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submitted 9 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

Google warns it will delete millions of Gmail accounts in December::Google has confirmed that accounts will start being deleted next month unless users follow some simple advice.

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[-] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 231 points 9 months ago

Save you a click:

“If a Google Account has not been used or signed into for at least 2 years, we may delete the account and its contents – including content within Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar) and Google Photos.”

[-] jws_shadotak@sh.itjust.works 30 points 9 months ago

thank you for your service

[-] Monomate@lemm.ee 19 points 9 months ago

I read a variation of this news in the past where there was some major controversy about Google accounts that have active YouTube channels with videos uploaded to it. The solution is that Google would not delete inactive accounts if they have uploaded YouTube videos on it. I just don't know of this policy still stands or if they changed their minds.

[-] neutron@thelemmy.club 4 points 9 months ago

There are videos I still visit and were uploaded more than 10 years ago. It would be a shame losing them all, pieces of internet history instantly gone.

[-] spudwart@spudwart.com 3 points 9 months ago

If someone has a link to where this policy is/was, then we can validate whether this is still in place or was a "pinky promise" not to before swiftly undoing said promise.

[-] johsny@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago

/c/savedyouaclick@lemmy.nrd.li

[-] tun@lemm.ee 13 points 9 months ago

!savedyouaclick@lemmy.nrd.li

[-] morras@jlai.lu 86 points 9 months ago

It misses the most important information: why.

The CNIL (French privacy regulator) slapped Discord in October last year because they never deleted accounts (hi GDPR).

Since then, all tech companies are hurriedly designing a plan to mass delete inactive accounts.

[-] Contend6248@feddit.de 43 points 9 months ago

Good, these companies hoard data for far too long

[-] mindlight@lemm.ee 31 points 9 months ago

They will delete the account, not the data.

[-] Contend6248@feddit.de 23 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

"If a Google Account has not been used or signed into for at least 2 years, we may delete the account and its contents – including content within Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar) and Google Photos," tech giant Google confirmed in a post on its blog.

Thanks GDPR

[-] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 5 points 9 months ago

Can't they delete the contents of an account after backing it up to some server somewhere that only they have access to?

[-] jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 9 months ago

Of course they will remove the data. If they kept the data while removing the users ability to delete it they would get a record breaking fine for Christmas.

Besides they don't actually care about individual data after they finish processing it, they just care about the resulting aggregate data. Wasting money keeping the emails that they don't need would be cartoon villain level of stupid.

[-] mindlight@lemm.ee 1 points 9 months ago

If they anonymize the data so that it's no longer possible to identify you GDPR allows them to keep the data.

Wasting money keeping the emails that they don't need would be cartoon villain level of stupid.

Yeah.... Because there is no money in machine learning and it will never benefit from text written by humans...

[-] breakingcups@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago

From TFA, they delete the data.

[-] algorithmae 1 points 9 months ago

Oh that makes a ton of sense. I was wondering why everyone started doing this at the same time

this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
109 points (88.1% liked)

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