By: Syeed
According to the internets Google has gone on an account banning frenzy, apparently blocking users’ Google accounts to varying degrees.
The deletions started on the 22nd and to the best of my knowledge are still going on unfixed. Some people lost access to everything they had related to Google. Their Gmail, Google Voice, Google Docs etc.. While others just lost access to their + accounts which refused their updates. Apparently Google is banning people due to their violating Google’s terms of service and or their improper names. The problem is that the system for checking names and TOS violations is automated and there for prone to massive insanely random hiccups apparently.
They have thus far offered no reason or any excuse at all leaving a lot of users understandably upset and quite a few others seeing it as good reason to stop using any Google services all together. ZDnet reports that some high profile accounts such as Limor Fried AKA Lady Ada have been restored which means Google is aware of the problem and can fix it.
Former Google Employee Kirrily “Skud” Robert said in a blog post outlining the pain in the ass verification Google is making him suffer through:
“It then asks me for my name (uh, don’t you know that already?), email (ditto), link to my profile (ditto), and asks me to provide documentation. I can either give them a scan of my photo ID (obscuring “personal information”, whatever that means), or links to places on the web that demonstrate that this is my name. “
“They suggest using Facebook (the site that allows Google founder Sergey Brin to go under a pseudonym, and whose own founder has a page for his dog) as evidence. I have something better, though, because I expected this to happen and I had already collated my evidence. I linked to that page and submitted the form.”
I understand that this is a beta and it is opt-in, I also know that for the most part the people in this beta are fairly tech-savvy and probably avid Google users, but that’s no excuse to not at least offer an explanation as to what’s going on and what your doing to fix it, Google seems to think that people can’t get along without them, like they’re the only email/search/social network around.
People seem fairly split on this issue. Some are taking a hard stance and outright getting ready to delete themselves from Google like I mentioned above, while others are more understanding of the Software’s beta state and just kind of hoping it all gets sorted out. Whatever your decision I find it a little funny that a multi-billion dollar company with teams of engineers and craploads of money at their disposal can’t seem to get a social network to run as well as a college kid struggling to find funding. I wish the best for them and I hope Google+ becomes a viable alternative to Facebook, but it would seem they have a lot of PR and coding work to do before it’s polished enough to get to that level.
Source: ZDnet
No comments:
Post a Comment