John is not happy with Google. They deleted my Youtube account this morning. Sent me an email that said “Your video was flagged as spam/scam/deceptive marketing, and was deleted. This is your first strike.”
The next email, which came about ten second later, said my Youtube account had been deleted, and that I couldn’t make any more accounts. I appealed it, and they said “we checked it, and it failed our community standards,” which is bull. It was a video where I showed people how to use a Roku box (I had just bought one). It was more than 3 years old, had maybe two dozen hits, and they just deleted it, and every other video I had on my Youtube account, of which there were legion. No warning, no nothing, just gone.
So I deleted my Gmail account, and all of that, and have a different email provider. I can’t trust that they wouldn’t have up and deleted my email account on some spurious charge.
I used to defend Google, but as they get larger and larger, they’re becoming more indiscriminate about what they destroy, and considering the considerable data they have in their possession, that should give anyone pause before using any kind of service offered by them. It’s a shame, too, because they offer so many services. Fortunately, I found replacements for all of them, and they’re just as good, but it’s interesting to see just how much of the web Google has taken as its own.
-.Amaris