[dig1]

When you pay the company for some service and the only way to reach their support is via Twitter, hoping for the best, I'd run away from that company fast as possible. Someone once said, "you are never big enough for Google to notice you", meaning, you can't pay them enough so you can have dedicated 24/7 support by real humans.

People should learn by now that Google's bread and butter is search and ads. Everything else is a second citizen to them.

[londons_explore]

> you can't pay them enough so you can have dedicated 24/7 support by real humans.

You absolutely can pay them enough to have this. Nearly anyone giving Google $100k+ per year will have a rep assigned.

The problem is the rep is nearly powerless - lots of account problems the rep can't help solve - all they can do is issue refunds/goodwill-compensation in cases like this. They can internally message the team responsible, but in a bunch of cases they can't reverse auto-bans.

[johnywalks]

I've been avoiding any google product lock in for years now. These ban cases might be rare but i would never trust them enough to build my livelihood on it.

[cft]

Is it safe to have an Android phone? What if they decide to deplatform your Google account associated with it. What about trusting your number to Google Fi? I have both and I am nervous.

[noam_compsci]

This case was in the news last week. Some dude named Dave took a medical photo of his young son that got flagged as CSAM. His android account was locked with no way of recourse.

At this point doing anything but search and ads with google is like going to a steak house and ordering a lasagne. It’s just not what they’re good at.

[unknownaccount]

That’s not the whole story. They didn’t reinstate his account because of another, medically unnecessary, photo of the kid in bed with his nude wife.

[emptyparadise]

Why is that a bannable offense?

[noam_compsci]

Source? I can’t find anything about this as an addendum to the story. Guardian, verge and NYT just end the story at “account still blocked”.

[ChoGGi]

It was a video and he didn't send it. He just happened to have it on the same phone.

"the subsequent review of his account turned up a video from six months earlier that Google also considered problematic, of a young child lying in bed with an unclothed woman."

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/tech...

[lizardactivist]

Interesting that Google can just browse through the photos on one's phone, completely at their own initiative.

"Private and secure" - private and secure from other people. Never from Google. Never from the US government.

[MerelyMortal]

source and context? I think that happened in the U.K., and I'm not sure what their laws are, but in the U.S.A., as long as there is nothing sexual about it, such a picture is not illegal.

[londons_explore]

Your android phone will continue to work as-if-offline if your account is banned. You can still do calls/sms and browse the web, but all google apps won't work until you create a new gmail account (and obviously you'll lose all your data).

[lovingCranberry]

Question: Assuming you have a modern android phone like samsung galaxy S20. When you factory reset your phone you need to log in with your google account to use it. This prevents people from stealing your phone.

How does this work when your account has been banned? Is my phone a brick afterwards? Someone should try this out.

[londons_explore]

Your phone is only a brick if your account is banned at the same time as you reset your phone. Either alone won't brick your phone.

[lovingCranberry]

Some might see Occham's razor in this, but I could imagine this being a real edge case:

When I had an Android (OnePlus) device I often factory reset when tinkering with it, go to bed and continue whatever I wanted to do on the next day. Of course my phone had it's bootloader unlocked and TWRP recovery, since I was trying to get lineageOS + spoofed signatures + microG to work.

So basically the scenario is: factory reset your phone, go to bed, wake up with banned google account, have a new brick decor for your garden.

Would be funny if they didn't think of this possibility.

[sreevisakh]

So, you're supposed to avoid doing factory reset on a phone once your account is banned? Sounds like an essential feature being held hostage.

[londons_explore]

No - you can always remove the google account from the phone, or add a different one, before resetting it.

[poglet]

From memory you use your Samsung account for that feature.

[cmeacham98]

Android phone: Probably - the worst that could happen is you get locked out of the play store and have to make a new account.

Google Fi: Depends on your country's laws for how phone number transfers work.

[signal11]

> Android phone: Probably - the worst that could happen is you get locked out of the play store and have to make a new account.

If you have apps, movies etc bought from Google Play — those are gone too.

If you use a @gmail email address, you lose that too and you now have to tell people not use that any more.

[cmeacham98]

Except for buying apps, none of these have anything to do with using Android.

[cft]

I have a US Fi account and a US number. Can they just deplatform my account and take the number? I will loose banking and exchanges access

[cmeacham98]

In the US, carriers are legally required to port your number to your new service, but they can delay the process by up to a week. Generally, it's much much faster (I've ported numbers in literal minutes), but I don't know how it would go with a banned account.

[throwaway67743]

You are not forced to use Google services with Android, so that's not really the same