright.)

It's probably worth pointing out the best email account for these issues, oddly enough, probably an AOL account. AOL has customer service you can call on the phone for password resets to this day, even for free accounts. Not having this should probably be illegal for email providers, tbh.

Being able to talk a CSR into resetting your password makes a mockery of account security. Nobody should offer that service.

AOL will delete accounts unused for 90 days. Microsoft deletes accounts unused for 1-2 years depending on when the account was established. Both of these policies are at least 15 years old.

> Nobody should offer that service.

An extremely entitled Silicon Valley view.

> AOL will delete accounts unused for 90 days.

This appears to be inaccurate today, so it's definitely not been true for the last fifteen years. Many of the seniors I've helped with computers have definitely forgotten to go on the Internet for more than 90 days at a time.

https://help.aol.com/articles/reasons-aol-deactivates-or-del...

Looks like they extended it to a year ... which is still half as long as we're talking about in the case of Google.

Extended, or you were never right in the first place? As I said, many people I've worked with have been off their AOL accounts for extended periods, I've never heard of an account deletion in practice.

And of course, the key issue is: You can also call them! Which invalidates any comparison to an unfeeling, unapproachable behemoth like Google, which will not speak to you and will never make exceptions in their policies.

Perusal of online help guides (https://www.lifewire.com/when-aol-mail-account-is-deactivate...) suggests 90 days to deactivation, then 90 days to deletion was a known standard at some point. The Wayback Machine only archives the AOL help link to 2022, so it may be a recent policy change.

Regardless, you're quite correct that AOL has responsive customer service relative to Google. Unfortunately, Jeff is also quite correct that this is a security exploit vector, one AOL is notoriously vulnerable to (https://www.theregister.com/2015/10/19/cia_aol_hack/). So if you're using AOL, you're more likely to be able to recover your email but also more likely to get hacked by some stranger if they decide to target you specifically.

(The moral, sadly, is the digitally impoverished get it coming and going. "Pick your way for the tool to screw you" is the best they get).

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