I'm surprised at all the histrionics going on in the article and this thread. "Google ... plans to cut him off from his family until he's 13." First, take a d

I'm surprised at all the histrionics going on in the article and this thread. "Google ... plans to cut him off from his family until he's 13." First, take a deep breath. Then, get another email address that you can control, and back it up. See if the grandparents still have copies of their correspondence for the kid to read. Use this as an opportunity to teach the importance of backing up data that is important to you, and why you can't trust free online services to always look out for you. Currently I'm in India, and today witnessed children sifting through open piles of garbage and panhandling in the middle of traffic. So it's kind of maddening to then witness the stunning lack of perspective these parents demonstrate when their child is temporarily cut off from site update emails and using chat to talk to them while sitting in the same room. Yes, I understand the data loss making a 10 year old "enormously upset", but if these seemingly technically-savvy parents didn't yet realize the necessity of owning and managing data that is important to the family, then I'd hope that point isn't lost. In the time spent to write a hysterical blog and more responses in the comments, a simple solution to ensure this did not happen again could have been implemented.