“Your File May Violate Google Drive's Terms of Service”
> $name contains content that may violate Google Drive's Phishing policy. People that you've shared this file with will still be able to access it, but they will see a warning on the file. If you think this is an error and would like the Trust & Safety team to review this file, request a review below.
…if I open it, the Google Sheet tells me "It contains links that might be used to steal your personal information." But it doesn't tell me which like.
The sheet is a list of wedding vendors — we're trying to plan a wedding. So if one of the wedding vendor's sites has be pwned, a.) I'd like to know, and b.) how TF is that my fault, such that it translates to a ToS violation, Google?
Of course, the appeal button offers me no ability to include an explanation, or a request for which link …
24 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 61.6 ms ] threadIt might be better to go the other direction - create a set of sheets that each contain only one vendor, and see which (and how many) get flagged.
Do not do this.
Spreadsheet to spreadsheets... you could program it in a single spread sheet...
Bisection would be to split the sheet into half and half into new files. Split the offending sheet further and so no on until you identify the offending entry.
This method should work even if more than one vendor/ row has a problem - you bisect the parts which are bad and keep doing it until there is only one record.
Note: This assumes that Google scans consistently and immediately the same way immediately each file
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Important Note: Your ToS violation notice may become a suspension if more than one violation is tagged to your account.
Knowing Google's support quality I wouldn't personally risk my Google account and would move the entire file contents to say Notion which perhaps is more suited tool for this kind of planning .
Given the near weekly “My account was suspended without recourse and I lost everything” HN articles, surely OP is not using their main, personal Google account that they are dependent on for things like E-mail, right? Right??
Be careful and have a backup plan.
If you can accidentally have a file that violates TOS, surely you can also accidentally send an email that violates TOS.
"They say most wrecks happen within a mile of home, so we moved."
… whatever account I use for email is the account I use for email.
Perhaps, yes, I could abandon Google. It's just like, I'd like to spend my life living.
Sadly my personal server is down due to parts failure at the moment.
(I was never into Google services that required a login, and that turns out to have been a good decision.)
Sucks that Google isn't more transparent in its email.
[0] https://transparencyreport.google.com/safe-browsing/search?h...
[1] https://www.virustotal.com/gui/home/upload
[2] https://urlscan.io/
[0] and [2] say the allegedly bad URL is clean. [1] thinks it isn't.
Wayback has a several month gap, before which the site is fine, and after which their provider appears to have suspended them, so presumably something happened there.
But, yeah, thanks for just shooting the wrong person, Google.
Because ToS violating links are against the ToS regardless of your intent.
It doesn’t appear that they’re shutting down your account. It says people you’ve shared the link with will receive a warning.
Not yet. The rule of thumb is that you should expect the worst as it's a free service
Congrats on your wedding.
You need to see which is returned from here.
At least now, I know which link is bad.
I specifically ran that link through transparency report, and it's marked as "No unsafe content found."
The domain no longer resolves. Perhaps the venue has gone out of business, I don't know.
I removed the URL from the sheet, and I now have another, fresh email saying the sheet is violating the ToS.