zlacker

>>benhur+(OP)
We need regulations to enforce adequate customer service and SLAs in these huge companies.

Google is getting away with this behavior because of their monopolistic behavior. If they had competition, they would be spending billions on customer support, but because they have a monopoly, they can get away with having virtually none. This is their way of saving money and taking advantage of their monopoly. It's a shadow version of monopolistic behavior where the absence of services can be done because we have no choice. We need to politicize this issue.

Facebook is exactly the same way.

When a company reaches such dominance, and when people completely rely on a company like we all rely on Google, Facebook, et al., then we need regulations to prevent what is happening right now, which is using their monopoly to make life easier for them by not spending any money on customer support.

>>jennyy+KE1
I agree, we need better laws around customer service and data handling, absolutely. For (as far as I could ever tell) no reason, Facebook marked my account as a bot in roughly 2015 and refused to let me access any of my account data until I proof of identity. They wanted a picture of my driver's license and a picture of me to confirm.

I never sent it in, instead emailing and asking if there was any other way to get verified, but never got a reply, and a short while later they deleted my account and all of the pictures and data with it. I'm pretty bummed out because in losing all that, I lost most of my pictures from high school. I have almost no pictures of myself or my friends for roughly a 7 year span of time.

It's my fault 100% for not backing it up, but that's not the point. I was more frustrated with the fact that, for no apparent reason, my entire account was locked and they demanded pretty intense verification to even just get it back. I haven't used Facebook or any of its platforms since, but I have to say it felt pretty gross to be handled like that.

It's pretty sus that these companies use our data for everything but have no actual express responsibility to it.

>>shakez+8H1
Why is it "intense verification?" What is a good alternative? I lost access to my blizzard account once and I had to send in my driver's license.

>>setham+wM1
Because Facebook is not a government institution. My legal identity is no concern of theirs.

You can do a lot of stuff at the bank, with your doctor, etc without ever having to show your state ID. What is facebook doing that’s so very serious they’d need it?

(not OP but I use a consistent nom de plume online)

>>Swizec+OP1
It would raise some flags if my bank representative or doctor ask for a photo copy of my passport. Asking to simply see it, given that they have a specific reason to do so, would not.

Online however there is no such thing to simply see something. Everything is a copy that can be used for any purpose.

A few years ago there was a major leak at a porn streaming site with a large number of people getting their passports leaked. It was reported as a major disaster for those involved.