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Given the screenshot, it looks like they deactivated the entire Apple ID account. That would include losing access to email, photos, contacts, iCloud documents,

Given the screenshot, it looks like they deactivated the entire Apple ID account. That would include losing access to email, photos, contacts, iCloud documents, calendars, app store purchases, even book highlights. Insane.

gumby 3y ago
Have an unrelated dev account. Mine is so old that it doesn’t have an ‘@‘ and does have a space in it. I figure that will thwart any automated tool.
alexfromapex 3y ago
There should be a legal avenue required for shutting down peoples' accounts introduced along with privacy controls. Google, Apple, and some of the other OAuth providers control almost all of peoples' online livelihoods.
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  There will be, eventually, because these companies refuse to accept the responsibilities that go with the social power they've accumulated. Right now nobody at Google or Apple has any incentive whatsoever to care about collateral damage when a user's entire account is locked. That will obviously have to change. The change doesn't have to come by way of government mandate, but that seems to be how they want to play it. They will have no one to blame but themselves when they're on the receiving end of the collateral damage that will accompany such legislation.
  - justinclift 3y ago
    There was a US government push a few years ago to treat Google (etc) as public utilities, with the same responsibilities to users as any other utility. eg support for users, reasonable conflict resolution, etc. * https://www.rankscience.com/blog/why-google-should-be-regulated-as-a-public-utility https://www.rankscience.com/blog/why-google-should-be-regula... There were plenty of articles about it online at the time. The above is just one I found in a quick search now. Unfortunately, the legislation didn't pass. And now, Google (etc) are further emboldened...
    - CamperBob2 3y ago
      It'll happen. They will jerk the wrong Senator around at some point, or one of his/her relatives. Then Sundar will be summoned to DC to explain why a trillion-dollar company can't afford to answer their phones.
      - justinclift 3y ago
        People have been saying that for years (decades?) now. There's no real evidence to support anything changing though. :/
georgemcbay 3y ago
And losing access to your primary email tends to have a drastic ripple-effect since so many websites use it as the primary means of handling password resets, password recovery, and such. Hearing about Google similarly shutting down people's Google accounts for iffy reasons is what got me to stop using gmail as a primary personal email address and start using my own domain (with hosting at fastmail for now, but easy enough to change this should I ever need to).
- miki123211 3y ago
  Self-hosting your email doesn't really change anything, though. You've taken away control from Google but gave it to ICAN, the administrator of your TLD, your domain registrar, and to some extend your DNS and email providers. The domain registrar is the most likely to intervene directly and take your domain away for no good reason, but ICAN and your TLD owner can set policies that affect you (like suddenly raising prices or making you ineligible to own the domain unless you demonstrate proof of citizenship of a certain country.) All of the above have happened before. Sure, right now Google does such things a lot more often than registrars do, but this might change at any moment, so such a solution is very far from a silver bullet. Even a hypothetical blockchain-based DNS solution wouldn't solve the problem completely, it would place responsibility solely in your own hands, but failing to secure your private keys appropriately would have similar (if not worse) consequences.
  - georgemcbay 3y ago
    Well yeah nothing in life is guaranteed. > Sure, right now Google does such things a lot more often than registrars do This is the only factor that matters in why I moved away from gmail to my own domain. It isn't about completely eliminating the risks (which is impossible), rather just minimizing them as much as I practically can.
  - simfree 3y ago
    Self-hosting removed 1 large organization that has a history of anti-user business practices from your chain of trust. The other threats you list are still there even if you use a hosted email platform.

gumby 3y ago

Have an unrelated dev account. Mine is so old that it doesn’t have an ‘@‘ and does have a space in it. I figure that will thwart any automated tool.

alexfromapex 3y ago

There should be a legal avenue required for shutting down peoples' accounts introduced along with privacy controls. Google, Apple, and some of the other OAuth providers control almost all of peoples' online livelihoods.

CamperBob2 3y ago
There will be, eventually, because these companies refuse to accept the responsibilities that go with the social power they've accumulated. Right now nobody at Google or Apple has any incentive whatsoever to care about collateral damage when a user's entire account is locked. That will obviously have to change. The change doesn't have to come by way of government mandate, but that seems to be how they want to play it. They will have no one to blame but themselves when they're on the receiving end of the collateral damage that will accompany such legislation.
- justinclift 3y ago
  There was a US government push a few years ago to treat Google (etc) as public utilities, with the same responsibilities to users as any other utility. eg support for users, reasonable conflict resolution, etc. * https://www.rankscience.com/blog/why-google-should-be-regulated-as-a-public-utility https://www.rankscience.com/blog/why-google-should-be-regula... There were plenty of articles about it online at the time. The above is just one I found in a quick search now. Unfortunately, the legislation didn't pass. And now, Google (etc) are further emboldened...
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    It'll happen. They will jerk the wrong Senator around at some point, or one of his/her relatives. Then Sundar will be summoned to DC to explain why a trillion-dollar company can't afford to answer their phones.
    - justinclift 3y ago
      People have been saying that for years (decades?) now. There's no real evidence to support anything changing though. :/

georgemcbay 3y ago

And losing access to your primary email tends to have a drastic ripple-effect since so many websites use it as the primary means of handling password resets, password recovery, and such. Hearing about Google similarly shutting down people's Google accounts for iffy reasons is what got me to stop using gmail as a primary personal email address and start using my own domain (with hosting at fastmail for now, but easy enough to change this should I ever need to).

miki123211 3y ago
Self-hosting your email doesn't really change anything, though. You've taken away control from Google but gave it to ICAN, the administrator of your TLD, your domain registrar, and to some extend your DNS and email providers. The domain registrar is the most likely to intervene directly and take your domain away for no good reason, but ICAN and your TLD owner can set policies that affect you (like suddenly raising prices or making you ineligible to own the domain unless you demonstrate proof of citizenship of a certain country.) All of the above have happened before. Sure, right now Google does such things a lot more often than registrars do, but this might change at any moment, so such a solution is very far from a silver bullet. Even a hypothetical blockchain-based DNS solution wouldn't solve the problem completely, it would place responsibility solely in your own hands, but failing to secure your private keys appropriately would have similar (if not worse) consequences.
- georgemcbay 3y ago
  Well yeah nothing in life is guaranteed. > Sure, right now Google does such things a lot more often than registrars do This is the only factor that matters in why I moved away from gmail to my own domain. It isn't about completely eliminating the risks (which is impossible), rather just minimizing them as much as I practically can.
- simfree 3y ago
  Self-hosting removed 1 large organization that has a history of anti-user business practices from your chain of trust. The other threats you list are still there even if you use a hosted email platform.