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Google deleting all recently inactive accounts without phone number

2 points by superkuh ↗ HN
Google is now deleting all accounts that do not, and have never had, phone numbers associated with them if they haven't logged in within a year or so.

"Urgent: Sign in to your Google Account if you want to keep it"

But then it doesn't matter if you log in with the correct username and password and receive the PIN via your email. This is isn't enough. Unless a phone number is somehow added to the account one gets,

"You can’t recover your account at this time because Google doesn’t have enough info to be sure this account is yours."

This is despite having all information ever associated with the account. Unless that account has a phone number it will be deleted. This is a very shady dark pattern by Alphabet corporation.

43 comments

[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 47.7 ms ] thread
Centrino
I've often read that 2FA should be through an authenticator app or a physical key, not via texting a code to a phone number. Malicious sim swapping is a thing, so purposely deleting any phone number from an account should be good practice, right?

So will they also delete inactive accounts that have no phone number, but one or more phone-less 2FA methods associated?

remslave
They default to authing you via a sms code usually still, even when you have an authenticator paired
al_borland
Google started using their mobile app for 2FA on my account without me ever opting in. Now I’m afraid if I delete the Gmail app from my phone I’ll lose access to my account.
anenefan
I struck the same as described in OP a couple of years ago. Yes, regardless of other methods of contract for 2FA, I recall even when I thought I had it licked, the process reverted back to asking for a phone number to contract. I tried with a different number of browsers and eventually the latest up to date machine with the same failure.
PaulHoule
It's phonishness. Your life isn't really unless you have a smartphone.
pwg
> This is a very shady dark pattern by Alphabet corporation.

Advertising company (Doubleclick [1]) wants phone numbers to better target ads. No surprise there.

[1] The company currently calling itself Google is not the same Google as yesteryear. In 2008 Google purchased Doubleclick, and what happened is that the advertising rot from Doubleclick ate Google from the inside out. What we have now calling itself Google is actually all the evil that was Doubleclick, only calling itself Google. That's why the Google motto no longer includes "Don't be evil".

mikewarot
This sounds exactly like the way McDonnell Douglas ate Boeing from the inside out.
nrds
You are talking about something that happened almost 20 years ago. The "company currently calling itself Google" is the Google of the past two decades, grandpa.
al_borland
Over those two decades they’ve been slowly turning up the heat to boil us like frogs.
echoangle
Don’t they just want the phone number to make having multiple accounts harder? Or is that what you mean by better targeting?
ButlerianJihad
I have currently got 5 Google accounts: 4 personal, and one from school.

Google encourages multiple accounts and it’s not like social media where they stamp out sockpuppets.

Also, a real phone number that isn’t VoIP is excellent authentication, because real mobile phone numbers are necessarily linked to SIMs for paying customers, so it’s really pragmatic to rely on them.

hulitu
> The company currently calling itself Google is not the same Google as yesteryear.

You can say this about every company. The reality is that they sold user data from the beginning.

andsoitis
if you haven't cared about using an account for a year, why do you want to use it all of a sudden now?
superkuh
If you haven't used your $whatever in a year, why do you want to use it now? Replace $whatever with whatever you want and you'll see how absurd this question is.
andsoitis
I really don’t think it absurd. What’s an example where a Google account is important to you but you haven’t used it in a year?
AngryData
I barely use my gmail that often. But I still need an email for password recovery.
dpark
I would personally not want my account recovery tied to an account I rarely use. That seems full of unnecessary risk. What if you forget that Gmail password? What if it’s compromised and you don’t even notice for almost a year? What if Google decides to change their retention for unused accounts to just 6 months?
AngryData
I actually had my gmail's backup email at yahoo recycled and I had to remake that account. But genrally I consider these email accounts as my master key to all my other accounts. It has a master password that I am certain I could not lose except simultaneous major head trama and destruction of all my belongings.

If that email was lost, yeah I could be screwed out of other accounts. But no security system is perfect.

prisondroid
I recently got out of prison, it's not really practical to keep logging into Google from prison, especially with 2fa enabled.
dpark
“If you haven't used your dirty tissue in a year, why do you want to use it now?”

“If you haven't used your ham sandwich in a year, why do you want to use it now?”

“If you haven't used your receipt in a year, why do you want to use it now?”

Ah, yes. I see what you mean. Truly absurd.

soraminazuki
Haha, smart. But those quotes still don't justify me taking away your one year old ham sandwich.
dpark
If you leave your ham sandwich in the office fridge for a single week, anyone is justified in throwing it away.

The trouble is you think that you are in possession of a ham sandwich that Google is taking away when in reality you’ve left your ham sandwich in Google’s fridge and they are sick of storing the obviously-abandoned sandwich for you.

See also: https://xkcd.com/1150/

soraminazuki
Except it's just an excuse to make everyone surrender their phone numbers as one more way to tie people to their real identities. You try hard to paint one of the wealthiest companies in the world as some kind of victim, when in reality it's them that used Gmail as a trojan horse to make people create Google accounts so that they can spy on everyone online, and increasingly in the real world too.

Also contrary to your insinuation that I'm an entitled jerk trying to rip off a trillion dollar company, I de-Googled a long time ago. Because I know they're the company that lets their clueless robots brand desperate parents trying to cure their children as child predators, punishes them by taking away the key to their entire digital lives, and worse, doubles down and continues to defame them when proven wrong [1].

But it's not fair to fault people who still depend on Google. Lack of informed consent, reinforced by dark patterns and justified with "user-friendliness" BS is what drew people in. Peer pressure also forces people to create accounts when they otherwise wouldn't have. I just have zero tolerance for corporate cheerleaders who justify this sort of thing by blaming the victim in the most condescending way possible.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32538805

dpark
> Except it's just an excuse to make everyone surrender their phone numbers

“Why do you need this account you’ve abandoned for a year” is a different question than “why does Google need your phone number”. I have no doubt Google loves to collect phone numbers for several reasons, none of them altruistic.

> contrary to your insinuation … I de-Googled a long time ago

You’re grasping at stuff to be mad about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_you

> the most condescending way possible

Every single reply you’ve made in this thread has been condescending and sarcastic. You’re projecting your self righteousness onto others.

sparky_z
"If you haven't used your emergency go-bag in over a year, why do you want to use it now"?

"If you haven't used your passport in over a year, why do you want to use it now"?

"If you haven't used your grandmother's family photo album in over a year, why do you want to use it now"?

"If you haven't used your safety deposit box in over a year, why do you want to use it now"?

dpark
You missed the point.

> If you haven't used your $whatever in a year, why do you want to use it now? Replace $whatever with whatever you want and you'll see how absurd this question is.

This is a silly statement specifically because the choice of “$whatever” determines whether it’s “absurd”. It’s definitely not absurd to assume that a year old sandwich is trash, while it is absurd to assert that an unused safe deposit box is trash.

But of course you pay the bank for your safe deposit box. If you stop paying then they absolutely will discard the contents (or send them off to the state, depending on laws). No one stores abandoned junk for free. If you want you pay Google for your account I bet they’ll keep it even if you never log in.

soraminazuki
The next aspiring trillionaire can take note of that argument when scamming people out of their retirement funds.
andsoitis
Why would one not provide one’s phone number to a financial institution where you hold your retirement or other investment funds?
soraminazuki
Don't you think that "security" non-sequitur boogeyman is a bit too forced? You took my example, cherry-picked some words, and turned it into something else entirely. And too bad it doesn't even hold up because surrendering your phone number won't prevent securities fraud, which is what I was specifically referring to in my example.
theevilsharpie
I have user account on my personal Google Workspace domain that is used purely for superuser access (my day-to-day account doesn't have special access).

I recently had to log into it for the first time in a few years to make a config change to the domain, and it wouldn't let me in because the 2FA code wasn't working, and a recovery code wasn't sufficient to enable privileged access. I had to reach out to Google Workspace support to regain admin access to my domain.

Thankfully, they were able to do so (although it took a few days and I had prove ownership of it).

So there's an example of a situation where an account that's not logged into for a long time doesn't mean that it's forgotten or unused.

thunderfork
People in jail/prison, for example, would not have the opportunity to access an account even if they wanted to keep it
gdulli
Steam gave me similar problems. In the process of trying to get in for the first time in a while to delete my account, I completed a successful 2FA but still couldn't log in because I had to prove I owned the account by providing extra information.

We've fallen so far from the days when the retailer let you just have the game you bought and then they were out of the picture forever.

mixmastamyk
Yes, I’ve lost access to two old accounts including my old blogger one. When I try to log in it sends email saying, “someone tried to log in with your password!” :-/
nullc
Not providing your phone number is a critical step in protecting yourself against sim swap attacks and other vulnerabilities.
Cider9986
There's no reason to use Google over ProtonMail or Tuta Mail if you care about user experience. Google's customer support is non-existent, while Proton and Tuta will get you a real human for any problems and are accountable.
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swordsith
put my same phone number on 10+ google accounts, if you're skipping this you look like a bot, how should google be able to tell you apart from all of the bots.
johannesrexx
This is a transparent ploy to collect personal information to feed the beast. Google wants to invade user privacy by requiring a phone number and dares to say it's for security reasons! What doublespeak is this?

People need to deGoogle themselves. Also they need to deMeta themselves. Go read what Obi-Wan Kenobi said about the Mos Eisley Space Port.

Google is no different than Meta. Both collect as much personal information they can about Internet users even when they don't have an account with them. The business model is to monetize this data by selling it to data brokers directly, to sell targeted ads using the data and to quietly make it available to authoritarian governments so that privacy laws are not enacted to make surveillance capitalism illegal.

Go with Kagi and Apple.

BobbyTables2
Google is also extremely interested in my home address…
hulitu
... and in your sleeping habits, and in whatand where you eat, and, and, and. But they are not alone. Microsoft, Meta, Apple are also extremely interested in the same data. And they happily give it to 3 letter agencies.
throwawayk7h
perhaps they are planning for the eventuality that long-lifespan unused accounts become a commodity, an easy way to avoid age verification.
pixel_popping
Why do people even need a Google account? If you need throwaway accounts, you buy them, that's <$1.
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