[mittermayr]

Well, at the time I felt it was clear that Google used this to push their brand, use the data for aggregated ad intelligence and would also utilize it to upsell into other products.

To say it's free, and then suddenly pull the carpet is something they may be able to do legally, but it is (hopefully) going to bring them the disaster they deserve. The cost of keeping those accounts at limited state and with locked features would be negligible compared to the loss in future revenue.