5 ms·

Thanks for bringing that up. However, te truth is often a bit more nuanced (although it doesn't make for as good headlines). Dissecting your three examples. I

Thanks for bringing that up. However, te truth is often a bit more nuanced (although it doesn't make for as good headlines). Dissecting your three examples. In the first case, (and based on their own statements) those people were buying up phones by the hundreds, shipping them to a single physical address and then scalping over the internet. It's basically fraud. So yes, they probably got picked up by an automated algorithm that looks for hijacking/CC fraud or bot-nets. From public statements though, I believe most of them got their accounts back when they reached out to confirm they were real people and not some fraud bot-net. It's still technically violation of their ToS, but I won't comment on that part. The second case I'm not directly familiar with, and there's no public statements so I won't say anything further. In the third case, the affected customer made a public statement afterwards: https://twitter.com/salilstatistics/status/899863971817238528?lang=en https://twitter.com/salilstatistics/status/89986397181723852... I can't comment any further than what's been said publicly except on general principles 1. Google does a lot of things to protect users from external attacks, everything I've seen seems to indicate they really do care about users, and 2. There are pretty clear ways to get back into your account should anything happen (https://accounts.google.com/signin/recovery https://accounts.google.com/signin/recovery is your one-stop shop), and 3. The user doesn't carry any ill-will towards Google once he realised what actually happened. (Disclaimer: I work for Google, but the above statements are my own and do not reflect those of my employees).

tehwebguy 9y ago
Perhaps there was something specific about that specific instance that made it fraud, but reselling a phone isn't fraud by default. Not interested in needing to beg a horrible algorithm or become internet famous just to get ahold of a human that might turn my digital life back on.
- victorhooi 9y ago
  I'm only speaking in general terms here, not specifics. However, reselling phones is usually against the ToS of pretty much every retailer. This isn't unique to Google. Here are our ToS - https://store.google.com/intl/en-US_us/about/device-terms.ht.. https://store.google.com/intl/en-US_us/about/device-terms.ht.... > You may only purchase Devices for your personal use. You may not commercially resell any Device, but you may give the Device as a gift. Recipients of gifts may need to open and maintain a Google Payments account in order to receive any support offered by Google. These Terms apply to any gift recipient. I'd like to see you walk into an Apple store, and buy 10 iPhones. Or say, 100? In fact - Apple even introduced controls to stop scalping of Genius Bar appointments: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/09/12/apple-store-genius-b.. http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/09/12/apple-store-genius-b.... Or say you create 100 email accounts - john001@gmail.com, john002@gmail.com, john003@gmail.com etc. - and have them each buy a phone, and ship them to a single physical address. It's certainly possible to see how this would come across as hijacking or botnet fraud.
  - 8note 9y ago
    You're saying that like it's a reasonable condition. Other sellers of things don't have such conditions like, having it be against ToS to resell your car or your forks.
    - tehwebguy 9y ago
      Agreed - I am arguing with them as if it's reasonable but it's entirely not.
  - tehwebguy 9y ago
    > In fact - Apple even introduced controls to stop scalping of Genius Bar appointments Yeah, they prevent the purchase. That sounds reasonable. They decidedly DO NOT brick the buyer's phone, or their entire digital life, if they suspect someone bought more than the limit. Also, even if they did, which would be just as horrible and outrageous as when Google does it, at least they have reasonable phone support and retail stores. It's not just about Google's indefensible behavior in terminating Google accounts, it's about how the company wants to be relied on for everything digital without providing even a bare minimum level of support.
    - victorhooi 9y ago
      The issue isn't buying over the limit. The issue is making it seem like your account is hijacked, or part of a bot-net, or committing payment fraud (e.g. stolen credit cards). Say you create 100 email accounts - john001@gmail.com, john002@gmail.com, john003@gmail.com etc. - and have them each buy a phone, and ship them to a single physical address. Most people would see that as a major red flag for something fishing going on. Or say suddenly all of these otherwise unrelated accounts suddenly started ordering goods online, and shipping to a PO Box in the Ukraine. As a consumer, I most definitely want all of this stopped. In fact, my bank will regularly call me up and ask me to confirm transactions that seem suspicious (or send me an SMS) - if I don't respond in time (e.g. I'm travelling), they will lock out my credit card. That is exactly what you want as a customer. So in this case - it seems these people knew they were engaging in something shady - but perhaps they didn't put two and two together and think, gee, if I let somebody order something on my credit card, yet addressed to him, I wonder if it will look like my account was hijacked?
fulafel 9y ago
Those don't sound very convincing. Firstly, any time these things get enough press to become well known cases, it's natural that the "appeal to PR" vector gets them sorted out. Secondly, the per case details don't look good for Google - in the first case, buying and reselling phones for a profit sounds perfectly above the board. Even something a "don't be evil" company might do... In the third case, the statement reads exactly like legalese that would be grudgingly put out by someone who's had a tussle with lawyers.
- victorhooi 9y ago
  To your first point - The natural counterpoint is - there are billions of Google account there. Yet, the number of cases you hear about this is in the handful. To your second point - scalping phones is most definitely against ToS. This is true for Google, Apple, Smsung anybody. Here are our ToS - https://store.google.com/intl/en-US_us/about/device-terms.html https://store.google.com/intl/en-US_us/about/device-terms.ht... > You may only purchase Devices for your personal use. You may not commercially resell any Device, but you may give the Device as a gift. Recipients of gifts may need to open and maintain a Google Payments account in order to receive any support offered by Google. These Terms apply to any gift recipient. This isn't unique to Google. I'd like to see you walk into an Apple store, and buy 10 iPhones. Or say, 100? In fact - Apple even introduced controls to stop scalping of Genius Bar appointments: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/09/12/apple-store-genius-bar-reservation-changes/ http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/09/12/apple-store-genius-b... Or say you create 100 email accounts - john001@gmail.com, john002@gmail.com, john003@gmail.com etc. - and have them each buy a phone, and ship them to a single physical address. You can see why this would come across as hijacking/botnet fraud, right? (That's separate to the ToS violations). But from public statements - the scalping itself wasn't what got them, it was probably the bot-net like account creation, and indications of payment fraud. Thirdly point - it doesn't sound remotely like legalese, and there's no indication lawyers were even involved. In fact, why would they be? I would have preferred him to post some more technical details, as that would have cleared things up, but he posted a nice message of his own volition, which I suppose is fine. It reads more like the message of somebody who's relieved, and glad he got an explanation of what actually happened behind the scenes.
raesene9 9y ago
To speak about that third case the very real concern I would have there is that it appears he got access to his account back by being able to attract enough attention from Google management, as he was well connected and had a relatively high profile twitter account (> 100k followers) That kind of solution is unlikely to be of use to customers who don't have the ability to bypass the common process...
- ehsankia 9y ago
  That may or may not be true, but it's by definition hard to tell because the cases that don't get attention, you don't hear about. So it's hard for us to tell for sure. But in general, considering that billions of people have Google accounts, the fact that you can count these cases on your fingers and that you don't see articles about it every week means that it's probably safer than flying by plane. Let's be honest, nothing is 100% safe. If you decide to keep everything off of the cloud also has its own risks.
  - raesene9 9y ago
    that's an interesting assumption, an alternative interpretation would be that as they're so common they're no longer news-worthy. Either could be true...
- victorhooi 9y ago
  It wasn't necessarily the publicity. He reached out through normal channels, but these things normally take some time to process, since they normally have to be reviewed by humans. It's one of those things where you want to tread carefully. I mean, say my account got hijacked. I want to get back in. So does the hijacker. I would much rather prefer waiting an extra day or so, than risk having the hijacker purporting to be me getting back in. I've actually had to deal with the exact above scenario for a friend before - they had a Gmail email account, and another (unnamed) email provider. The hijacker did try to get back in, and it's a pretty scary proposition. So having a bit of peace of mind that the bar is suitably high is good. (Disclaimer: I work for Google, but any statements above are my own, and do not reflect those of my employer).
morganvachon 9y ago
"In the first case, (and based on their own statements) those people were buying up phones by the hundreds, shipping them to a single physical address and then scalping over the internet. It's basically fraud. So yes, they probably got picked up by an automated algorithm that looks for hijacking/CC fraud or bot-nets." No, it's not "basically fraud". Yes, it violates Google's terms, and banning the customers from using Fi would have been a reasonable response, but Google's TOS is not enshrined in criminal law. Unless your position at Google is on the legal team, you might want to be careful about throwing around phrases like that with nothing to back it up. By admitting you work there, you are officially speaking for the company with such statements.
- victorhooi 9y ago
  Thanks for bringing that up. I suspect you and I are talking about two different things however. I'm using fraud as an ordinary layman would use it - that is - deliberate deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain. In this case, I think most people would agree that spawning up multiple dummy accounts (e.g. john001@gmail.com, john002@gmail.com, john003@gmail.com) and then using them to get around ordering restrictions is definitely deceptive. (These account names are obviously illustrative). And in terms of what's a "reasonable" response, that's above my paygrade. All I can comment on is the public statements that those people made around the time, and around their interactions with Google and their interpretation of them. However, are you a legal practitioner? If so, then perhaps you are using the term in the other sense? Also, if you're willing to comment IAAL, that would be very interesting.
  - morganvachon 9y ago
    "I'm using fraud as an ordinary layman would use it" Fair enough, my point was more that I was so surprised you were willing to stick your neck out by officially speaking for Google here, especially regarding legal matters. No, I'm not a lawyer, but I do have nearly 20 years in law enforcement and LE-related work, enough to have a bit of an informed take on things like this. I do feel that Google was wrong to permanently and irrevocably delete their entire Google account rather than simply banning their account from using Fi. It's Google's prerogative, but it told me everything I needed to know about them as a company. Suddenly I was acutely aware that if I were to violate, say, YouTube's TOS by uploading something that I thought was fair use when it wasn't, I could permanently lose my entire online life. That's quite simply unacceptable.
jlarocco 9y ago
Exactly the type of Google apologist FUD I would expect from a Google employee. Google is not at all transparent about how or why accounts get closed, and their support when it happens is utterly terrible. The fact that the links in the parent posts had to resort to PR shaming is proof of that. Most people don't have the online following to pull that off. In reality, an average person who loses access to their Google account is screwed, and that should be an important consideration when looking at Google products.

tehwebguy 9y ago

Perhaps there was something specific about that specific instance that made it fraud, but reselling a phone isn't fraud by default. Not interested in needing to beg a horrible algorithm or become internet famous just to get ahold of a human that might turn my digital life back on.

victorhooi 9y ago
I'm only speaking in general terms here, not specifics. However, reselling phones is usually against the ToS of pretty much every retailer. This isn't unique to Google. Here are our ToS - https://store.google.com/intl/en-US_us/about/device-terms.ht.. https://store.google.com/intl/en-US_us/about/device-terms.ht.... > You may only purchase Devices for your personal use. You may not commercially resell any Device, but you may give the Device as a gift. Recipients of gifts may need to open and maintain a Google Payments account in order to receive any support offered by Google. These Terms apply to any gift recipient. I'd like to see you walk into an Apple store, and buy 10 iPhones. Or say, 100? In fact - Apple even introduced controls to stop scalping of Genius Bar appointments: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/09/12/apple-store-genius-b.. http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/09/12/apple-store-genius-b.... Or say you create 100 email accounts - john001@gmail.com, john002@gmail.com, john003@gmail.com etc. - and have them each buy a phone, and ship them to a single physical address. It's certainly possible to see how this would come across as hijacking or botnet fraud.
- 8note 9y ago
  You're saying that like it's a reasonable condition. Other sellers of things don't have such conditions like, having it be against ToS to resell your car or your forks.
  - tehwebguy 9y ago
    Agreed - I am arguing with them as if it's reasonable but it's entirely not.
- tehwebguy 9y ago
  > In fact - Apple even introduced controls to stop scalping of Genius Bar appointments Yeah, they prevent the purchase. That sounds reasonable. They decidedly DO NOT brick the buyer's phone, or their entire digital life, if they suspect someone bought more than the limit. Also, even if they did, which would be just as horrible and outrageous as when Google does it, at least they have reasonable phone support and retail stores. It's not just about Google's indefensible behavior in terminating Google accounts, it's about how the company wants to be relied on for everything digital without providing even a bare minimum level of support.
  - victorhooi 9y ago
    The issue isn't buying over the limit. The issue is making it seem like your account is hijacked, or part of a bot-net, or committing payment fraud (e.g. stolen credit cards). Say you create 100 email accounts - john001@gmail.com, john002@gmail.com, john003@gmail.com etc. - and have them each buy a phone, and ship them to a single physical address. Most people would see that as a major red flag for something fishing going on. Or say suddenly all of these otherwise unrelated accounts suddenly started ordering goods online, and shipping to a PO Box in the Ukraine. As a consumer, I most definitely want all of this stopped. In fact, my bank will regularly call me up and ask me to confirm transactions that seem suspicious (or send me an SMS) - if I don't respond in time (e.g. I'm travelling), they will lock out my credit card. That is exactly what you want as a customer. So in this case - it seems these people knew they were engaging in something shady - but perhaps they didn't put two and two together and think, gee, if I let somebody order something on my credit card, yet addressed to him, I wonder if it will look like my account was hijacked?

fulafel 9y ago

Those don't sound very convincing. Firstly, any time these things get enough press to become well known cases, it's natural that the "appeal to PR" vector gets them sorted out. Secondly, the per case details don't look good for Google - in the first case, buying and reselling phones for a profit sounds perfectly above the board. Even something a "don't be evil" company might do... In the third case, the statement reads exactly like legalese that would be grudgingly put out by someone who's had a tussle with lawyers.

victorhooi 9y ago
To your first point - The natural counterpoint is - there are billions of Google account there. Yet, the number of cases you hear about this is in the handful. To your second point - scalping phones is most definitely against ToS. This is true for Google, Apple, Smsung anybody. Here are our ToS - https://store.google.com/intl/en-US_us/about/device-terms.html https://store.google.com/intl/en-US_us/about/device-terms.ht... > You may only purchase Devices for your personal use. You may not commercially resell any Device, but you may give the Device as a gift. Recipients of gifts may need to open and maintain a Google Payments account in order to receive any support offered by Google. These Terms apply to any gift recipient. This isn't unique to Google. I'd like to see you walk into an Apple store, and buy 10 iPhones. Or say, 100? In fact - Apple even introduced controls to stop scalping of Genius Bar appointments: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/09/12/apple-store-genius-bar-reservation-changes/ http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/09/12/apple-store-genius-b... Or say you create 100 email accounts - john001@gmail.com, john002@gmail.com, john003@gmail.com etc. - and have them each buy a phone, and ship them to a single physical address. You can see why this would come across as hijacking/botnet fraud, right? (That's separate to the ToS violations). But from public statements - the scalping itself wasn't what got them, it was probably the bot-net like account creation, and indications of payment fraud. Thirdly point - it doesn't sound remotely like legalese, and there's no indication lawyers were even involved. In fact, why would they be? I would have preferred him to post some more technical details, as that would have cleared things up, but he posted a nice message of his own volition, which I suppose is fine. It reads more like the message of somebody who's relieved, and glad he got an explanation of what actually happened behind the scenes.

raesene9 9y ago

To speak about that third case the very real concern I would have there is that it appears he got access to his account back by being able to attract enough attention from Google management, as he was well connected and had a relatively high profile twitter account (> 100k followers) That kind of solution is unlikely to be of use to customers who don't have the ability to bypass the common process...

ehsankia 9y ago
That may or may not be true, but it's by definition hard to tell because the cases that don't get attention, you don't hear about. So it's hard for us to tell for sure. But in general, considering that billions of people have Google accounts, the fact that you can count these cases on your fingers and that you don't see articles about it every week means that it's probably safer than flying by plane. Let's be honest, nothing is 100% safe. If you decide to keep everything off of the cloud also has its own risks.
- raesene9 9y ago
  that's an interesting assumption, an alternative interpretation would be that as they're so common they're no longer news-worthy. Either could be true...
victorhooi 9y ago
It wasn't necessarily the publicity. He reached out through normal channels, but these things normally take some time to process, since they normally have to be reviewed by humans. It's one of those things where you want to tread carefully. I mean, say my account got hijacked. I want to get back in. So does the hijacker. I would much rather prefer waiting an extra day or so, than risk having the hijacker purporting to be me getting back in. I've actually had to deal with the exact above scenario for a friend before - they had a Gmail email account, and another (unnamed) email provider. The hijacker did try to get back in, and it's a pretty scary proposition. So having a bit of peace of mind that the bar is suitably high is good. (Disclaimer: I work for Google, but any statements above are my own, and do not reflect those of my employer).

morganvachon 9y ago

"In the first case, (and based on their own statements) those people were buying up phones by the hundreds, shipping them to a single physical address and then scalping over the internet. It's basically fraud. So yes, they probably got picked up by an automated algorithm that looks for hijacking/CC fraud or bot-nets." No, it's not "basically fraud". Yes, it violates Google's terms, and banning the customers from using Fi would have been a reasonable response, but Google's TOS is not enshrined in criminal law. Unless your position at Google is on the legal team, you might want to be careful about throwing around phrases like that with nothing to back it up. By admitting you work there, you are officially speaking for the company with such statements.

victorhooi 9y ago
Thanks for bringing that up. I suspect you and I are talking about two different things however. I'm using fraud as an ordinary layman would use it - that is - deliberate deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain. In this case, I think most people would agree that spawning up multiple dummy accounts (e.g. john001@gmail.com, john002@gmail.com, john003@gmail.com) and then using them to get around ordering restrictions is definitely deceptive. (These account names are obviously illustrative). And in terms of what's a "reasonable" response, that's above my paygrade. All I can comment on is the public statements that those people made around the time, and around their interactions with Google and their interpretation of them. However, are you a legal practitioner? If so, then perhaps you are using the term in the other sense? Also, if you're willing to comment IAAL, that would be very interesting.
- morganvachon 9y ago
  "I'm using fraud as an ordinary layman would use it" Fair enough, my point was more that I was so surprised you were willing to stick your neck out by officially speaking for Google here, especially regarding legal matters. No, I'm not a lawyer, but I do have nearly 20 years in law enforcement and LE-related work, enough to have a bit of an informed take on things like this. I do feel that Google was wrong to permanently and irrevocably delete their entire Google account rather than simply banning their account from using Fi. It's Google's prerogative, but it told me everything I needed to know about them as a company. Suddenly I was acutely aware that if I were to violate, say, YouTube's TOS by uploading something that I thought was fair use when it wasn't, I could permanently lose my entire online life. That's quite simply unacceptable.

jlarocco 9y ago

Exactly the type of Google apologist FUD I would expect from a Google employee. Google is not at all transparent about how or why accounts get closed, and their support when it happens is utterly terrible. The fact that the links in the parent posts had to resort to PR shaming is proof of that. Most people don't have the online following to pull that off. In reality, an average person who loses access to their Google account is screwed, and that should be an important consideration when looking at Google products.