I'm not interested in the legal aspect of this person's situation, but I am curious what a Google account holder can do to prevent such situations. Will enrolling a passkey for example make an account holder's access significantly more reliable?
I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but the responsible answer to your titular question is "get a lawyer and listen to them". If you are asking for reliable legal advice from strangers on the internet, you have made a misjudgment.
> I've submitted FCC complaints and will proceed with FTC, State Attorney and more.
What is it that you believe you are entitled to? Free services like this are all typically offered "as is" and "without warranty". From the gmail terms verbatim
WE DON’T MAKE ANY WARRANTIES ABOUT THE CONTENT OR FEATURES OF THE SERVICES, INCLUDING THEIR ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, AVAILABILITY, OR ABILITY TO MEET YOUR NEEDS.
From my reading, even if you were doing everything security-wise right to log in and their systems were entirely broken into perpetuity and no one could log in, they'd argue they don't have to and by you agreeing to the terms of service when you were using it you agreed with that limitation.
From a business-wise standpoint, a company considering offering services like these for free that carried liability for your grievances above would not offer these services at all. That's just inviting unnecessary loss on top of whatever value they extract from it.
No government agency or official is realistically going to start enforcing mandatory blanket support requirements for free products from private companies that were fairly represented as such. If they did huge swaths of the internet would go under because they're not sustainable, especially if litigation floodgates opened after a precedent.
I appreciate the insight, but think that regardless of terms, agreements, etc, that they cross lines and go too far. I'm thoroughly confident that the public will concur.
And if a particular unethical or hostile business practice is legal now, it doesn't necessarily imply that it will remain so. Also consider that many universities use Google for email services. Sketchy territory.
Those universities pay for those email services and are under different terms. If you are paying for those services and didn't get what you paid for that is extremely different than getting locked out of a random free gmail account.
Like I said, even if the public was supportive of that, google would start charging for or close the services the second they became liable and the product was unprofitable. You can do yourself a favor by moving to a service that does offer the terms you want (and where you pay for it).
All valid points, but objectively, they are causing unnecessary problems or worse. I may be encouraged to feel dumb while doing so, but I'll certainly not be discouraged from doing it anyway.
I'm not interested in the legal aspect of this person's situation, but I am curious what a Google account holder can do to prevent such situations. Will enrolling a passkey for example make an account holder's access significantly more reliable?
Can you provide more insight? Why would an online video platform block you?
I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but the responsible answer to your titular question is "get a lawyer and listen to them". If you are asking for reliable legal advice from strangers on the internet, you have made a misjudgment.
> I've submitted FCC complaints and will proceed with FTC, State Attorney and more.
What is it that you believe you are entitled to? Free services like this are all typically offered "as is" and "without warranty". From the gmail terms verbatim
WE DON’T MAKE ANY WARRANTIES ABOUT THE CONTENT OR FEATURES OF THE SERVICES, INCLUDING THEIR ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, AVAILABILITY, OR ABILITY TO MEET YOUR NEEDS.
https://policies.google.com/terms?hl=en#toc-problems
From my reading, even if you were doing everything security-wise right to log in and their systems were entirely broken into perpetuity and no one could log in, they'd argue they don't have to and by you agreeing to the terms of service when you were using it you agreed with that limitation.
From a business-wise standpoint, a company considering offering services like these for free that carried liability for your grievances above would not offer these services at all. That's just inviting unnecessary loss on top of whatever value they extract from it.
No government agency or official is realistically going to start enforcing mandatory blanket support requirements for free products from private companies that were fairly represented as such. If they did huge swaths of the internet would go under because they're not sustainable, especially if litigation floodgates opened after a precedent.
tldr: You get what you pay for
I appreciate the insight, but think that regardless of terms, agreements, etc, that they cross lines and go too far. I'm thoroughly confident that the public will concur.
And if a particular unethical or hostile business practice is legal now, it doesn't necessarily imply that it will remain so. Also consider that many universities use Google for email services. Sketchy territory.
Those universities pay for those email services and are under different terms. If you are paying for those services and didn't get what you paid for that is extremely different than getting locked out of a random free gmail account.
Like I said, even if the public was supportive of that, google would start charging for or close the services the second they became liable and the product was unprofitable. You can do yourself a favor by moving to a service that does offer the terms you want (and where you pay for it).
All valid points, but objectively, they are causing unnecessary problems or worse. I may be encouraged to feel dumb while doing so, but I'll certainly not be discouraged from doing it anyway.