7 ms·

He had ~6 months to download his data, not 7 days: they told him on the 11th of May 2023 (or thereabouts they gave him a 60 day period ending on the 10th of Jul

He had ~6 months to download his data, not 7 days: they told him on the 11th of May 2023 (or thereabouts they gave him a 60 day period ending on the 10th of July 2023) that he had exceeded his quota. They should, of course, have given a clear timeline for deletion at that point, but does he seriously expect other people to believe he was naive enough to think Google would continue to store his data forever after they withdrew the unlimited service he was using? I'm no fan of Google, and I agree with you that a good service would have offered an at-or-slightly-above-cost data export for that volume of data... but he's deliberately misrepresenting the situation here (either that or is painfully naive) Edit: as somebody else pointed out downthread, he also would have received numerous e-mails throughout 2022 telling him that the unlimited service was being shuttered

turquoisevar 3y ago
Why are we carrying water for Google here and blaming the user? Google stated that it would remain in read-only mode and that’s the end of it. It’s bad enough they reneged on their agreement to store unlimited data for x amount of money, but according to you people need to be soothsayers to figure out that a company will reneg on their promise to maintain the data? And none of that even takes into account that even 60 days wouldn’t be enough to download all that data. Just stop it. Google is in the wrong and to add insult to injury they don’t provide any means of reaching a customer support representative to mitigate issues caused by their own incompetence.
ollien 3y ago
The six-month grace period notice pretty clearly states his data would be read-only, while the seven-day notice seems to be the first time destruction is even mentioned. I think we can both agree that there's a world of difference between data being read-only and being destroyed. I think it's completely reasonable to say he has 7 days to download it.
- haswell 3y ago
  > I think it's completely reasonable to say he has 7 days to download it. 7 days to download 200TB+ does not seem reasonable.
  - ollien 3y ago
    No, I agree. Sorry, my phrasing there was poor. I meant: it is completely reasonable to say that "he has seven days to download it", not that it is completely reasonable for him to only have seven days.
    - haswell 3y ago
      I see what you mean; thanks for clarifying.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    based on the rest of the comment, I'm guessing GP missed a negative like "don't", or "isn't", or "not", etc
  - kbrosnan 3y ago
    'to say that...' is discussing which of the statements in the article is a better interpretation, 7 vs 60. It is not making any claims about the reasonableness of the 7 days to download the soon to be deleted data.
- alacode 3y ago
  I was curious what the context of "grace period" is for Google Drive and found this: https://support.google.com/drive/thread/13321050/what-will-happen-to-my-data-if-i-don-t-pay-for-google-one-after-few-months?hl=en https://support.google.com/drive/thread/13321050/what-will-h... "If I cancel my additional storage, will all the files/documents that took up the additional space, be deleted? Or will I still have access to them?" "You will still have access to all your files but, if you have used all storage you won't be able to add or create NEW files until you have space available." Which sounds like you're right, unless the Product Expert was wrong.
  - llbeansandrice 3y ago
    The fact that this comment chain is about 7 deep trying to figure out whether the customer was given enough notice or not I think is also evidence that Google has a terrible UX for this anyway. If your data is going to be deleted, it should be painfully obvious well in advance.
    - godelski 3y ago
      I don't think the depth of this comment chain has anything to do with the UX design. The words on that warning are unequivocally interpretable as "the data will not be deleted." At the end of the day, it doesn't even matter if hidden in the terms of service or somewhere if it is made clear that the data will be deleted. It doesn't even matter if it is clear to @andrewmutz and @garblegarble that the data will be deleted[0]. What matters is if not thinking the data would be deleted is a reasonable interpretation. Full stop. It also matters that when explicit communication (unequivocally interpreted as slated for deletion) that the user was given 7 days, which was not even enough time, especially considering Google's egress rates. There's a lot of this on HN lately and I'm not sure why. Communication is fuzzy people, I'm not sure why that's surprising. But when there's disagreement don't ask yourself which is right or wrong, but if a reasonable interpretation was made. Because communication is like an autoencoder: there's what's in your head (input), what you say (lossy compressed intermediate latent), and what is received (decompressed information with imputation). There's too many attempts to defend a believed objective reality which just is absurd (ironically making the view less objective). And, importantly, RTFA [0] Obviously these two are reading between the lines. It is not a bad interpretation and we often should practice this, especially to be on the safe side, but it's clear that there is inference, so what's wrong with the comments is their strong assertions that the communication was obvious. One may also make the argument that Techdirt isn't telling the full story or timeline, but that's also a different issue and inferential.
- zlg_codes 3y ago
  What kinda connection do you have where you're able to transfer 200 TB of data in 7 days? Did you even do the math before that tripe escaped your fingers?
haswell 3y ago
> but does he seriously expect other people to believe he was naive enough to think Google would continue to store his data forever after they withdrew the unlimited service he was using? I doubt he expected Google to store his data forever, and I don’t see anything indicating that this is what he expects. Forever is a straw man. It would be reasonable to expect some kind of migration / off-boarding plan, and it’s Google’s responsibility to facilitate that after pulling the plug on services they previously committed to providing.
chlorion 3y ago
[flagged]
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  > There is no way this person wasn't aware of what was going to happen, Sure. That's what it is. He's a grifter, grifting Google to try to shame them into giving him a quarter of a petabyte of storage for free. He knew all along that his data would be deleted, and waited to the last second because he figures this is a sure thing and he'll get to keep it forever. You caught him. I can't believe we all fell for it. It's not as if non-technical people (and technical ones too!) can't be confused or overwhelmed, and he should have been able to telepathically read Google's collective hivemind that "goes into read-only mode" means "we'll delete all the shit you don't have room or time to put anywhere else".
  - lukeschlather 3y ago
    He had all his computers confiscated by the FBI and then realized that his backups were also being destroyed by Google. Calling this a grift is incredibly insulting.
    - justinclift 3y ago
      Did you miss the sarcasm?
  - chlorion 3y ago
    Google sends multiple emails that are extremely clear about what is going to happen. If you ignore the emails or notifications, that is your fault, not on the service. Like I mentioned above, even the Google podcast service is giving users over a year to prepare for the shutdown, and provides a method to transfer any data you have out of the app. If they take much precaution with a podcast app that few people even use, I guarantee they sent multiple emails to this person urging them to prepare for this. If you don't check your email or just ignore it, that is not the service providers fault. Expecting a free service to bend over backwards for you even when they told you repeatedly to prepare for this is silly. >I can't believe we all fell for it. You fell for clickbait and exaggerated or fabricated stories from someone who either ignored their mail or waited til last minute and are now whining.

turquoisevar 3y ago

Why are we carrying water for Google here and blaming the user? Google stated that it would remain in read-only mode and that’s the end of it. It’s bad enough they reneged on their agreement to store unlimited data for x amount of money, but according to you people need to be soothsayers to figure out that a company will reneg on their promise to maintain the data? And none of that even takes into account that even 60 days wouldn’t be enough to download all that data. Just stop it. Google is in the wrong and to add insult to injury they don’t provide any means of reaching a customer support representative to mitigate issues caused by their own incompetence.

ollien 3y ago

The six-month grace period notice pretty clearly states his data would be read-only, while the seven-day notice seems to be the first time destruction is even mentioned. I think we can both agree that there's a world of difference between data being read-only and being destroyed. I think it's completely reasonable to say he has 7 days to download it.

haswell 3y ago
> I think it's completely reasonable to say he has 7 days to download it. 7 days to download 200TB+ does not seem reasonable.
- ollien 3y ago
  No, I agree. Sorry, my phrasing there was poor. I meant: it is completely reasonable to say that "he has seven days to download it", not that it is completely reasonable for him to only have seven days.
  - haswell 3y ago
    I see what you mean; thanks for clarifying.
- freedomben 3y ago
  based on the rest of the comment, I'm guessing GP missed a negative like "don't", or "isn't", or "not", etc
- kbrosnan 3y ago
  'to say that...' is discussing which of the statements in the article is a better interpretation, 7 vs 60. It is not making any claims about the reasonableness of the 7 days to download the soon to be deleted data.
alacode 3y ago
I was curious what the context of "grace period" is for Google Drive and found this: https://support.google.com/drive/thread/13321050/what-will-happen-to-my-data-if-i-don-t-pay-for-google-one-after-few-months?hl=en https://support.google.com/drive/thread/13321050/what-will-h... "If I cancel my additional storage, will all the files/documents that took up the additional space, be deleted? Or will I still have access to them?" "You will still have access to all your files but, if you have used all storage you won't be able to add or create NEW files until you have space available." Which sounds like you're right, unless the Product Expert was wrong.
- llbeansandrice 3y ago
  The fact that this comment chain is about 7 deep trying to figure out whether the customer was given enough notice or not I think is also evidence that Google has a terrible UX for this anyway. If your data is going to be deleted, it should be painfully obvious well in advance.
  - godelski 3y ago
    I don't think the depth of this comment chain has anything to do with the UX design. The words on that warning are unequivocally interpretable as "the data will not be deleted." At the end of the day, it doesn't even matter if hidden in the terms of service or somewhere if it is made clear that the data will be deleted. It doesn't even matter if it is clear to @andrewmutz and @garblegarble that the data will be deleted[0]. What matters is if not thinking the data would be deleted is a reasonable interpretation. Full stop. It also matters that when explicit communication (unequivocally interpreted as slated for deletion) that the user was given 7 days, which was not even enough time, especially considering Google's egress rates. There's a lot of this on HN lately and I'm not sure why. Communication is fuzzy people, I'm not sure why that's surprising. But when there's disagreement don't ask yourself which is right or wrong, but if a reasonable interpretation was made. Because communication is like an autoencoder: there's what's in your head (input), what you say (lossy compressed intermediate latent), and what is received (decompressed information with imputation). There's too many attempts to defend a believed objective reality which just is absurd (ironically making the view less objective). And, importantly, RTFA [0] Obviously these two are reading between the lines. It is not a bad interpretation and we often should practice this, especially to be on the safe side, but it's clear that there is inference, so what's wrong with the comments is their strong assertions that the communication was obvious. One may also make the argument that Techdirt isn't telling the full story or timeline, but that's also a different issue and inferential.
zlg_codes 3y ago
What kinda connection do you have where you're able to transfer 200 TB of data in 7 days? Did you even do the math before that tripe escaped your fingers?

haswell 3y ago

> but does he seriously expect other people to believe he was naive enough to think Google would continue to store his data forever after they withdrew the unlimited service he was using? I doubt he expected Google to store his data forever, and I don’t see anything indicating that this is what he expects. Forever is a straw man. It would be reasonable to expect some kind of migration / off-boarding plan, and it’s Google’s responsibility to facilitate that after pulling the plug on services they previously committed to providing.

chlorion 3y ago

[flagged]

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
> There is no way this person wasn't aware of what was going to happen, Sure. That's what it is. He's a grifter, grifting Google to try to shame them into giving him a quarter of a petabyte of storage for free. He knew all along that his data would be deleted, and waited to the last second because he figures this is a sure thing and he'll get to keep it forever. You caught him. I can't believe we all fell for it. It's not as if non-technical people (and technical ones too!) can't be confused or overwhelmed, and he should have been able to telepathically read Google's collective hivemind that "goes into read-only mode" means "we'll delete all the shit you don't have room or time to put anywhere else".
- lukeschlather 3y ago
  He had all his computers confiscated by the FBI and then realized that his backups were also being destroyed by Google. Calling this a grift is incredibly insulting.
  - justinclift 3y ago
    Did you miss the sarcasm?
- chlorion 3y ago
  Google sends multiple emails that are extremely clear about what is going to happen. If you ignore the emails or notifications, that is your fault, not on the service. Like I mentioned above, even the Google podcast service is giving users over a year to prepare for the shutdown, and provides a method to transfer any data you have out of the app. If they take much precaution with a podcast app that few people even use, I guarantee they sent multiple emails to this person urging them to prepare for this. If you don't check your email or just ignore it, that is not the service providers fault. Expecting a free service to bend over backwards for you even when they told you repeatedly to prepare for this is silly. >I can't believe we all fell for it. You fell for clickbait and exaggerated or fabricated stories from someone who either ignored their mail or waited til last minute and are now whining.