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This is not as terrifying to me as the other news brought to my attention by a post in today's Reddit's r/YSK, that if you use Adblock, your gmail can be closed
by pen2l 7y ago
This is not as terrifying to me as the other news brought to my attention by a post in today's Reddit's r/YSK, that if you use Adblock, your gmail can be closed.
In the new TOS of Youtube [1], it states that if your account is not deemed commercially viable, your Google account (i.e. your Gmail, your Google Photos, your Google Drive, etc.) can be closed down:
YouTube may terminate your access, or your Google
account’s access to all or part of the Service if YouTube
believes, in its sole discretion, that provision of the
Service to you is no longer commercially viable.
Makes sense they would make this decision, as Youtube is a big money-loser for Google and they want to do something about this. Still, this is more of a wake-up call to me than anything else that I need to get off Google.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/t/terms?preview=20191210#main& https://www.youtube.com/t/terms?preview=20191210#main&
- calciphus 7y ago> YouTube may terminate your access, or your Google account’s access to all or part of the Service if YouTube believes, in its sole discretion, that provision of the Service to you is no longer commercially viable.
- kyrra 7y agoI think it depends on how "the Service" is defined. As "Service" is capitalized, it is likely defined in the TOS, and may only apply to Youtube (not Google as a whole). So I believe you (and the redditor) are reading that passage incorrectly. (IANAL, and I have no clue if what I said is right).
- pen2l 7y agoI've been struggling with this myself. But extrapolating from news that some Youtubers who got banned also found their Google accounts (i.e. Gmail, Drive, etc.) closed, (someone up above just commented on this), I feel I must err on the side of caution. I mean, what do you then make of this haphazard interpretation of 'Service'? p.s., not to be snarky, but you ought to add a disclaimer that you're a Googler in your comment!
- kyrra 7y agoYup,thanks for calling it out. I'm Googler, opinions are my own (and I have no idea about how youtube operates).
- zyx321 7y agoThere's the theoretical legal interpretation, and then there's the precedent for how google have traditionally enforced their rules. And they have been absolutely ruthless. Banning your family and everyone who ever logged in from the same IP as you. Deleting corporate Play Store accounts if one of the developers was banned in the past. It's all done automatically, and there is no way to appeal.
- haberman 7y agoI find that very worryingly vague. In my reading though, that only applies to YouTube itself ("the Service"). It seems to be saying that your Google account can lose access to YouTube, not that you can lose access to your Google account.
- falcolas 7y agoIt's recently been proven that the two are one in the same (look up the "Markplier YouTube Ban").
- sp332 7y ago*Markiplier
- mcv 7y agoWow. That is some heavy-handed, misguided "justice" there. Banning people's Google (including GMail) accounts, even rejecting appeals, only for using emotes the way it was requested and encouraged by the streamer they were commenting on. The thing that was apparently against unspoken Youtube policy here was this kind of interactive, emote-driven streaming. But I get the impression Markiplier didn't get banned, only their fans. It's bizarre and alarming.
- zyx321 7y agoMaybe, but maybe not. There was another recent YouTube controversy where dozens of people were banned from all google services (including Gmail) for spamming on a gaming livestream chat (which is considered perfectly acceptable behavior by most streamers).
- tylerl 7y agoLosing access to ALL Google services happens because of abuse signals. I don't know of any other instances where global bans happen.
- zyx321 7y agoAbuse signals, as determined by a machine learning system that is a complete mystery to even its creators. But that's beside the point. Losing the ability to receive email is not something that should ever happen under any circumstances.
- suprfsat 7y agoThis provision is used to ban channels that refuse to monetize their videos, e.g. Blender https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17347560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17347560
- lmkg 7y agoHopefully that's just saying they have the right to shut down YouTube altogether, rather than denying specific individuals. But I'm not fluent enough in Legalese to be sure about that.
- SimeVidas 7y agoI have AdBlocker for YouTube in Firefox on desktop, but I use the app on mobile, which shows me ads normally, so I guess I’m fine?
- penagwin 7y agoUnfortunately nobody knows, and you have little to no recourse if they ban you :( It's insane to me that Google has gotten so hostile, they place little to no value on individual accounts, meanwhile those accounts are the lifeline of so many individuals and businesses.
- Darvon 7y agoUsing gmail in 2019 lol
- user7483 7y ago> Terminations and Suspensions by YouTube for Cause > YouTube may suspend or terminate your access, your Google account, or your Google account’s access to all or part of the Service if (a) you materially or repeatedly breach this Agreement; (b) we are required to do so to comply with a legal requirement or a court order; or (c) we believe there has been conduct that creates (or could create) liability or harm to any user, other third party, YouTube or our Affiliates https://www.youtube.com/t/terms?preview=20191210 https://www.youtube.com/t/terms?preview=20191210 Edit: just to be cristal clear, yes, YouTube can terminate your Google account
- dvfjsdhgfv 7y agoFortunately, for privacy-conscious people this is not a huge problem as we're usually running Google apps in a separate workspace already. It sure is a problem for mobile users though as ads in general are a huge battery drain.
- JohnFen 7y agoMy confession as a privacy-conscious person: yeah, YouTube is the only Google service that I (reluctantly) use. I even pay cash money for it in exchange for no advertising. However, I only use it on a single tablet that is devoted exclusively to that purpose. As with all Google services, I wouldn't dare to actually use it on a machine that I use for anything else.
- wayneftw 7y agoI don’t sign in to any of their web properties ever. I do have a Google account for Gmail, but I only use it from my various mail clients. They probably know who I am though when I browse “anonymously”. Am I at risk?
- onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago> YouTube is a big money-loser for Google Source?
- woodrowbarlow 7y agojust one more reason i continue to recommend that youtube is greatly improved by signing out. none of the signin-walled "features" are worth it anyway. comments are a banal wasteland, votes mean nothing for creator visibility, subscribing doesn't mean you'll see new videos when they're released, algorithm-driven recommendations actively harm diverse content discoverability...
- MrMember 7y agoI don't even visit the YouTube site that often anymore. I've set up a script to use youtube-dl to download new videos from channels I like on a daily basis.
- daveidol 7y agoCan you share any more information or the source of your script? Sounds like a pretty cool idea.
- MrMember 7y agoIt's actually really simple! Here's an example: youtube-dl --dateafter now-7days --playlist-end 10 --download-archive '/path/to/folder/downloaded.txt' -o '/path/to/folder/%(title)s.%(ext)s' -- 'https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw' https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw' You can play around with the parameters to get the behavior you want (there are tons more than I don't use), I kept it pretty simple. In my case it checks the channel page for videos that are newer than 7 days (it runs daily but this gives me a buffer). If there are more than 10 videos newer than 7 days it only checks the first 10. It stores previously downloaded video information in downloaded.txt so it doesn't download duplicate videos, and outputs the video in the format videoName.ext. Then throw that into a shell script along with any other channels you want and set up a cron job to run it as often as you'd like. You'll also probably want to put 'youtube-dl -U' into a cron job to keep it up to date, YouTube frequently changes things that breaks functionality of youtube-dl.
- 7y ago
- slenk 7y agoWhere does it say your gmail can be closed. The terms listed only say they can terminate your account access to the service, aka Youtube.
- colejohnson66 7y agoWhen they close your YouTube account, they close the associated account on the Google side of things
- slenk 7y agoI actually found it mentioned in a different paragraph. It explicitly states your Google account. You can have your YouTube account shut down and still have an email account
- colejohnson66 7y agoThe thing with markiplier a few days ago says otherwise
- slenk 7y agoI don't know what a markiplier is, I am just reading the actual changes on the YouTube terms website. Terminations and Suspensions by YouTube for Cause YouTube may suspend or terminate your access, _your Google account_ , or your Google account’s access to all or part of the Service if (a) you materially or repeatedly breach this Agreement; (b) we are required to do so to comply with a legal requirement or a court order; or (c) we believe there has been conduct that creates (or could create) liability or harm to any user, other third party, YouTube or our Affiliates. I tend to believe YouTube wouldn't put it in if they didn't mean it.
- colejohnson66 7y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21490674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21490674
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y agoThis makes me want to ditch gmail to prevent accidentally getting my account closed, say for using Youtube while I have Adblock installed in my browser. I do have personal email on a domain I own, but it will be a lot of work to update my e-mail address with each service.
- flanbiscuit 7y agoI want to ditch Gmail/Google as well but I am so entrenched into Android that I'm torn. I don't want to rely on third party ROMs that I need to root and install on my phone. I want the latest AOSP security updates, that's why I choose to buy the Pixel line of phones (looking into Android One phones as well). Also how do I keep my contacts synced between devices. What's a good replacement for Google Photos that gives me the same features. I'm sure people have figured this out already somewhere
- majora2007 7y agoThis is exactly my problem as well. I think the best bet is to partially move off. Setup backups with other systems. For email, have all emails forward to a backup Yahoo account or something. You don't have to check it, but just have it in case Google screws you.
- flanbiscuit 7y agoYeah that's what I'm going to have to do as well. I think the most important (for me) is changing my email to another service (looking at Fastmail) and then slowly changing all my logins to that one. Backing up my contacts on a regular basis and importing them to the new service. And moving any important stuff off Google Drive. I'll probably still use docs and sheets but for things that I don't care if I lose. And finally, Google Photos will be the hardest one to leave. I have so much in there
- mcv 7y agoAnd that's how it works. If you want to be able to use all the cool stuff that Google creates, you have to submit to their business model and play by their rules.
- mcv 7y agoSo if you want to use ad-blockers, I guess it's important to use Youtube only while not logged in. Keep your GMail and Youtube use independent from each other.