6 ms·

Yep, I'm going to be migrating my email off of gmail soon as well. #1 rule when you get as large as Google is not to burn your users trust. This was about a bi

Yep, I'm going to be migrating my email off of gmail soon as well. #1 rule when you get as large as Google is not to burn your users trust. This was about a big of a screw-up as you could do there. You should keep your different services separate and isolated and only ban in the areas of business where it impacts things negatively.

bradleyjg 10y ago
Why does Google care about the trust of scammers? Some customers are not worth the effort. This time it was a mass phone scalping scheme, next time it might be a fraudulent click scheme. Google is better off if people like that never use one of their products again. It's as if some person kicked out of a store for shoplifting swore they'd never shop there ever again. Good!
- waterphone 10y ago
  Because they falsely accuse people of things, often—especially with AdSense—and that's it, you have zero recourse, your account is permanently dead. There are a ton of people who have been accused of invalid click fraud on AdSense and got banned, but who never clicked their own ads. The common Google and Google fanboy reply is to dismiss those claims and say people are lying, but I can tell you from personal experience that while maybe some are, not all are.
  - bradleyjg 10y ago
    The answer is to work on the accuracy of the process, not to throw up their hands and stop trying to ban scammers. For this story in particular did anyone come forward to say that they had been banned that didn't participate in the scalping scam? There's a culture of impunity out there on the internet were people think they can cheat the system and nothing will ever come it (think manufactured spending for example). Well, sometimes something does come of it. Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time.
    - mahyarm 10y ago
      They will never be accurate enough, because it costs too much. The easier and more just solution is to just ban people off of the ad platform, and leave the gmail & other services alone. If there is email abuse, then you ban from gmail, youtube abuse, from youtube, etc.
    - x0x0 10y ago
      Buying a piece of hardware and reselling something you paid full sticker price for is now cheating the system? That's quite an expansive definition you have.
    - omg_ketchup 10y ago
      Sure, but if you steal a piece of candy from a store, they don't burn down your house and remove your mailbox. And delete every record of your existence.
  - kllrnohj 10y ago
    > Because they falsely accuse people of things, often—especially with AdSense—and that's it, you have zero recourse, your account is permanently dead. In the case of AdSense that may be true but there's no evidence here that anyone was falsely accused. People scalped. People got busted. That's it. The only "problem" is that some of the scalpers were stupid enough to use their real accounts.
  - tn13 10y ago
    Google's Adsense is a fraud outright. I run a small news website where few people contribute. Almost all content is original. Adsense never approved by website claiming the site has no original content.
- dewiz 10y ago
  Even to scammers, answer must be proportionate. Google should put in place a better solution to deal with frauds. They have the resources, not the will apparently. Their customer service sucks big.
  - bradleyjg 10y ago
    No, it doesn't need to be proportionate. They aren't the government. If you try to cheat me and I catch you, it is totally my right, totally reasonable, rational even, for me to decide I never want to do business of any sort with you again.
    - mynameisvlad 10y ago
      Sure, and it's totally reasonable, rational even, for other customers to see what Google is doing and react by choosing not to use their services. Nobody is saying Google overstepped their bounds legally; yes, they are totally allowed to choose who their customers are. That said, if you as a company are going to completely destroy someone's online life over a single incident, then it's totally fair for others to be weary of using your services.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- tn13 10y ago
  To use you shoplifting analogy think of a teen who tried to steal a can of Soda and the Owner shot him in head (tis is 'Murica) there and there. I think I will be concerned to enter that shop again.
- vvanders 10y ago
  Prevent them from ordering another phone from the Google store? Totally, but this went beyond that. It'd be like losing your voting rights due to getting a speeding ticket. Google is technically right here but the reason you're seeing such a visceral reaction is that people care about their data a lot and having a relatively unrelated event wipe that out is a big overreach.
kpil 10y ago
To what? Gmail is so effortless to use. I've been considering running my own email servers because of things like this (and privacy) but I have never found anything as good.
- hga 10y ago
  Have you tried Fastmail? I've found them to be very good for many years now, although if you don't like their UI and are sort of old school, try their classic.fastmail.fm older interface.
  - tempaccforpost 10y ago
    Another choice is Office365. I use my own domain, with O365 providing the email services. I pay $60 a year for the cheapest plan (with Exchange). I migrated from Google over a year ago, and have slowly moved all my accounts to my new email. It's not something you can do overnight, but if you stick to it, it's not hard to do. One time I had a question, I was able to use the web interface to request support, and a real human called me back in 10 minutes. It wasn't a very complex question, so I can't say if he was super knowledgeable, but he certainly seemed like he knew the platform, and was able to answer my question in just a few minutes. Oh, and I know this is a throwaway account, but I'm not a shill for MS. This is just my personal experience with O365, and YMMV - it's worked well enough for me.
    - tinus_hn 10y ago
      Microsoft will happily send you up a creek if you are a large paying enterprise. Don't think you'll get useful support if you pay $60 a year. Their cloud stuff breaks all the time and the typical support offer is to wait and see if it's better tomorrow.
  - xanderstrike 10y ago
    $5 a month plus the unknown cost of switching vs $0 a month and not having to switch.
- chrisper 10y ago

bradleyjg 10y ago

Why does Google care about the trust of scammers? Some customers are not worth the effort. This time it was a mass phone scalping scheme, next time it might be a fraudulent click scheme. Google is better off if people like that never use one of their products again. It's as if some person kicked out of a store for shoplifting swore they'd never shop there ever again. Good!

waterphone 10y ago
Because they falsely accuse people of things, often—especially with AdSense—and that's it, you have zero recourse, your account is permanently dead. There are a ton of people who have been accused of invalid click fraud on AdSense and got banned, but who never clicked their own ads. The common Google and Google fanboy reply is to dismiss those claims and say people are lying, but I can tell you from personal experience that while maybe some are, not all are.
- bradleyjg 10y ago
  The answer is to work on the accuracy of the process, not to throw up their hands and stop trying to ban scammers. For this story in particular did anyone come forward to say that they had been banned that didn't participate in the scalping scam? There's a culture of impunity out there on the internet were people think they can cheat the system and nothing will ever come it (think manufactured spending for example). Well, sometimes something does come of it. Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time.
  - mahyarm 10y ago
    They will never be accurate enough, because it costs too much. The easier and more just solution is to just ban people off of the ad platform, and leave the gmail & other services alone. If there is email abuse, then you ban from gmail, youtube abuse, from youtube, etc.
  - x0x0 10y ago
    Buying a piece of hardware and reselling something you paid full sticker price for is now cheating the system? That's quite an expansive definition you have.
  - omg_ketchup 10y ago
    Sure, but if you steal a piece of candy from a store, they don't burn down your house and remove your mailbox. And delete every record of your existence.
- kllrnohj 10y ago
  > Because they falsely accuse people of things, often—especially with AdSense—and that's it, you have zero recourse, your account is permanently dead. In the case of AdSense that may be true but there's no evidence here that anyone was falsely accused. People scalped. People got busted. That's it. The only "problem" is that some of the scalpers were stupid enough to use their real accounts.
- tn13 10y ago
  Google's Adsense is a fraud outright. I run a small news website where few people contribute. Almost all content is original. Adsense never approved by website claiming the site has no original content.
dewiz 10y ago
Even to scammers, answer must be proportionate. Google should put in place a better solution to deal with frauds. They have the resources, not the will apparently. Their customer service sucks big.
- bradleyjg 10y ago
  No, it doesn't need to be proportionate. They aren't the government. If you try to cheat me and I catch you, it is totally my right, totally reasonable, rational even, for me to decide I never want to do business of any sort with you again.
  - mynameisvlad 10y ago
    Sure, and it's totally reasonable, rational even, for other customers to see what Google is doing and react by choosing not to use their services. Nobody is saying Google overstepped their bounds legally; yes, they are totally allowed to choose who their customers are. That said, if you as a company are going to completely destroy someone's online life over a single incident, then it's totally fair for others to be weary of using your services.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
tn13 10y ago
To use you shoplifting analogy think of a teen who tried to steal a can of Soda and the Owner shot him in head (tis is 'Murica) there and there. I think I will be concerned to enter that shop again.
vvanders 10y ago
Prevent them from ordering another phone from the Google store? Totally, but this went beyond that. It'd be like losing your voting rights due to getting a speeding ticket. Google is technically right here but the reason you're seeing such a visceral reaction is that people care about their data a lot and having a relatively unrelated event wipe that out is a big overreach.

kpil 10y ago

To what? Gmail is so effortless to use. I've been considering running my own email servers because of things like this (and privacy) but I have never found anything as good.

hga 10y ago
Have you tried Fastmail? I've found them to be very good for many years now, although if you don't like their UI and are sort of old school, try their classic.fastmail.fm older interface.
- tempaccforpost 10y ago
  Another choice is Office365. I use my own domain, with O365 providing the email services. I pay $60 a year for the cheapest plan (with Exchange). I migrated from Google over a year ago, and have slowly moved all my accounts to my new email. It's not something you can do overnight, but if you stick to it, it's not hard to do. One time I had a question, I was able to use the web interface to request support, and a real human called me back in 10 minutes. It wasn't a very complex question, so I can't say if he was super knowledgeable, but he certainly seemed like he knew the platform, and was able to answer my question in just a few minutes. Oh, and I know this is a throwaway account, but I'm not a shill for MS. This is just my personal experience with O365, and YMMV - it's worked well enough for me.
  - tinus_hn 10y ago
    Microsoft will happily send you up a creek if you are a large paying enterprise. Don't think you'll get useful support if you pay $60 a year. Their cloud stuff breaks all the time and the typical support offer is to wait and see if it's better tomorrow.
- xanderstrike 10y ago
  $5 a month plus the unknown cost of switching vs $0 a month and not having to switch.
chrisper 10y ago