Google has a longstanding reputation for inadequate developer support – especially if you’re a smaller studio or independent team. But the company’s overall customer support is also lacking, and today’s horror story is the type that is likely to encourage a Google Takeout backup, just in case. At midnight last night, a customer’s Google account was completely disabled. They claim that, with no warning and no explanation, the entire contents of their Google account – email, photos, Google Pay balance, even the ability to pay their Internet account via Google Fiber and mobile account via Google Fi – were stolen without ceremony.
What happened?
Consider all this carefully, as we can never be sure that we understand the full story, but the details we have are terrifying.
Last night, the above email was sent to a Google customer named Chris, explaining that his Google account has been disabled because “it looks like it was used in a way that seriously violates Google policies”. The e-mail arrived while they were sleeping and no further information on why the account was suspended was provided. Thinking it must have happened in error, Chris filed an appeal, but was denied, leaving him with no apparent options and no access to a decade-old Google account.
For some of us, this may be just a minor inconvenience, but Google’s services are many and comprehensive. If you don’t have access to your Google account and the only company service you use is Gmail, you may lose access to your email, but Chris has invested a lot more, using Google Fi for phone service, Google Fiber for internet access, Google Pay to pay off debts, Google Drive for school and work and Google Photos for photo backups. This left him unable to pay phone or internet bills, without accessing his Google Pay balance, and with almost a decade of lost photos and documents. And even that basic loss of access to email is a big problem now – Chris, like many of us during the pandemic, is unemployed and cannot answer any job forms until he has access to the account.
In addition, e-mail is often used for two-factor authentication, including some financial and health services. This loss of access to the email account may also mean that third party services not related to Google may be affected, and Chris may temporarily lose access to the doctor and the bank due to Google’s actions.
Forget identity theft or hacking, you have a new digital terror
Most of us probably think that the biggest Internet service nightmare we can suffer from is identity theft or hack (and we’ve heard some real digital horror stories there too), but this simple, one-sided action from Google can be extremely destructive. for our lives, which amounts to the destruction sanctioned by the terms of service of all our digital property if we are not wise enough to make regular backups. And, unfortunately, it is also becoming common.
@Google my account has been disabled for more than 3 weeks. I still have no idea why, and after using all the resources I have to solve this, you did nothing but turn me around.
– Andrew Spinks (@Demilogic) February 8, 2021
Last month, Terraria developer Andrew Spinks was also barred from accessing his Google account for what was considered a violation of YouTube’s terms of service. The action led to the temporary cancellation of his hugely popular game for Google’s game streaming platform, Stadia. While Spinks had enough influence to draw attention to the issue and seek clarity about Google’s problem and solution, others are not so lucky.
A few years ago, in 2019, Google distributed account suspensions in bulk to hundreds of users for interacting on a series of YouTube Originals live streams, choose your own adventure. While viewers were warned that Google’s spambot detection would likely be an issue if they were very enthusiastic about their participation, some did not take the warning closely, and the YouTuber behind the broadcast had to step in to help their viewers to look for a solution.
All of this ignores even more the many smaller account suspensions that happen silently all the time, leaving customers screaming in Google’s automated and indifferent void. In many cases, customers may not even know why their accounts have been suspended – Google never tells them.
The same is true for Chris, who tells us that the reason behind the suspension remains a mystery. In some cases, Google suspends an account to assist the account holder itself – if, for example, it has been hacked, it can protect your data. But the closest Chris has to an explanation is a nightly backup set up using Google’s Backup and Sync tool, set for that time of day to save bandwidth, and which made a record of video editing projects, potentially containing copyrighted, though not shared, music.
I saw this tweet and spent the next hour setting up sync clients for Google Drive and Google photos.
– Gabriel Samfira (@gabriel_samfira) March 8, 2021
It remains to be seen whether Chris will hear more about it. He says he can’t find a “real person” to explain what happened, and the customer service representatives they spoke to simply point to Google’s support site. We contacted Google for more information about this specific instance and the company’s account suspension practices in general, but there was no immediate response. At the moment, Chris claims to have “resigned myself to the idea that the account probably ended forever”.
Fortunately, Chris raised a stink big enough on Reddit and Twitter to draw attention, so that Google can still approach your individual case with greater transparency, but not everyone is so lucky. In the meantime, I know that I will be backing up data from my own Google account tonight and I recommend that you do the same.