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Throwing in my comment like a penny down a wishing well: Google recently turned off my gmail because my google drive quota was exceeded. They were "protecting"

Throwing in my comment like a penny down a wishing well: Google recently turned off my gmail because my google drive quota was exceeded. They were "protecting" me from myself, by denying me the ability to buy more storage. They refuse to accept any payment method until I deliver a passport photo to them. The problems here go a bit beyond them being the steward of information or arbiter of right vs wrong. They'll deny you service for any or no reason, and leave no recourse when their algorithm malfunctions. That said, they can ban distribution of misleading content. It's their right, and no one can dispute that. I'm not sure what people hope to accomplish by expressing outrage over this. We wouldn't want providers not to be able to decide what content to distribute.

shadowgovt 5y ago
> We wouldn't want providers not to be able to decide what content to distribute. That is basically what some people want. Hacker News is looking at the choice between the George Orwell future and Neal Stephenson future and finding neither to its liking.
anigbrowl 5y ago
They refuse to accept any payment method until I deliver a passport photo to them. That seems like something worth supporting with screenshots and posting as its own thread. I've never heard of anyone needing a passport photo for a credit card transaction, at least not in the US.
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  It's passport photo or government-issued ID (mine is expired), which rather narrows down the options. They also want a photo of some bill mailed to my home address with my name on it, and we've been in the process of moving for several months. I have a garbage utility bill coming to our new place, just for big G, so hopefully that'll satisfy them. The most annoying part was that when they turned off my billing, I had been paying for 200GB of GDrive space. Boop, it went to 15GB. Turns out it's shared with gmail, which means I had now exceeded my gmail quota by around 1200%. It's been off since April: https://twitter.com/theshawwn/status/1381027951446171648 https://twitter.com/theshawwn/status/1381027951446171648 But my gmail account kept functioning. They periodically said "You know, you really should purchase more storage..." but the service kept working. Till Friday. Boop, all my emails shut off. Noticed it on Monday. Had to purge 185GB down to <15GB on my gdrive, and managed to just barely do it. I dunno. I don't really feel like causing problems. Yeah it sucks, but I also get it, and I'm more of a "go with the flow" kind of person, and "periodically whine about it in a comment." But I'll go submit the damn passport photo and get it over with once our new house is set up. It was more of a mild annoyance than a disaster.
rscoots 5y ago
>That said, they can ban distribution of misleading content. It's their right, and no one can dispute that. I'm not sure what people hope to accomplish by expressing outrage over this. Since when is encouraging mega-corporations to act morally a bad thing? Or some sort of waste-of-breath, as you imply here.

shadowgovt 5y ago

> We wouldn't want providers not to be able to decide what content to distribute. That is basically what some people want. Hacker News is looking at the choice between the George Orwell future and Neal Stephenson future and finding neither to its liking.

anigbrowl 5y ago

They refuse to accept any payment method until I deliver a passport photo to them. That seems like something worth supporting with screenshots and posting as its own thread. I've never heard of anyone needing a passport photo for a credit card transaction, at least not in the US.

sillysaurusx 5y ago
It's passport photo or government-issued ID (mine is expired), which rather narrows down the options. They also want a photo of some bill mailed to my home address with my name on it, and we've been in the process of moving for several months. I have a garbage utility bill coming to our new place, just for big G, so hopefully that'll satisfy them. The most annoying part was that when they turned off my billing, I had been paying for 200GB of GDrive space. Boop, it went to 15GB. Turns out it's shared with gmail, which means I had now exceeded my gmail quota by around 1200%. It's been off since April: https://twitter.com/theshawwn/status/1381027951446171648 https://twitter.com/theshawwn/status/1381027951446171648 But my gmail account kept functioning. They periodically said "You know, you really should purchase more storage..." but the service kept working. Till Friday. Boop, all my emails shut off. Noticed it on Monday. Had to purge 185GB down to <15GB on my gdrive, and managed to just barely do it. I dunno. I don't really feel like causing problems. Yeah it sucks, but I also get it, and I'm more of a "go with the flow" kind of person, and "periodically whine about it in a comment." But I'll go submit the damn passport photo and get it over with once our new house is set up. It was more of a mild annoyance than a disaster.

rscoots 5y ago

>That said, they can ban distribution of misleading content. It's their right, and no one can dispute that. I'm not sure what people hope to accomplish by expressing outrage over this. Since when is encouraging mega-corporations to act morally a bad thing? Or some sort of waste-of-breath, as you imply here.