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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 att

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).
- raesene9 9y ago
  erm from https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DHz1WNEXcAEVEHr.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DHz1WNEXcAEVEHr.jpg "I spoke to the leadership there and they restored accounts" doesn't sound a lot like the standard support process to me.
  - victorhooi 9y ago
    AFAIK, the two things are orthogonal. My understanding was he'd already kickstarted a normal recovery process https://accounts.google.com/signin/recovery https://accounts.google.com/signin/recovery And he wanted more details, so I assume he spoke to somebody up the escalation chain in our support org, who gave him more details.
    - raesene9 9y ago
      that's not what https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/salil-mehta-free-speech.html https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/salil-mehta-free-speech.html says about it. "Mehta was lucky. The public outcry and press attention prompted Google to manually review his case." "It could have turned out differently. Without his impressive credentials and far-reaching network, Mehta never would have found out why his Google account was shut down. He wouldn't have been able to access his correspondence or restore his blog, which he says has been read by the likes of Elon Musk and Warren Buffett."
      - victorhooi 9y ago
        That website (Inc.) doesn't cite any sources for your quotation at all. It simply appears to be their personal speculation. To me that's rather disingenuous. I actually work in a support org at Google (on the Enterprise side, admittedly). That account recovery link I provided (https://accounts.google.com/signin/recovery https://accounts.google.com/signin/recovery) is available to anybody (This is for consumer - i.e. GMail. If you have an enterprise - i.e. GSuite account, it's slightly different in that your domain administrator can also restore you as well). You don't need to be anybody special - you just go to that URL, fill in your details, and somebody will review it for you. Yes, it will take time. If you make noise, it's possibly it will get escalated and you will get assurances from somebody that it's being looked into. But in general, it will take some time to process it, simply to ensure that we're giving you (and not somebody else) access to your account. I know it sucks, but account security is tough, and I have nothing but respect for the hardworking people that handle that. In my second week at Google, I accidentally typed my password into a non-secure (but still legitimate) web-form. Within minutes, I got an alert asking me to change my password immediately. They take security very seriously. Disclaimer: I work for Google, but any opinions above are my own.

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).

raesene9 9y ago
erm from https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DHz1WNEXcAEVEHr.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DHz1WNEXcAEVEHr.jpg "I spoke to the leadership there and they restored accounts" doesn't sound a lot like the standard support process to me.
- victorhooi 9y ago
  AFAIK, the two things are orthogonal. My understanding was he'd already kickstarted a normal recovery process https://accounts.google.com/signin/recovery https://accounts.google.com/signin/recovery And he wanted more details, so I assume he spoke to somebody up the escalation chain in our support org, who gave him more details.
  - raesene9 9y ago
    that's not what https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/salil-mehta-free-speech.html https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/salil-mehta-free-speech.html says about it. "Mehta was lucky. The public outcry and press attention prompted Google to manually review his case." "It could have turned out differently. Without his impressive credentials and far-reaching network, Mehta never would have found out why his Google account was shut down. He wouldn't have been able to access his correspondence or restore his blog, which he says has been read by the likes of Elon Musk and Warren Buffett."
    - victorhooi 9y ago
      That website (Inc.) doesn't cite any sources for your quotation at all. It simply appears to be their personal speculation. To me that's rather disingenuous. I actually work in a support org at Google (on the Enterprise side, admittedly). That account recovery link I provided (https://accounts.google.com/signin/recovery https://accounts.google.com/signin/recovery) is available to anybody (This is for consumer - i.e. GMail. If you have an enterprise - i.e. GSuite account, it's slightly different in that your domain administrator can also restore you as well). You don't need to be anybody special - you just go to that URL, fill in your details, and somebody will review it for you. Yes, it will take time. If you make noise, it's possibly it will get escalated and you will get assurances from somebody that it's being looked into. But in general, it will take some time to process it, simply to ensure that we're giving you (and not somebody else) access to your account. I know it sucks, but account security is tough, and I have nothing but respect for the hardworking people that handle that. In my second week at Google, I accidentally typed my password into a non-secure (but still legitimate) web-form. Within minutes, I got an alert asking me to change my password immediately. They take security very seriously. Disclaimer: I work for Google, but any opinions above are my own.