zlacker

>>benhur+(OP)
It's painfully clear at this point that we need a consumer "bill of rights" to protect us from these giant tech companies. At the very least, companies must be legally required to present you in writing with the so-called violation of terms they're accusing you of, evidence of the violation, and a phone # or other immediate contact so that you can dispute the accusations. It's insane that these basic legal rights don't even exist.

You could of course sue Google, but that's an extremely expensive and time-consuming option, rarely worth it for a mere consumer. Going to court certainly won't make your suspended account become unsuspended any quicker.

>>_qulr+em
You're not seeing the other side of the coin - the huge amount of spam and abuse that such systems correctly identify and remove. If every abuser requests those explanations (which they will) there will be far more spam going around the Internet.

Just think about the army of "Facebook content moderators" who were a popular topic on HN recently due to the concerns over their mental health.

(I am offering no solutions here, for I know none)

>>anthon+dn
Perhaps the process should cost $100 or $500, so that actual spammers can’t use it

Maybe they really just need to offer a paid account option with real support, since that has much better incentives

>>paulsu+9r
There is a paid option: for $6/month you can use gmail with your own domain name. It's targeted at businesses but you can use it as an individual.

https://workspace.google.com/pricing.html

It includes support, but I'm not sure if that helps in cases where google thinks you have abused the service. I just use it because I like having my own domain, and so that I don't lose access to my email if google locks me out. The idea is that I can update my domain's MTX records and use another email service.

>>wcoene+Bs
Support does not include if your account gets suspended or if you lose access.

We had a paid Google App account. One of our workers would only login from their computer. It died, and she tried to login from the new computer. It gave a unrecognized machine error, and we had to hire someone to resuscitate the old computer for her.

I know of a company that had the entire companies' accounts suspended without warning because one user did something that violated their terms, but they could not figure out what. The company lost three months of revenue from it and I am not sure if it caused bankruptcy. No help at all from G.

>>sam_go+Nv
About a year ago, I started migrating to a vanity domain, currently hosted at Google, for this reason. If I get locked out of Google, I lose my history, but at least I can move to another provider and avoid being locked out of my life for the indefinite future.