Indeed. I love the "sorry @ the guys from google internal forums who are looking at this" line at the github. All tongue in cheek and aware of the situation.
TBH this is not unlike reporting a security bug to a company as a white hat, but more like a grey hat here.
> If the few blokes using this scam their way into few hundred terabytes of free storage, so be it, it's not worth the hassle for Google, imo.
This. They probably thought of this exact scenario before adding unlimited docs. They probably even expected somebody to make a script for it. Hell, a few of them might even have a script.
As long as a lot of people don't start abusing it or make a file-sharing service based on it, then they probably won't care. Basically, not until it's a significant enough threat to their bottom line.
Ultimately, it's no different than the inevitable person that just has a script to generate garbage and upload it to Google Docs as fast as possible. That's what the 250 docs a day limit is there for.
I've seen a few stories of businesses and their employees all losing their Google accounts, just because the company hired a freelancer who had previously been banned, and Google detected the association. (Pretty sure they got the accounts back after some public outrage.) I wouldn't risk intentionally violating their terms if you're not quite ready to wake up one day 100% Google-free, or very good at hiding your tracks.
The fact that this is even a remote possibility should worry everyone of the ugly monopoly that Google became.
I found myself in a similar situation a couple months ago. An android App falsely charged me on the Play store. After trying to contact Google for multiple weeks I gave up and disputed the charge on my credit card. This resulted in Google coming after me for 8.99$ and threatening me to close all my Google accounts including gmail, calendar, photos, drive and everything I rely daily in Google.
That was a wake-up call for me. I decided to move everything OUT of Google. That company got too much power, it should worry way more people.
Yeesh. I had the same happen - Except I never followed through on reversing the charge on my credit card. I spent multiple hours trying to dispute $2.99 or something. Clearly not for the monetary value - just from pure frustration!
However, I was scared for my Google account so just ended up dropping it. Ridiculous.
"An android App falsely charged me on the Play store."
I'm curious to know how this happened. Would you mind sharing more info?
As I understand it, the only way for an app to 'charge you on the play store' is to:
1) Be a paid app (in which case you pay before the app starts installing), or
2) via in-app purchases, which are handled by the app initiating the IAP, and then Play services taking over to ask for confirmation.
In either case, the transaction is only confirmed by a user action (tapping a button) with the app having no control.
Sure, it's possible for an Android app to trick you, by covering everything apart from the button with something fake, but I'd be surprised if such an app found its way into the Play Store.
Sure, I might have hit a corner case but I made an in-app purchase for a one year subscription for a service.
After using the app for a couple of days and restarting the phone, the app seemed to hit a bug and behave like if I didn't buy the subscription, prompting me to buy another subscription which I did thinking that this would unblock the backend and somehow merge with the fact that I already had a subscription.
Unfortunately, Google Play charged me again for a subscription I already had. Both the app creator AND Google Play were difficult to join. The App creators never replied to any of my emails. Google Play got an automated support website that decided that "I was not eligible for a refund" and there was nothing I could do about it. It also seems to be impossible to contact a real human being to explain the situation.
Nextcloud, preferably on a machine you own (but there are companies selling Nextcloud hosting as well). It replaces Google Drive, Contacts, Calendar, Photos (face recognition can be done with a third-party app), has an RSS reader, bookmarking service etc. Just look at its app store, you can install any of this with two clicks: https://apps.nextcloud.com/
It really is a suite that can combat Google's suite — and you can truly own it. Other than that, DDG for search, and your own domain for email (so that you could transfer it between different hostings if necessary).
I do have a Google account, but I use it for precisely two purposes: Google Play (my phone wouldn't work without one) and YouTube subscriptions (I can use an RSS reader for this, but it's a bit inconvenient). You can create a Google account without creating a Gmail account.
May I suggest using NewPipe[1] for a Google-account-free experience to follow channels? You can import them from your current subscription list, and easily export them when you switch phone or for backup purposes.
The sooner you start, the better. I've moved most of my email/contacts/calendar away [0], and the longer you give yourself to catch the things you've signed up for but forgotten, the better. Youtube was also a pain, but I transitioned my subscriptions manually to a different account. Maps seems like it'd be the trickiest if you're invested. I wasn't a heavy user, and maps still works pretty good when you're logged out.
[0] I use fastmail + custom domain, which works great, but you have to guard the domain very closely.
I have been doing it for a long time, the hardest for me is all the registered users I have around the web linked to the email. After a few years of changing each one that mattered I finally get close to zero mail on gmail.
Search I moved to ddg, that was the easy one.
Android can work fine with just f-droid since I noticed I rarely even use the store any more and I need just a few essential apps. For storage, I tend to store only documents and I like to use mega.nz.
The only thing I haven't managed to find a even close to decent alternative it's photos. Google Photos is just simply too good. I would be even willing to pay but really, all the other apps struggle to get sync right or have some other crappy stuff that makes them barely usable.
Are they? Email, calendar, online office, cloud storage etc. are all available from various other companies(even beside the big few corporations). The only two areas where you'd really have to sacrifice features would be Android apps, and YouTube if you're running a channel.
That gives a new meaning to "google bombing" -- a bad actor could cultivate a terrible google rating, then hire onto a low level freelance gig at a big company they wanted to bomb by association! Let's just say Oracle as a hypothetical example -- Russia, if you're listening...
> Pretty sure they got the accounts back after some public outrage.
This may happen only if you manage to get it to the front page of HN or have many Twitter followers. In most cases you don't stand much chances though.
Hehe, I was just thinking how simple it will be for Google to identify accounts using this technique from simple usage analytics. I suspect this will not work for long... but still super cool!
TBH this is not unlike reporting a security bug to a company as a white hat, but more like a grey hat here.