[terhechte]

I decided I'm leaving Gmail at some point in the future, here's why: Yesterday I wanted to comment on a video on Youtube. I clicked the 'reply' button, and a message came up, telling me that I needed to create a YouTube channel (or something) on order to be able to comment. So I quickly filled the mandatory fields and hit save. The next thing I saw was a message from Google telling me that my account had been locked because I am under 13 years of age. My Gmail account! My account where I have all my precious data. Because I had a typo in a field somewhere on YouTube! I understand that the US law requires these things, but why on earth would a typo on YouTube kill my personal Email account? Now I uploaded an image of my passport onto their servers to proof that I'm over 13. If that doesn't work out, they'll delete all my data in 29 days.

I can't explain how fed up I am about that. When I'm entering any date fields on my Gmail account, I'm always cautious. But this was YouTube. Enough rant.

Thanks for this tool! When my account comes back up, I'll use it to keep the data safe (I do have it in imap of course). And then at some point in the future I'll look for an alternative to Google.

[jonknee]

That rant should also be directed at US law, which is pretty clear about what Google needs to do in this situation. I suppose the problem is integrating YouTube with Google accounts, but you could have just as easily muffed a field in Gmail and had the same issue.

What should Google do when you state you are under 13? If they pop up a message saying "Are you sure? All this cool stuff is going to go away if you say that you are under 13." it breaks the intent of the law and child advocacy groups would rightly eat Google for lunch.