Google Account Recovery Failures
Let me be very clear about why I am, frankly, so angry with Google
over their Account Recovery failures.
I have on numerous occasions directly proposed to Google a variety of
significant improvements to their current Account Recovery processes.
While their existing procedures successfully recover many accounts
daily, they tend to fail disproportionally for innocent non-techie
users and other marginalized groups like seniors and more -- users who
still are dependent on Google for email and data storage in a world
where other support options (like telephone and non-email billing and
support) are being rapidly marginalized by firms as cost-cutting
measures.
These are often users who barely understand how to use these systems
that they've in many cases essentially been coerced into using. When
they're locked out, they can lose everything -- email, photos, and
other personal data crucial to their lives.
I have on multiple occasions proposed specific improvements to
Google's procedures that could be invoked optionally by users who
desperately needed access to their accounts that were locked out
without good cause, and methods by which Google would have the means
for cost recovery of the additional (and typically not extensive)
additional support measures required to accomplish this.
My proposals have never received serious consideration by Google. I
always receive the same responses. "We recover lots of accounts and
that's good enough." "Nobody is forced to use Google." "People who
don't properly maintain their recovery addresses and phone numbers
have nobody but themselves to blame."
Unspoken and unwritten but clearly part of the underlying message: "We
just don't care about those categories of users. Hopefully they'll go
away and never come back."
It's a travesty. I'll keep trying, because hope springs eternal, and
I'm too old now to give up on even apparently hopeless causes. Silly
me, I guess. Take care. Best, -L
- - -
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
[email protected] (https://www.vortex.com/lauren)
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Mastodon: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
PRIVACY Forum: https://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
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