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Google will begin deleting millions of inactive Gmail and Drive accounts in December
(www.techspot.com)
this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
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The downside is that Google won’t let you keep them active without jumping through hoops
Jumping through hoops?
Merely being logged in while using any of their websites or services any time in the last 3 years is enough to be considered an active account.
Watching a single youtube video or doing 1 Google search or reading a news article or accessing one of those precious files you have saved on their cloud server while logged in once every 3 years is hardly "jumping through hoops".
It won’t allow you to log back in without adding a phone number, even though it had been used during those three years
They’re just trying to get rid of anonymous accounts
So what's the point of such anonymous account? Waiting for 10 more years till policy is changed by some reason or you finally figure out a way how to get a number that's not tied to your name?
I am surprised they did not have such periodical purges in the past.
I mean, yes?
Making it harder for the average person to keep their identity separate from their Google account is the point…
They hadn’t done this in the past because they weren’t big enough to keep people on their service while degrading the service
I have a Google Voice number that I set up years ago and never used. They sent me an email saying "you haven't used this in a while, send one text or make one phone call to keep the number active".