5 ms·

And what happens if Google arbitrarily suspends your account?

by cm2187 7y ago

wtallis 7y ago
Is that a problem with G Suite? I think all such cases I've heard of have been with the free personal accounts offered to the general public, not the corporate product. And if random account suspension is something that happens to G Suite accounts, I think the answer is that your IT department's G Suite admins can click the button to un-suspend your account.
- pjc50 7y ago
  There was an incident reported on HN where the entire gsuite account got suspended without warning..
  - izacus 7y ago
    Huh, can you link to the post?
  - SenpaiSilver 7y ago
    Was it ever proven to be true/fake? This is the one I think: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17115643 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17115643
    - londons_explore 7y ago
      If the gmail address linked as the recovery address for the first gsuite admin on a domain is suspended for a T&C violation, then the whole gsuite domain will be suspended too automatically. Its a good reason to never link a gmail address as a recovery address for gsuite - always use another free mail provider.
      - SenpaiSilver 7y ago
        Would normal users personnal accounts be suspended if set as recovery for their normal work GSuite account if the GSuite admin is suspended? I personally never link or login with my personnal accounts on work devices, nor do I use work accounts on personal devices.
        londons_explore 7y ago
        I don't think so. T&C violations disable an account and any linked recovery addresses (and accounts with the same recovery phone number). If an account is disabled, all resources associated are disabled and deleted 30 days later. A GSuite domain is considered a resource 'owned' by the first admin, so if that account is disabled, so are all in the domain. If it is deleted, so is the domain.
      - jkaplowitz 7y ago
        For people who have already made that mistake, would switching the recovery address fix it, or is it unfixable? Also, what if the recovery address is another g suite account in a separate domain?
  - gundmc 7y ago
    If you're talking about the story I think you are, this was debunked/refuted. https://old.reddit.com/r/google/comments/8l231x/google_banned_an_entire_company_gsuite_accounts/dzf8cuq/ https://old.reddit.com/r/google/comments/8l231x/google_banne...
- ivank 7y ago
  Yes, this is happening to me right now on my G Suite: https://twitter.com/ivankozik/status/1254988039467614209 https://twitter.com/ivankozik/status/1254988039467614209 - no warning and no spam on my part. Every account is disabled, all incoming emails bounce, messages to my Google Voice number are /dev/nulled, my YouTube channel does not exist. Requesting account review as the super admin results in the same "please contact another administrator" autoresponse...
  - lima 7y ago
    Are you the only admin in your org?
    - ivank 7y ago
      I think I have one super admin and four regular users, but everyone is disabled.
      - zndr 7y ago
        This is very strange, but also is your Super admin an everyday user account, or a specific isolated admin account? Google normally suspends accounts (notification after suspension with no real info) for heavily reported spam, they will suspend a ton of accounts if your domain is sending a ton of spam, even if its not via g-suite directly. This may be the case are you sure your domain is secured?
        ivank 7y ago
        Super admin is isolated, not my everyday account. I don't know how any of my accounts could have been sending spam. I don't send unsolicited email, and I forward messages from those other four accounts to my primary email account, so I hope I would have noticed a spam problem. But because I cannot log in to anything, and didn't get any information or notification from Google, I can't be sure, of course. I am subscribed to a lot of mailing lists and I wonder if, given my low human outbound volume, whether gmail-generated "bad attachment" bounces could have resulted in this. But that seems unlikely. More likely is someone ran a query and decided I had too many emails or was using too much G Suite storage. I look forward to hearing any information at all from Google!
- rkagerer 7y ago
  Yes, to some degree? I had a "personal" account which Google buggered up because it had the same email address as my GSuite one. I never even signed up for GSuite; they forced the migration sometime after they acquired Postini, and I was a happy customer of the latter (and kept paying Google for some time after the conversion). I got locked out of the personal account, and IIRC stuck in an edge case that needed me to authenticate on Android (can't remember why - some kind of 2FA thing?). Of course the Android login screen didn't accept those @googletempaccount style addresses. Chased Google for over a year trying to get this fixed. It was difficult reaching any live humans with powers over Accounts. Even brought it up with some devs at I/O. Lots of sympathy, but nobody interested in championing my issue. In the end I managed to get the account partially recovered, but there are still some Google products for which my data was never seen again (e.g. lost all starred threads from Google Groups). After the ordeal, I doubt I would entrust Google to replace my DC. Certainly not as much as a third party whose whole business is this and whose revenue depends on maintaining good customer service. Just hope they don't get bought by the juggernaut.
mellow2020 7y ago
If it's the work account, assuming it's through no fault of the user, I would argue that's the best that can happen, since it might make the company think twice about what they are doing in the first place.
dgudkov 7y ago
>And what happens if Google arbitrarily suspends your account? Well, I guess you can't log in to your own Windows computer. A brave new world as it is.
livre 7y ago
I think it'll still be possible to log in with a cached password if you disconnect the computer from the network (that's how it works with domain and Microsoft accounts).
Shorel 7y ago
Hotmail arbitrarily suspended my main email account around 2006-2007. It was a nice coincidence that someone gave me a Gmail invitation around that date. However, I had been burned once, and now I have my own domain for the important emails, and that Gmail account is used for things that can be spam. Lesson: Any huge provider can suspend accounts at will and there's nothing you can do about it.

And what happens if Google arbitrarily suspends your account?

by cm2187 7y ago

And what happens if Google arbitrarily suspends your account?

Is that a problem with G Suite? I think all such cases I've heard of have been with the free personal accounts offered to the general public, not the corporate product. And if random account suspension is something that happens to G Suite accounts, I think the answer is that your IT department's G Suite admins can click the button to un-suspend your account.

pjc50 7y ago
There was an incident reported on HN where the entire gsuite account got suspended without warning..
- izacus 7y ago
  Huh, can you link to the post?
- SenpaiSilver 7y ago
  Was it ever proven to be true/fake? This is the one I think: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17115643 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17115643
  - londons_explore 7y ago
    If the gmail address linked as the recovery address for the first gsuite admin on a domain is suspended for a T&C violation, then the whole gsuite domain will be suspended too automatically. Its a good reason to never link a gmail address as a recovery address for gsuite - always use another free mail provider.
    - SenpaiSilver 7y ago
      Would normal users personnal accounts be suspended if set as recovery for their normal work GSuite account if the GSuite admin is suspended? I personally never link or login with my personnal accounts on work devices, nor do I use work accounts on personal devices.
      - londons_explore 7y ago
        I don't think so. T&C violations disable an account and any linked recovery addresses (and accounts with the same recovery phone number). If an account is disabled, all resources associated are disabled and deleted 30 days later. A GSuite domain is considered a resource 'owned' by the first admin, so if that account is disabled, so are all in the domain. If it is deleted, so is the domain.
    - jkaplowitz 7y ago
      For people who have already made that mistake, would switching the recovery address fix it, or is it unfixable? Also, what if the recovery address is another g suite account in a separate domain?
- gundmc 7y ago
  If you're talking about the story I think you are, this was debunked/refuted. https://old.reddit.com/r/google/comments/8l231x/google_banned_an_entire_company_gsuite_accounts/dzf8cuq/ https://old.reddit.com/r/google/comments/8l231x/google_banne...
ivank 7y ago
Yes, this is happening to me right now on my G Suite: https://twitter.com/ivankozik/status/1254988039467614209 https://twitter.com/ivankozik/status/1254988039467614209 - no warning and no spam on my part. Every account is disabled, all incoming emails bounce, messages to my Google Voice number are /dev/nulled, my YouTube channel does not exist. Requesting account review as the super admin results in the same "please contact another administrator" autoresponse...
- lima 7y ago
  Are you the only admin in your org?
  - ivank 7y ago
    I think I have one super admin and four regular users, but everyone is disabled.
    - zndr 7y ago
      This is very strange, but also is your Super admin an everyday user account, or a specific isolated admin account? Google normally suspends accounts (notification after suspension with no real info) for heavily reported spam, they will suspend a ton of accounts if your domain is sending a ton of spam, even if its not via g-suite directly. This may be the case are you sure your domain is secured?
      - ivank 7y ago
        Super admin is isolated, not my everyday account. I don't know how any of my accounts could have been sending spam. I don't send unsolicited email, and I forward messages from those other four accounts to my primary email account, so I hope I would have noticed a spam problem. But because I cannot log in to anything, and didn't get any information or notification from Google, I can't be sure, of course. I am subscribed to a lot of mailing lists and I wonder if, given my low human outbound volume, whether gmail-generated "bad attachment" bounces could have resulted in this. But that seems unlikely. More likely is someone ran a query and decided I had too many emails or was using too much G Suite storage. I look forward to hearing any information at all from Google!
rkagerer 7y ago
Yes, to some degree? I had a "personal" account which Google buggered up because it had the same email address as my GSuite one. I never even signed up for GSuite; they forced the migration sometime after they acquired Postini, and I was a happy customer of the latter (and kept paying Google for some time after the conversion). I got locked out of the personal account, and IIRC stuck in an edge case that needed me to authenticate on Android (can't remember why - some kind of 2FA thing?). Of course the Android login screen didn't accept those @googletempaccount style addresses. Chased Google for over a year trying to get this fixed. It was difficult reaching any live humans with powers over Accounts. Even brought it up with some devs at I/O. Lots of sympathy, but nobody interested in championing my issue. In the end I managed to get the account partially recovered, but there are still some Google products for which my data was never seen again (e.g. lost all starred threads from Google Groups). After the ordeal, I doubt I would entrust Google to replace my DC. Certainly not as much as a third party whose whole business is this and whose revenue depends on maintaining good customer service. Just hope they don't get bought by the juggernaut.

mellow2020 7y ago

If it's the work account, assuming it's through no fault of the user, I would argue that's the best that can happen, since it might make the company think twice about what they are doing in the first place.

dgudkov 7y ago

>And what happens if Google arbitrarily suspends your account? Well, I guess you can't log in to your own Windows computer. A brave new world as it is.

livre 7y ago

I think it'll still be possible to log in with a cached password if you disconnect the computer from the network (that's how it works with domain and Microsoft accounts).

Shorel 7y ago

Hotmail arbitrarily suspended my main email account around 2006-2007. It was a nice coincidence that someone gave me a Gmail invitation around that date. However, I had been burned once, and now I have my own domain for the important emails, and that Gmail account is used for things that can be spam. Lesson: Any huge provider can suspend accounts at will and there's nothing you can do about it.