If it was security motivated they would tell people accounts with 2FA and recovery emails are not going to be deleted. I want to believe it's genuinely motivated by security alone but it's Google so I'm automatically going to take the cynical view.
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Google Plans to Delete Accounts That Haven't Been Used in Over Two Years
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If it was security motivated they would tell people accounts with 2FA and recovery emails are not going to be deleted. I want to believe it's genuinely motivated by security alone but it's Google so I'm automatically going to take the cynical view.
The article here says YouTube content is included in deletions. If true, people are gonna be pissed when channels and content starts vanishing due to this policy. I know I still watch videos from some abandoned accounts.
I made them 10 years ago before I had a big issue with Google but glad to see you've caught up with the discourse and agree these accounts are not 'free'
I had a similar experience, I tried to pay for an app, registered my credit card on the Play Store (a card that has been used in Amazon, Steam and many other services) and they blocked it. They blocked my account and asked me to send them a copy, from the front and back, of my National ID card.
I tried to reach Google to talk to them personally and it was IMPOSSIBLE! I had to deal with machines all the time. This was many years ago btw.
I refused to send my documentation to Google and that was the day I came back to iOS and the App Store. I never looked back.
Unfortunately, that means I cannot open a YouTube channel, or at least monetize it without sharing my ID and all my documentation with them.
Its similar to car manufacturers who if they can save a few pennies on a car can amortize it across a million you are saving real money. In google’s case a couple million accounts must free up decent savings.
Great, my deceased brothers youtube account will be deleted even though he still gets views from his 100+ videos. Some are over 12k views.
We can't log in because his Nokia phone number was discontinued and we don't know his email address or password.
Guess I'll have to download all his videos for family archive.
If I republish them after they take down his account will they flag me for duplicates?
Just went back to view his channel and some videos are now over 50k views with ads. Ummm where is his ad revenue going?
I wouldn't waste too much time thinking about downloading them. There are rumours Google are going to disable the API and block third-party downloads soon.
wow this is amazing, i gotta check
is it easy to do ? and available for non-pros mails ? like not corporations and stuff?
Great, my deceased brothers youtube account will be deleted even though he still gets views from his 100+ videos. Some are over 12k views.
We can't log in because his Nokia phone number was discontinued and we don't know his email address or password.
Guess I'll have to download all his videos for family archive.
If I republish them after they take down his account will they flag me for duplicates?
Just went back to view his channel and some videos are now over 50k views with ads. Ummm where is his ad revenue going?
Yeah this is my biggest issue with the decision Twitter made to purge all old accounts. Maybe accounts with literally zero activity I can understand but there are many inactive accounts (maybe the author passed away?) with absolute gold mines of research and ideas that still get quote tweeted about today.
I didn't even consider old YouTube videos getting wiped until now. Darn, this is such a huge fail and yet another reason we need an immutable internet (a la IPFS)
Yeah anyone can do it with a regular Gmail account. The caveat is that some services detect these aliases and block them because all they have to do it check for a '+' symbol; naturally it's also very easy to automatically extract the base email so really its only utility is for automatic inbox filtering.
Thank goodness!!!!! Now we just have to address the issue of YouTube re-encoding old low resolution YouTube videos to the point that they're basically impossible to watch.
Well if it bothers you that much, then go stand up your own ISP and fortune 10 company and ensure everyone gets their stuff free…/sarcasm
Econ 101…there’s no such thing as a free lunch
Google today announced that it is updating its inactive account policy, with Google Accounts that have not been used in at least two years to be deleted. Google says that accounts that have not been used for long periods of time are more likely to becompromised because of the use of older, less secure passwords and a lack of two-factor authentication.
Used as free email relays and file sharing. Can’t figure out how to update that in-line, but fixed that for ya.
I will teach you a trick.
From your main gmail account, go to settings and find check additional accounts, link your other gmail accounts there. This way your main gmail account will periodically fetch all your other accounts, thereby keeping them active.
here's a take. gmail's been around for eons. creating an e-mail account today is painful, all the screennames are used. clean out the inactive ones to free up some usernames.
I'm the opposite. I've created email accounts on services as a way to protect brand and identity, even though they aren't used regularly. However, on occasion, they may have been used in the past.
If they get purged, the someone else could take over the account and assume my identity. Some of the people I've sent messages to may still have that address in their contacts list, and as such, could then impersonate me. It's a window to identity theft.
It’s actually more expensive than that.
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Critical to note this is the standard cost AWS/GCP/Azure/etc. charge the average developer to use their services, not even accounting for bulk discounting. Google's own cost per gigabyte is radically lower than that. They strategically price their services such that it's very hard to compete with their own services like YouTube if you were in the business of starting a video hosting company for example.
And whose fault is that? Yours or Google's?
Yup. They're just horrible. I had a few videos on youtube that got decent traffic, nothing monetized, but I took it all down. Felt like they were creeping in all around me … "I signed up for all this?" Couldn't get rid of them fast enough. If I ever get back into youtube, I'll probably use a dedicated email and debit card with limited funds.
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They started charging last year (perhaps if they decide you're a business?) and the notifications went to junk and I never saw them until my account was suspended for a week, then on again (grace period?) then off again … so 30+ days of missing client emails into the ether … scrambling to get clients to use my alternate address. I'm glad they didn't approve my payment for weeks, cause by then I moved to iCloud which has been fine, plus waaay less junk mail, even with the same address.
"At the moment, Google is not planning to delete accounts with YouTube videos"
Google will delete accounts, including Gmail & Photos, that haven't logged on in 2 years
Google is updating its inactivity policy so that old, unused accounts will be deleted starting later this year...
9to5google.com
