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What made me switch from Gmail is stories of people losing their entire account overnight with no possible appeal process due to an algorithm deciding there was

by Bakary 4y ago

What made me switch from Gmail is stories of people losing their entire account overnight with no possible appeal process due to an algorithm deciding there was suspicious activity.

ajross 4y ago
> What made me switch from Gmail is stories Yeah, pretty much. Anecdata is the bane of everything big. In a country of 330M people, you'll have a horrific murder every week. You have a billion email users, someone's going to have trouble. You do realize that, realistically, it's probably more likely that Fastmail will fail, or you'll accidentally lose control of your own domain (or have it stolen) than that Google or Microsoft or Yahoo will "lose your account overnight". There are "stories" about startups failing and domain troubles too.
- Bakary 4y ago
  It's not the only reason, though. Just the thing that solidified the decision to leave. I just came to realize that I was depending on a shady entity for everything. The service I ended up paying for (which is similar to fastmail) can end up failing of course, but it'll take a while and I can always switch to something else once they go into administration. In comparison, I have no idea when or where Google might switch me off, especially since I do a lot of Android and Aurora store tinkering over various devices. Even if Gmail was 100% reliable it would still make sense to not give them everything about my life. Besides, I also get much needed extra email features out of the change.
- thfuran 4y ago
  That there are occasional errors in flagging accounts is one thing. That there's absolutely no recourse is another. Why would I want to do business with a company that works like that?
geraldyo 4y ago
Do you happen to have any actual cases you can point me to? I see this all the time in HN but it's never beyond "a buddy of mine said that he didn't do anything wrong and somehow they got locked out forever with no recourse". Or it's someone saying that happened to themselves, and then they say they never did anything bad with their gmail. Which may or may not be true?
- jerieljan 4y ago
  One good case I can think of is Crinacle. Very popular for his audio measurements site and does YouTube. His Google account got flagged for something suspicious, Google had it shut down and without good explanations. He can't even get help through YouTube support and while the old channel remains, the Google account behind it appears disabled today. The only choice he had was to file a request that lead to nowhere and he basically had to start with a new account and channel. He explained his experience about it in this video here: https://youtu.be/Jn1b3DztWnc?t=83 https://youtu.be/Jn1b3DztWnc?t=83
  - sumedh 4y ago
    > His Google account got flagged for something suspicious, Was that because of his gmail or Youtube?
    - Karunamon 4y ago
      That is just it, they never tell you
    - pixl97 4y ago
      Does it matter? Get banned from one google service for whatever reason (and you may never know why), banned from them all.
  - rsync 4y ago
    "The only choice he had was to file a request that lead to nowhere and he basically had to start with a new account and channel." Incorrect. Yes, that was, indeed, the only choice he had that was free, and from his living room, but he did have other choices. Specifically: serving google with proper legal papers from his own lawyers that require responses. That costs google money. The money just keeps adding up and eventually a real person who has decision authority will look closely at the issue and fix the issue. Assuming, of course, that the banning was improper - which I think we are all stipulating here ...
- yoru-sulfur 4y ago
THENATHE 4y ago
I used cloudflare to host a custom domain, and then use their ROBUST email routing service to, plus a send as record to essentially make my personal Gmail use an email address hosted with cloudflare. Then, I set proton mail as a recovery and use it for NOTHING but that. As close as you can get to total security with gmail as far as I am aware. If google ever shuts down my account, I just move to protonmail or MS365 and have all my stuff already linked to my domain.

by Bakary 4y ago

What made me switch from Gmail is stories of people losing their entire account overnight with no possible appeal process due to an algorithm deciding there was suspicious activity.

ajross 4y ago

> What made me switch from Gmail is stories Yeah, pretty much. Anecdata is the bane of everything big. In a country of 330M people, you'll have a horrific murder every week. You have a billion email users, someone's going to have trouble. You do realize that, realistically, it's probably more likely that Fastmail will fail, or you'll accidentally lose control of your own domain (or have it stolen) than that Google or Microsoft or Yahoo will "lose your account overnight". There are "stories" about startups failing and domain troubles too.

Bakary 4y ago
It's not the only reason, though. Just the thing that solidified the decision to leave. I just came to realize that I was depending on a shady entity for everything. The service I ended up paying for (which is similar to fastmail) can end up failing of course, but it'll take a while and I can always switch to something else once they go into administration. In comparison, I have no idea when or where Google might switch me off, especially since I do a lot of Android and Aurora store tinkering over various devices. Even if Gmail was 100% reliable it would still make sense to not give them everything about my life. Besides, I also get much needed extra email features out of the change.
thfuran 4y ago
That there are occasional errors in flagging accounts is one thing. That there's absolutely no recourse is another. Why would I want to do business with a company that works like that?

geraldyo 4y ago

Do you happen to have any actual cases you can point me to? I see this all the time in HN but it's never beyond "a buddy of mine said that he didn't do anything wrong and somehow they got locked out forever with no recourse". Or it's someone saying that happened to themselves, and then they say they never did anything bad with their gmail. Which may or may not be true?

jerieljan 4y ago
One good case I can think of is Crinacle. Very popular for his audio measurements site and does YouTube. His Google account got flagged for something suspicious, Google had it shut down and without good explanations. He can't even get help through YouTube support and while the old channel remains, the Google account behind it appears disabled today. The only choice he had was to file a request that lead to nowhere and he basically had to start with a new account and channel. He explained his experience about it in this video here: https://youtu.be/Jn1b3DztWnc?t=83 https://youtu.be/Jn1b3DztWnc?t=83
- sumedh 4y ago
  > His Google account got flagged for something suspicious, Was that because of his gmail or Youtube?
  - Karunamon 4y ago
    That is just it, they never tell you
  - pixl97 4y ago
    Does it matter? Get banned from one google service for whatever reason (and you may never know why), banned from them all.
- rsync 4y ago
  "The only choice he had was to file a request that lead to nowhere and he basically had to start with a new account and channel." Incorrect. Yes, that was, indeed, the only choice he had that was free, and from his living room, but he did have other choices. Specifically: serving google with proper legal papers from his own lawyers that require responses. That costs google money. The money just keeps adding up and eventually a real person who has decision authority will look closely at the issue and fix the issue. Assuming, of course, that the banning was improper - which I think we are all stipulating here ...
yoru-sulfur 4y ago

THENATHE 4y ago

I used cloudflare to host a custom domain, and then use their ROBUST email routing service to, plus a send as record to essentially make my personal Gmail use an email address hosted with cloudflare. Then, I set proton mail as a recovery and use it for NOTHING but that. As close as you can get to total security with gmail as far as I am aware. If google ever shuts down my account, I just move to protonmail or MS365 and have all my stuff already linked to my domain.