Reminder: Do Not Rely on Google

Terraria dev cancels Stadia port after Google disabled his email account for three weeks

The problems started, according to the official Twitter account, when Re-Logic Games received an email concerning its YouTube channel “saying there was a TOS [Terms of Service] violation but that it was likely accidental and as such, the account would receive no strikes.

“Three days later, the entire Google account (YT, Gmail, all Google apps, even every purchase made over 15 years on Google Play Store) was disabled with no warning or recourse. This account links into many business functions and as such the impact to us is quite substantial,” said Re-Logic.

I nuked my original Google account several years ago, and keep a second account only for some Google Drive folders I need access to.

The incident would be unremarkable except that Spinks is not the first to complain of shoddy treatment in the one-sided relationship users have with tech giants and Google in particular. Users complain that it is challenging getting past automated responses, or equally uninformative responses from support, and that discovering and correcting the real reason for bans and blocks is challenging.

The impact of a disabled Google account can be considerable, not only affecting access to Google-held data such as email history and files in Drive, but also other services where a Google login is used to authenticate.

When I was briefly using an Android phone a few years ago, it grated that I had to sign into a Google account in order to use many of the phone’s features, and they made it difficult to connect my non-Google calendar and reminders to it.

Google’s motto should be “We don’t care”, because that is the literal truth. They abdicate all responsibility to their automated systems and algorithms, which cannot be challenged by most people.