chrisbrogan.com - Latest Comments in Google Gets Back to Nick

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

Ssiddiqi1 — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 14:00:55 -0000

Same thing happen to me this morning. I had a google account which I used for my community free website to manage Google plus and facebook pages. I provide services for which many business charge over $200. I did not login to my Gmail account since two days. though I noticed at my website g+ liked numbers all of a sudden declined to 13 and in the footer Google plus link to Google plus pages disappear. I thought mabe my Wordpress is messed up and I would look into it once I get time. This morning I tried to login to my Gmail account, and got a message this account had been disabled. I have no idea what maybe a reason. I used this account mainly for 4 purposes (1) post ads at free classified websites, (2) manage my Google pages (3) manage Fcebook pages and Twitter account. (4) submitting my web site to various search engines. I hardly sent emails from this account, although a lot of junk email was received in this account everyday. I guess url submission to various search engines, and SEO sites, plus ads submission to free classified sites generated unwanted junk emails.
Beside that, I also used this account for managing my Google Adwords account. As this account was a passive account, I am not sure how TOS would I have violated intentionally or un-intentionally.
I had written to Gooogle by now no answer. You are right Gooogle is a corporate whose behavior now had reached to bullshit stage. I have another personal acccount with Gooogle which is attached to my Android. After this incidence I am seriously thinking to ditch Google and get over with their bullshit. That is trash the Android and move to iPhone. I would not like this bullshit happen to my other personal account where I receive over 100 important messaages everyday.
A normal behavior require that Google should at least sent a warning message that the acccount would be disabled due to some issue.
I have an account with Yahoo since 12 yars, and twice there were some issue because someone forged my email address to send spam. People may have complaint to Yahoo assumming I was a spammr. As expected, Yahoo sent me an email asking for clarification, instead of disabling the account. After my response, Yahoo wrote me back a sorry note for misunderstanding and the case was over.

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

Jim Moss — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 14:51:49 -0000

Thursday night at 1:00 AM I lost my email account, my phone voice mail, my blog, my apps, my docs in the cloud. To date (day 4) I've missed an estimated 300 emails. I lost 300 posts on my blogger.com account (switched to WordPress all ready) and who knows how many phone calls.

One new thing I tried is I filed a complaint with the FCC. Because my phone was effectively disabled, by someone I have no phone contract with I believe the FCC has jurisdiction. We'll see what happens.

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

Caffenee101 — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 11:47:11 -0000

i've just had the same thing happen to me & I'm not sure what to do...

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 23:55:12 -0000

Good-bye Google, been nice knowin' ya.

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

Guest — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 23:03:42 -0000

The truth is that bad press caused Google to act. Had Joe Schmoe not known anyone with a popular blog they'd be toast. So go ahead and put all your life on Google cloud, if you are moron.

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

youtube downloader — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 11:30:31 -0000

It is not about why and what...exclusively. "Where" is an appropriate question. Where is it headed and what will the average non-technical person (most of us) do in such an age?

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

Anonymous-please — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 18:31:21 -0000

Yeah Right!

Once you, and your company have been shown up as lacking in any duty of care to a valued customer you then state "in this case I wish we had done more to contact Nick proactively. There are people at Google who are thinking about how to improve this type of situation in the future".

What about all the other people you have failed to engage with or respond to who DON'T have the media clout of Doug and Werwer?

Does anyone else see Matt Cutts posts and responses as manipulative?

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

ampers — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 10:29:22 -0000

As far as I can comment, Google is a Corporate. Once a business starts, and then starts to do very well, it grows, and grows, and grows. Then it becomes a "Corporate" Once that happens, customer service declines as it is no longer economical to service a single customer with a complaint. So he leaves and complains to a hundred people, so what, with millions, the company can shrug its shoulders and sign up the next million.

The only way you can get satisfaction with a "corporate" is to complain, write two or three letters, send a couple of faxes, and make a few phone calls - and all the time logging in everything you do and say - and always be polite.

Then write this up in a letter to a newspaper, radio or television station - you see the necessity of going through the long route? It makes for a better story and the newspaper/station is much more likely to take ut up, especially if you have kept a diary.

When you contact the newspaper/station, use a little humour in your letter. This can indicate you are a reasonable person and will make good copy.

Ampers

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

Robert — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 12:30:47 -0000

Exactly, free service/software means less/no support.

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

Bruce — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 19:42:12 -0000

You get what you pay for.

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

Vanessa — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 07:05:43 -0000

"That’s a very narrow view of the future of computing."

Perhaps. But I would look at where a thing is headed, as to not be blinded by what it's doing along the way. Where is computing headed and why?

Progress, research, development and innovation are good things when they truly have the end goal of serving people. The average person on the street could care less about that process or the technology that comes out of it.

In the final analysis we are always like the proverbial frog in the lab jar, unaware it is being boiled to death until it's too late.

Computing is the first and only innovation to force feed the entire world into a machine. No other invention in the history of mankind has ever required an entire society to depend on it for their very existence.

Society has always had choices and fought to maintain that freedom. When you remove choices, what's left? The computer age has left people with no choices. In less than a decade the entire world of business and every household in the world will be dependent on computers, but a 16 year old kid can create a virus, crash an entire business network and they can't even catch it before it does.

It is not about why and what...exclusively. "Where" is an appropriate question. Where is it headed and what will the average non-technical person (most of us) do in such an age?

"Google only looks like it’s bent on world domination because it’s collaborative cloud computing platform is the most mature available to the general public. In fact, it’s IBM who is..."

If it looks like a duck...

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

gbollard — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:47:25 -0000

"Google has one goal, global control of information. In the process they have become–evil. "

That's a very narrow view of the future of computing.

In fact, if you look at what's happening;
IBM have finally gotten their act together and stopped trying to change Notes/Domino into Workplace. Instead, they've started moving the Lotus platform to Eclipse and Web 2.0 integration - essentially creating a collaborative cloud computing capable platform which enables corporations to start plugging their own systems into its service orientated architecture.

Google have done the same with the integration of their various technologies. Google Gadgets is a miniature version of SOA.

Microsoft has been trying to develop their cloud computing plaform for years but Windows Live has remained ..well, dead. It remains to be seen whether their latest - as yet unnamed attempt will succeed.

Google only looks like it's bent on world domination because it's collaborative cloud computing platform is the most mature available to the general public. In fact, it's IBM who is leading the way in the corporate world with some very mature technology.

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

Vanessa — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 21:23:05 -0000

I prefer Blogger.com. The press about Wordpress is overrated. I had a blog there before and you're right it is severely limited and functionality is rigid and controlled. But since the migration to Google Blogger has lost their distinction. It's just apps and development for Google. Publishers no longer matter. Blogger was the best hosted blog platform on the Web. It is sad to see what is happening to it, bloated but no real innovation.

Google has one goal, global control of information. In the process they have become--evil.

I still have all my posts because I sent them to my email program. Google is intimidating the entire Internet community. I have had to re-think putting all my eggs in one basket--on the Internet. It would be wise for small businesses to stay vitally linked offline as far as making profits are concerned. One click, an error, a virus etc. can ruin small businesses online.

I came to this site through search and think the original title was on.

Has anyone thought of how much revenue has gone back to Google as a result of bloggers losing their sites leaving Adsense earnings behind? I didn't until today. I'm done. I have a savior and it ain't google. My income is not dependent on the Internet. God help those who are.

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

gbollard — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:25:29 -0000

Good luck with Wordpress.

I started a Wordpress account a couple of months ago to see what all the fuss is about. It's nothing compared to blogger. Hardly any functionality at all and minimal support for google apps.

Those Wordpress people don't know what they're missing.

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

Vanessa — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 17:10:43 -0000

I have a solution. It's called Wordpress or get your own domain. I used Blogger.com off and on since 2003. I was locked out today from Google accounts and that means all services. All I did was delete 2 blogs under another username. The blog I was locked out of was under a Google account and over a year old. I know the problem is not me because I had access until late this morning.

They sent me through the mill today and mangled my account via their own instructions. I contacted them and they sent me some of the dumbest solutions and they did not work. It's worse now. I'm done. I'm going over to Wordpress. They can have it and do what they like with it. I'm sorry to have to join the chorus of exiting bloggers from Blogger.com but it's not worth the bother any longer.

A long time user of Blogger.com
moving on...

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

Scott — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:49:23 -0000

If you trashed the original verification number, is there a way to get it or request another?

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

Fred — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:57:32 -0000

Hi,
I have a friend (Barbara )who recently had the same problem..
Account got deactivated "due to security beach " !!
Ok but there are important bits of information in there like for flights booked and account inforamtion for other services. !!
So surly there has to be a way for google to assist someone in migrating to a new account at least..
Its not far off being told you dont exist and you need to get born again.
With all the services they have piled up on the heap of the google experience, people live large parts of their lives through google.
Barbara works for a charity. She puts in an incredible amount of personal time and manages that time with google calendar. She spent 3 days not knowing what was going on with her email let alone her work.
Google were about as helpful as they were for Nick. Generic emails almost from an auto reply bot.
The info for a round the world trip is still locked away in the old account !! If you get any joy Nick.. I would really like to know so Barbara can have some hope too.

All the best,

Fred.

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

Crystal King — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:27:10 -0000

Just scored this error: "We're sorry but your Gmail account is currently experiencing errors. You won't be able to use your account while these errors last, but don't worry, your account data and messages are safe. Our engineers are working to resolve this issue."

Normally I'd think, oh, just a glitch, but after reading all about Nick I just feel a horrific panic. Seems to only be Gmail and not anything else, but oh my, if all that's lost...

Cross your fingers for me!

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

Greenville IT Support — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 14:03:50 -0000

Most of you miss the real point. Google's inital response is not really a problem. Any vendor will from time to time disable an account, etc. What really matters is how they follow it up when you contact them to resolve it.

As one poster pointed out previously, they had a problem with both gmail and ebay. The gmail problem was fixed within a day and the ebay problem was never fixed. Have you ever tried to resolve a problem with PayPal. They just don't care. I applaud Google for it's quick response in this case.

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

Joy — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 15:56:51 -0000

Well, I think that the employees of Google are just using an answering machine to reply Nick until they received his bunches of mails.

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

Daniel — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:03:59 -0000

I realize that this is a very rare incident for Google Accounts considering the huge number of times everything works brilliantly throughout each day.

But this does indeed get at the heart of the criticism over giving Google so much of your data and resources, and frankly I'm hugely disappointed by the way this incident played out as described.

Others have noted that the response was appropriate since the various services cannot be unbundled on Google's end -- but why can't they be? I have had my bank account freeze if there is suspicious activity (usually it is just me spending too much at once), but why should this also suspend access to my e-mail (for me, my daily business and personal communication), my documents (I do store all of my docs and photos on Google's servers and haven't always had a recent backup), web history, reader, notebook/bookmarks, etc.? I use all of these services daily.

I too am a total Google fanboy and promote their services as the best out there precisely because they are all free. The test of this is not the magical way that everything "just works" every minute of every day -- I take this feat of engineering genius entirely for granted. The test is when something does not work: how is it handled, and how am I assured that my all-too-blind trust in handing over so much to this one entity is thoroughly justified?

Criticize the poor choice made as a consumer on my part, fine, but this is what Google is "selling" and this is what I'm buying: you can trust us with your most important stuff; we work our brilliant magic so you don't have to worry.

This is not Google "doing evil," (I wish people would stop jumping to that charge whenever they possibly can), and nothing is failsafe 100%, but hopefully Google will have learned about 10 really important lessons from this one tiny incident. Frankly, I'm feeling silly for not taking more precautions with my data.

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

Kristian — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:06:06 -0000

"But wow. Couldn’t this have started with an email saying, “Looks like someone was messing with your account. We shut it down to investigate.”"

Well - if they were gonna shut down his account, how could he have read that mail? ;)

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

metacritic — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:03:31 -0000

Why does an e-mail account need to be locked if a credit card number was compromised?

I had my gmail account locked, and I recieved the first e-mail. I kept asking what caused it but never heard back from Google. I've archived all of my e-mail messages and use SMTP to access gmail now. If I can't use it in the future, I'll just use my own domain instead. I've never had a problem with Yahoo mail like this.

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

Beau — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:57:30 -0000

as someone who has worked in internet security before, Google did exactly what they should have done

They assumed their customer's information was compromised and that in turn their system was compromised. They have to assume any contact with the account on their system would be intercepted or received directly by whomever had compromised the account.
They would not want to give up any information on how or when they discovered the problem/intrusion so as not to allow the people who had done so to learn anything about their detection abilities.
They would assume (and in this case rightly so) that the real user would immediately contact their customer support to find out why they could not access their account.
After some verification and explaining, the user would gain the re-use of their account, or in extreme cases told that the account would be closed while an investigation occurs.
This has nothign to do with Google owning the account, it has everythign to do with you signing up for their service, allowing them to control the management, administration, and security of your use and information.
If you wished to handle your own accounts, you should get your own server with it's own security and administrative software to handle emails, document storage, and whatever else you currently use Google for...

Re: Google Gets Back to Nick

Ray — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 07:08:03 -0000

Never would have happened if Google had Verify by Visa as part of their Google Checkout. It's there to combat fraud and a lot of other places use it.....