[quadrifoliate]

> We really need to just fix the laws.

This. There are something like 150 million Americans with a Google account, and these days it is more important than a phone number to have a working email.

Email is a utility. Email companies should be heavily regulated and controlled like phone or other utility companies.

[herewulf]

Americans need a government issued digital signing token to prove their identity digitally. There are a lot of services demanding ID verification these days and use a 3rd party to process driver's licenses and faces. It's super inefficient, full of friction, and probably unregulated (dodgy).

Someone claiming to work for the US Digital Services replied to me here years ago that this was being worked on in relation to the easily compromised SSN but I'd say all bets are off on a consumer friendly government service like that now.

[calvinmorrison]

I don't know if I agree it should be regulated like a utility, however I believe contracts and suspensions should require more work than a click of a button.

[thephyber]

The ease of suspend isn’t the problem here. It’s that there is functionally no recourse once the suspension happens, justified or not.

The only people who seem to get un-suspended are the ones who can generate news media outrage or who can call their friend who is a director/exec at the company. (Obviously this intuition is flawed, but it’s hurting the reputations of these SaaS providers.)

[quadrifoliate]

> it’s hurting the reputations of these SaaS providers

It's not hurting them enough. Hence the regulation is needed.