Google is going to start deleting inactive accounts

[thewayne]

Whatever platform, if it hasn't been signed in to or used in two years, starting in December that account may go away. After concerns being raised about YouTube videos vanishing from deceased users, there has been an accommodation found, though I don't know what it is off-hand.

From the article: "The company said that if a Google account had not been used or signed into for at least two years, it might delete the account and content across Google Workspace, which includes Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet and Calendar, as well as YouTube and Google Photos.

The policy change only applies to personal Google Accounts and not to those for organizations like schools or businesses.

In 2020, Google had said it would remove content stored in an inactive account, but not delete the account itself."

I didn't see the 2020 announcement. In related newts, the Muskbrat said that Twitter was going to start archiving old unused accounts.

I'm curious how many accounts they expect to go away. This is simply good system maintenance, I'm a little surprised it's taken them this long to get around to it. I think part of it is with the financial crunch hitting tech companies, they're trying to avoid data center expansion by freeing up space to buy themselves some time for the economy to improve.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-delete-inactive-accounts-starting-december-2023-05-16/

Comments

[mtbc]

I'd like my old Google account to go away. Navigating their credentials-recovery process at the time was rather more fuss than just adopting a new one. (I'm annoyed to have to have one at all, I created it because two-jobs-ago used gdocs a lot, but with an Android cellphone too it's rather enabling.)

[thewayne]

I have several Google email accounts, I use none of them for personal activity.  One, for example, I use for job searching to isolate my real email from potential employers searching for me.  One is for my PayPal account, etc.  But none of them are critical.

[disneydream06]

Good thing I have been using my second account recently. :o :o :o
Hugs, Jon

[kaishin108]

I remember them saying that a few years ago as I get concerned about what I have in google drive.

[thewayne]

I've never used Google Drive, never liked the interface.  I dropped Dropbox because they were dropping support for my older MacBook Pro.  My current clouds are Apple's iCloud and Microsoft OneNote.

[thewayne]

OneDrive, not OneNote.

[silveradept]

They've softened that stance a little bit after a lot of people pointed out to them that there's a lot of material there from people who have since died or otherwise would be unable to access their account. And because Google doesn't make it easy for people to download and archive material from their sites, that would potentially mean a lot of lost material that was very precious to the people who want to preserve it or keep it with them.

[thewayne]

Too many people believed Google when they claimed their motto was "Don't be evil".  I just laughed.  They're an advertising company, they care very little about individuals using their services: their whole purpose is to extract as much value as possible from them to sell advertising.

[silveradept]

Indeed. So many companies of this era are advertising companies, and everything they make is ultimately subservient to the ads and making sure the ads get shown. That they're destroying an entire amount of everything because people wanted to believe they were something other than an ad company is terrible on their part.