In 2020, G Suite became Google Workspace as part of a mass reorganization of the company’s apps for the “future of work.” Various plans were migrated over, and Google is now finally getting rid of the G Suite legacy free edition.
“Google Apps” for businesses and schools were introduced 16 years ago and was discontinued in 2012. However, the company made no significant changes to those free accounts in the past decade, until today.
In an email to administrators this morning, Google said it “will now transition all remaining users to an upgraded Google Workspace paid subscription based on your usage.” As such, Workspace’s only free plans are for Nonprofits and Education (Fundamentals).
After getting free Gmail, Drive, Docs, and other apps for the past several years, companies/people will need to start paying for those Google services and the ability to use your own custom domain (instead of just gmail.com).
OSNews happens to be an organisation that started out using the original Google Apps for Your Domain, and over the years, we’ve been migrated left, right, and centre through the various iterations and rebrandings of Google’s collection of services for organisations. We are one of the accounts that have been grandfathered into the current Google Workspace stuff, but we never had a choice – Google just migrated you.
That doesn’t sound too bad, until you, as I have done over the past several years, find out that tons of Google services, and specific features of services, are not available to you. The reasoning here is that while Google Apps for Your Domain originally started out a service for individuals, families, and small organisations, it eventually grew into this massive corporate software suite where it perhaps makes sense to limit certain services and features.
Because Google originally advertised this collection of services as much for personal accounts as it did for organisational accounts, many people, including myself, never could have anticipated our personal accounts would be forcibly turned into corporate accounts, which come with the aforementioned limitations. I can’t set calendar appointments through Google Assistant, for instance, which is annoying since we use Google Home devices. I cannot invite my fiancée to become a member of our household and control our lights and other Google Home devices through her account and phone. I cannot use Google Stadia (not that I’d want to, but still). And that’s just a small selection.
Why don’t we just migrate to a regular Google account, you ask? Well, because it’s not possible. Google offers no way to either change an account from what is now Google Workspace into a personal account, nor does Google offer the ability to migrate all your accounts’ data, settings, emails, and so on from a Workspace account into a new personal account. Unless we throw everything out the window, or painstakingly move over every tiny bit of data for every single service manually, we’re going to be stuck.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable of Google to ask that we old, grandfathered accounts pay for their services. That’s fine. What is not fine, however, is slowly locking us into stunted, limited accounts, after advertising it as a personal service for years.
Lawyers specialising in contract law can be very expensive. I would ask them to examine “shared enterprise” and “opportunity loss” not to mention additional costs when moving to an alternative service. UK law is different to US law but legal instruments can port across as can common law and civil law like in most of Europe. You might also find some argument patterns buried in divorce law. (Marriage is a contract.) In general contract law you cannot you cannot have a contract without a relationship. Contracts both formal and verbal are also formed all the time on an ongoing basis.
Law is a funny thing and one of the first things lawyers are taught is law isn’t what you think it is. A lot depends on perception and timing and not necessarily what you know but what the other side doesn’t know. Lawyers are very good at lies by omission and marketing departments aren’t going to shout about it. Also “Not the done thing” is not necessarily law in the strictest sense but can be as good as law and trip up on this and politicians can get very interested which leads to select committee hearings and bad press and questioning the awarding of contracts and so on and so forth. They’ve been caught with their hands in the cookie jar on tax evasion, trying to form cartels, human rights, and union busting, so “marriage wrecker” is very small beer to them! Do Europeans really want to feed a monster like that? I think not!
Right. I have my own domains so there is no excuse. Time to prioritise disentangling myself from Gmail. The only reason I used Gmail was UK ISP’s began ditching their own email services to “save costs”. The less dependency on a rogue state and sociopathic corporation the better. Not only that but using Gmail is shooting myself in the foot as some data counts for safe harbour protection as well as containing propitiatory and confidential information and Gmail isn’t remotely secure for this. Yes I may have to pay for this but it is money Google is not getting.
You may not have a case in law when everything is assessed in the round or a case worth fighting which makes a difference but you don’t have to do business with them like you don’t have to do business with a third world sweatshop which doesn’t pay a living wage or doesn’t pay for holiday or healthcare or pension. Ethics can cost money but it’s the right thing to do.
What do you see as a valid Gmail alternative? ProtonMail? Roll-your-own?
Adding corporate features on personal domains, instead of building a separate product was probably not the right choice. And over time it meant, they diverged in what is possible.
The main difference is the privacy policies. I don’t have an item-by-item list, but help pages might be a good starting point:
https://support.google.com/googlecloud/answer/6056650
https://policies.google.com/privacy
Each new product has to go through two different paths, or will not be featured on your own domain. (Who would need Stadia on a corporate account)? That is of course less than ideal for “personal” corporate domains.
(This is my personal observation)
Stadia on a corporate account would likely be the way for game developers to test.
“Why don’t we just migrate to a regular Google account, you ask?”
No, _absolutely_ not. I ask why, after all these years, you still trust Google at all? How many times do they have to show you that they don’t care about you? How many times do they have to pull the rug out from under users by killing products?
I think you’ve already come to the logical conclusion, and I applaud you for that. I grew up with Google being the “good guy” the counterpoint to Microsoft et al. But after Google removed “Don’t Be Evil” from their motto, that was the end of Google. Maybe it was already dead, but that was certainly the epitat on the tombstone.
cmdrlinux,
I’ve suggested this before, but why not use this as an opportunity to migrate to an open source environment? Thom you’ve got plenty of people here willing to help and you can make several articles out of it too. It’s not easy to transition and there will be some compromises, but if you’re fed up with google that may be enough of a motivation.
Maintaining the infrastructure is not an option for most people. Sure, I love tinkering with stuff, but it takes a lot of time, and requires one to keep up with recent developments. I don’t have the kind of time I had when I was 21, and I don’t have the mental capacity to keep up with everything, as I was 21. So I don’t think moving to an open source environment, and maintaining it, keeping it secure will be an option for many many many people who just want the thing to work.
cevvalkoala,
I wasn’t trying to make the point that it’s for everyone, only to suggest that it would make good content for osnews IMHO. It would give more people insight into whats involved who may even be interested in giving FOSS infrastructure a shot. Maintaining isn’t nearly as bad as the initial setup to be honest. For the most part things run themselves on a day to day basis and once working breaking changes are fairly infrequent.
Alas you will loose feature parity with commercial providers, but it sounds like Thom’s experiencing problems with their service anyways. He’s not a tech person by trade, but if he were interested I don’t see a reason to discourage him.
Or, how about not investing half your life into systems you have absolutely no control over and corporations that only have their shareholders in mind.
Open source, closed source, do what you want. But for any data that i ever give a damn about, i’m keeping it safely locked up on MY devices controlled by ME. If there’s data loss, failed software upgrades, loss of service etc, it’s then MY fault, and i can fix it MYSELF, instead of being reliant on a third party being able to not leak my data to hackers, drop offline for hours due to misconfigured networks, flat out lose data through incompetence, or decide that the service i;’ve gotten for free is no longer free and my data is now locked behind a paywall.
The123king,
That’s the idea, but in practice proprietary hardware and software are inherently problematic. Many don’t actually care about the source code themselves, but you still have to use open software in order to maximize your freedoms in the future and avoid vendor locking.
Well, there are pros and cons to inhousing versus outsourcing. As you would surely agree, outsourcing leaves us completely dependent and vulnerable. Yet outsourcing has generally won out as a way to cut labor costs. Alas I’ve seen it on numerous occasions where customers got in trouble because of their outsourcing choices. Sometimes it’s surprising just how much control CEOs and even governments are willing to cede over their own data and operations.
I can sort of understand outsourcing some operations to other corporations. For instance, web hosting has almost always been a “cloud” operation. Email hosting is another that has largely been cloud based for decades (think hotmail, AOL and Yahoo Mail), and is only becoming more popular for people who would otherwise need to host on prem.
But things like document storage, actual productivity suites and applications etc are much better hosted on premises, or on a dedicated machine owned by the user. Being solely reliant on cloud services for these purposes leaves you open to being held for ransom (“Hi, your storage plan has changed, you need to pay us $1500 an hour to access your 15MB text document!”) or leave your workflow at the whim of some other entity (“Do you like Google Wave? Tough shit, we’ve axed it! You’re now going to need to wait 5 years for a competitor to develop a product that does exactly the same thing in a shitter way!”)
The cloud has it’s place, sure, but so does on-premises hosting and locally stored apps/programs/documents. People today seem too obsessed that the cloud is a solution to all their woes, and jump head first into it without taking into account the pros and cons
The123king,
I don’t disagree. There’s plenty of room for new innovation to simplify and empower local operations, but alas the problem is that solution providers don’t really want us doing that. They are the ones who decide what technology gets developed, refined, and promoted. They do not want owners to have independence from their control.
All the resources that went into gmail could also have made an awesome reliable turnkey product that owners could control locally. The problem is that owners would be in control, which is diametrically against google’s own interests. This same phenomenon is happening across the industry and is why locally owned/controlled solutions aren’t seeing new developments and innovation.
Ohh… Don’t put salt on my gtalk wounds. Just don’t. And don’t even utter that word starting with “rea” and ending with “der”.
Every time I go to Youtube, there’s a popup in the lower left intentionally designed to go over the controls. It’s not displayed during the initial ad, it’s displayed once the real video starts, specifically to ensure you can’t interact with it until acknowledging whatever Google wanted you to see.
It seems like a whole team must have sat around trying to invent the most evil thing they could. Make sure the user can’t change volume without seeing our self-pitch! It’s just so breathtakingly user hostile. “Do no evil” was sacrificed a while ago.
Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc., etc.. Android, Linux, Windows, iOS, MacOS, etc., etc..
All just different sides of the same coin, the idea one can be or is better than the other is laughable, once they are big the user becomes very very very small!
Really, I love all their products, we live in a privileged era, but I’m not silly enough to think I should matter! We are just worker drones, we have a subsection in the hive, but in the swarm we go unnoticed, we are not even a functional drip!
Thom Holwerda,
This is what’s wrong with IoT! There’s a lot of cool automation hardware with great potential, but instead of being open and giving owners full control, companies are increasingly selling vendor locked junk that requires their proprietary services. Many advocates of open hardware like myself welcome IoT, but we feel that owners need to remain in control over their own hardware. We don’t want to be remotely tracked or be at the mercy of a corporation before they eventually brick your hardware at their discretion. It’s gotten difficult to find turnkey hardware that hasn’t been infested with restricted proprietary tethering.
IMHO companies are within their rights to charge you for their services, the real problem though is that they’re building technology that makes it impossible for owners to switch to alternative providers.
Perhaps you can use your media contacts to get this resolved? It wouldn’t be the first time members of the media can get special treatment and bypass the BS they put the public through.
So, the “grandfather” is dead, and that jack.ss uncle is now forcing you pay for access to the garden you built in grandfather’s backyard.
It’s a good thing that, in the last decade everyone learned not to trust Google. Still, they can find ways to disrupt the flow of life for some people, but the numbers of falling.
The same line of thought applies for Apple, a corporation which took the liberty of cutting battery lives of old devices, or Microsoft, who forces on upgrades no one wants.
On that line, I’m looking for a second hand haswell or skylake based laptop in good shape. I can do without usb-c and pay a benjamin more for the privilege of staying on win7.
A Thinkpad T4xx or T5xx.
The way workspace and personal accounts authenticate are different – it’s like you saying you want to use your corporate Office 365 / Active Directory account to use XBOX or Personal Skype – they have different access control models.
Workspace accounts are managed by a central directory that an admin can give access to users and revoke when they leave etc. Being able to share a household with another family member would break this.
Disclaimer: I work for Google but my opinion is of my own and I’m not connected to workspace team.
One thing I have learned is never listen to a bureaucrat who works for a large organisation with a one size fits all mentality and corporate amnesia. They cannot see beyond their own job title or organisational loyalty and very rarely if at all understand the clients perspective. Note also: blame the customer or imply they are stupid. Classic. And that is why I feel their opinion is completely useless and an indicator you’re dealing with the wrong person.
Always go straight to the top. Beware directors who want to pass the issue to a committee. This is often an ass covering move when their fingerprints are already over decisions. Beware also directors who pass the issue back to lower level staff to report back to them who may lack the expertise to handle the issue. Oh, and if a director uses third party contractor as an excuse they are bullshitting you. I also went looking on Companies House for who is in charge of Google UK. I’m still trying to work out who. I think it’s some guy who is a paid bullshitter and tax dodger but there’s nobody there who seems to actually be in charge of anything.
These people hate critical press scrutiny and yes there is a story here.
Yeah no. Google offered Google Apps for Your Domain and similar services as REGULAR ACCOUNTS, for PERSONAL USE. It wasn’t until much, much later that they forcefully turned these accounts into corporate accounts, with all the inane limitations that come with them. I have countless Google Play/application purchases in there, my YouTube history, and tons of other things. And the cherry on top? Google is too fucking incompetent to allow anyone to migrate their stunted, shoved-down-our-throats corporate accounts into regular accounts. Unless I pay the Google mafia that just showed up to my door, I’m going to lose all of this stuff. It cannot be migrated in any way, shape, or form.
This is a fucking dick move, and I hope your employer gets a particularly nasty kidney stone.
Thom Holwerda,
I am not in your boots (I’ve been avoiding google and proprietary services in general as much as possible for a long time), but I understand the frustration and sometimes wish there were karma for companies that abuse their power over us. I imagine most of us have been victims of corporate power abuses, but personally I don’t believe in karma; they can, and they will get away with it unfortunately.
Sometimes celebrities, youtube stars with millions of subscribers, etc can use their fame to cut right through the BS, but for ordinary folks who don’t have a big megaphone…there’s not much hope.
BLT comments in The Register article said similar although a lot more politely. I really am surprised The Register didn’t make more of it. I think effectively stealing apps you have paid for is a bit of a problem which should get more attention. I mean, it’s fraud right? Lack of a migration option is extremely poor customer service. That alone makes me want to question their policies and management and staff attitudes and begin asking how did this become normalised and ask what else is going on. The fact Google UK managing director is a paid thug is bad enough. Google have also been caught trying to create a cartel and bust unions too. Something about this shabby closing down of services doesn’t sit right with me. You simply DO NOT treat people like this.
as for self-appointed mouthpieces only the other week I was listening to a James O’Brien show where an engineer working in rocketry involved with the new launch site in Scotland had a few things to say. He puffed up the industry and boasted about productivity levels being higher than anything else in the rest of the UK. (Big deal. The UK has among the worst productivity levels in the OECD so not hard to beat.) He also played shy when criticising the industry because, as he said, he wanted to keep a career in the industry. Fair comment some would say but I intensely dislike careerists pulling slimy tricks like this. You’re not going to get any critical truth out of them and who knows what expedient blind eyes they are turning.
You have mental issues.
You have mental issues.
For such a ‘freedom and privacy advocate’ your website doesn’t allow people to delete their profiles…. Lol what a dick Thom is.
garybuk,
Wow, so you wanted to write “you have mental issues” twice and then delete your profile? That’s mature /s
FYI you could just request it and they would have deleted it for you.
Isn’t the cloud such a wonderful solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
The123king,
After all these years I’m still adamant to point out that “the cloud” is nothing more than a new term coined for really old ideas in tech. Look back at the original teletype terminals and networks where people would literally rent CPU cycles from IBM, It existed because mainframe computers were just too expensive to own, but as costs came down more and more companies wanted to own and operate their own computers and servers. Now the industry is shifting back remote servers and software running in data centers owned by someone else. I think this change has been driven mostly by vendors who see recurring subscription models as more profitable for them than one time sales. Their mission is to sell services that create dependency, owner controlled networks and software that promote independence are a hindrance to vendor business models.
A problem that doesn’t exist? Sir, do you even know what Serverless Computing is? And how does it help startups take off without having to worry about (and being limited by) infrastructure?
Stuff like AWS Lambda is the unknown hero that makes all the cool apps you use on your phone possible. Without the cloud, all those apps you use would need millions of investment before they could even upload a single version of their app, or risk having to face a “success disaster” if their servers get knocked out due to a sudden surge in demand. Steve Jobs wants you to believe his “app economy” miracle is the iPhone’s doing, but let me tell you, AWS is just as responsible.
Even more traditional stuff like EC2 (which allows you to port your Linux apps unchanged) is much better than physical servers when the need to scale (aka grow with demand) is needed. And recently we got neat stuff like Fargate, which allows you to bring your Linux apps mostly unchanged (after containerizing them) and make them scale horizontally.
Then there is user-oriented cloud stuff like YouTube and Google Drive that are impossible to replicate locally (for example, I have a Google Drive subscription because I don’t want my data to exist only in harddrives my apartment which can be emptied by robbers).
BTW I can agree that “cloud everything” for users is of highly debatable value (considering everyone has a relatively powerful laptop and smartphone nowadays) but going from that to “Isn’t the cloud such a wonderful solution to a problem that doesn’t exist” is ridiculous.
kurkosdr,
Having seen it done both ways, I honestly don’t think outsourcing contributes all that much a project’s success.
I disagree, I think there’s tons of merit in local and P2P file sharing. This was solving the scalability problems long before private corporations could. The vendors only insisted on centralized services for their benefit, meanwhile local networking was literally blocked on new mobile operating systems. Even to this day it’s extremely off-putting to not be able to use local networking on mobile devices. This was never particularly difficult to achieve on traditional operating systems, but due to the deliberate limitations of the mobile devices we’re being sold, owner controlled solutions got sidelined forcing us to use centralized service providers instead. I’d love for mobile devices to natively support distributed file systems that don’t rely on 3rd parties.
This is absolutely not a case of owner controlled file sharing being non-viable, it’s a case of vendors deciding what technology they want us to have and use for their benefit.
First of all, EC2 is great for spinning up development environments, because 1) you are not limited by rack space issues in the office or by hardware delivery leadtimes and 2) EC2 charges pennies on the dollar when your EC2 instances (aka VMs) are shut down. So, if you have a shutdown script running an hour after close-of-business, you can save a lot of money.
My only gripe with EC2 (and AWS in general) is that their API is paginated but the methods in their python library are confusingly named to imply it isn’t (for example “describe_instances”). If you don’t know that detail, your script will only process the first page (100 EC2 instances). But once you know that, you just iterate through the pages and assemble a list of all your instances, and then you can shut them all down (yes, I know you are supposed to process them per page, but ssshh… it doesn’t matter each of your environments has, like, 100-200 EC2 instances)
But even in production, not having to deal with actual servers is a plus when your server’s physical location has to be far away from your office.
And keep in mind EC2 is the “legacy friendly” kind of cloud. True “horizontal” cloud scalability comes with Lamba and Fargate.
doesn’t matter each of your environments = doesn’t matter if each of your environments
(sorry)
Also:
with Lamba and Fargate = with Lamba or Fargate
(not both obv, unless you are doing something really interesting).
kurkosdr,
I’ve never found hardware to be an issue for development. VM technology is far from exclusive to “cloud providers” with some of us using it long before the cloud marketing jargon came to be. It’s something that hosting providers and developers have used in one form or other for a very long time. Each project has unique requirements. If a project has infrequent hardware utilization, then renting can make sense, but the more hardware you need to keep loaded the less renting makes sense in the long run especially with high end hardware. Of course this is just talking about the hardware. If you are able to eliminate support staff by renting remote servers instead of owning them, then that can completely change the picture. Labor is one of the most expensive costs businesses face.
Renting hardware doesn’t always imply eliminating employees though, some projects need the same employees regardless of owning versus renting. The point is there’s no single conclusion that applies to everyone.
Sure, but you still have the option to rent versus colocate. If you wanted you could even keep your main database and files on servers you control and spawn up ancillary application servers on demand. There are a lot of options, which is great!
As a user, are you really going to put your family photos in P2p? Nope. Your only other option (other than Google Drive and the like) is a NAS or home server, which doesn’t solve the problem of hardware getting stolen from your room (and with it, your data).
The rant on local networking not supported in mobile devices is irrelevant.
kurkosdr,
You’re thinking inside the box rather than what’s possible. There’s nothing wrong with P2P and I bet many people would prefer it to centralized services like dropbox and google drive if it were well supported. Family, friends, peers, etc could cross backup each other’s files all while being more secure than google drive. Security could be cryptographically enforced instead of having to trust a company’s service agreements.
https://support.google.com/drive/thread/2560901/is-is-possible-to-encrypt-a-google-drive-folder-or-any-document?hl=en
I think P2P storage is an awesome idea that would be very practical! The biggest challenge is getting the tech industry to develop and support it though since they’d rather have everyone on proprietary services.
Nonsense. I have frequently been bitten by the inability to easily access my own files and media on mobile devices. People end up turning to centralized services because platforms have made it too hard to access our own files, not because accessing our own files is irrelevant!
I can’t believe the GDPR took precedence in lawmaking over tacking service lock-in. It’s the reason why, as an EU citizen, I don’t trust the people in the expensive suits over at Brussels.
BTW “service lock-in” is what you are suffering through right now, Thom. It’s time we had a name for the problem so we can start naming the problem.
Sadly The Register didn’t make much of this topic. This story doesn’t effect me but in the meantime I have been pricing email providers before asking a current supplier for a quote. I’m looking for a credible UK or EU email provider. I don’t need webmail. None American. Not any of these dodgy free ones nor am I paying through the nose.
I had the same issue when I tried to move from a paid account to a free account but was told there was no easy path / support available for it. I had to manually download my documents one by one … in MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint formats.
I decided to move over to OneDrive and have not looked back ever since. I gave Google a chance thinking they would be good for using open formats.. but I was proven wrong when it comes to support they were disappointing.
Well, Thom, if I were you I actually would consider opening a new personal account and moving your old e-mails there yourself.
It’s really not too hard. Using Thunderbird you can login to both accounts with IMAP, then drag-and-drop everything from one inbox to the other. Yes it will take a long time, but I’ve done this before and it works.
You can also setup the new Gmail account to poll the old one so that from that point on, e-mails sent to the old account still show up in the new one. And even set up an alias e-mail so when you answer said e-mails sent to the old address, you still answer with the old address and no one is the wiser.
Moochman,
I’ve used outlook in the past, which I don’t have anymore. Thunderbird can do it however in my experience I’ve found it to have some serious stability problems moving large numbers of emails due to the process hard locking. Hopefully the problems are fixed, but if not this makes for tedious migrations. I’ve had more luck with a virtual imap fuse FS, copying emails becomes a trivial directory copy using standard file system tools!
Even if you moved the emails themselves do you know whether you be able to transfer the original email address? I assume you can repoint a vanity address [email protected], but @gmail addresses under google’s control could be stuck? Also I suspect Thom has google calendars and contact lists that he wants to keep as well.
Migrating data shouldn’t be difficult in principal, but without the right tooling I can see how it would be difficult. I’m not familiar with migrating google accounts. Does google provide a feature to export/import all the account data in one go?
Can I ask which IMAP FuseFS project you used? There are a few. Also any instructions online about how to do it?
I wonder how it would fare with my 50GB of email on GSuite…
Danmelbourne,
Hmm, that’s a good question, I migrated to my current email solution one day many years ago and I don’t remember the exact tool or steps I used. I really hadn’t thought about it since.
Maybe try something like this…
http://sr71.net/projects/gmailfs/
Debian has an imap synchronization package that might be able to do it too.
https://linux.die.net/man/1/isync
BTW are you a fan of the original french Tintin?
Great, thank you!!
Yes I am 🙂 I was an avid reader of them when I was a kid!
Danmelbourne,
It’s kind of hard to get french books here but my uncle would bring me a bunch. Also les Schtroumpfs, Barbar, and Asterix
Ah the memories of simpler times.
For myself it is more shocking that some people think a giant commercial entity is going to be altruistic in every case for ever and ever.
I think what Google did / does, or any other large entity, to monetise it’s actions is inevitable!
Never ask for a backslap and bonus if you think it is an affront to pay one to somebody else!
I’m somewhat bored of Americans (and it is almost always Americans) failing to grasp governance and regulations and human rights and equality law such as is standard in Europe. The increasingly far right Tory party in the UK is trying to be a mini-me America and its links to more and more extreme far right US entities is shocking.
The US needs to stop symptom chasing and fix their own constitution. It is and always has been about an elite looking after their estates. Business interests are lightly regulated. There are no human rights protections at a constitutional level. I’m also sick to the back teeth of hearing about American companies every third topic. For god’s sake read some books, read around a broad range of subjects, and stop being so insular. Yes, workers rights and consumer protection and privacy among other things do exist.
I’m fed up with the economically illiterate and anti-social “tech bros”. I’m fed up posting links to things on ethics, learned political analysis, or public policy areas and them hitting the ground with a thud. I’m fed up with every topic which an American shoves their face in also shoving their patriotism in every third sentence. Science and universal principles do not come with a national flag. I’m fed up reading things I already know and have heard repeated ad-nauseam for the past decade. It’s like a repeating record and nothing new is learned. Nothing changes.
Email is a national security issue. It’s infrastructure. Handing email (and location data) over to a huge unaccountable company from a country with a proven record of espionage is stupid. It’s not just the content but who knows who. I don’t think people realise that knowing person A from company X met person B from company Y can be worth billions. It can suggest new areas of endevour (which may be patentable) or similar. Human rights and equality and ethics costs money. There are going to be people who want to keep that money. Not investing in them costs you more in the long run. Like, why the hate for the link I posted on Oxfam among others calling for a more egalitarian financial model? Don’t be a brain dead Tory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaNaGa8KQCQ
James O’Brien – The Whole Show : The secret behind Boris Johnson’s smirk | PART 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNnZ9CzLJrg
James O’Brien – The Whole Show : The secret behind Boris Johnson’s smirk | PART 2
These videos explain how the system is designed and how it works and how you are being influenced. They are laughing at you.
The elephant in the room here is most people in at least western countries are now reliant on a handful of companies. Reliant to do their work and regarding their personal life and interests. This begs the question. If we live in so called capitalism. Where exactly in all this is the competition. The basic ingredient for such system to work. Why is the biggest flaw of the system, monopoly, prevailing. We are rather dumb, as people, aren’t we.
Geck,
I agree, the companies at the top are accumulating ever more power, influence, control over the world’s resources, etc. Competition is hurting badly. Some people think it’s ok to have one dominant company as long as there’s another dominant company to compete, but that is hardly a healthy competitive market. IMHO by the time markets reach a duopoly, things are already going very badly. The other thing to consider is globalization. In centuries past the oligopolies were much more regional, which is bad but at least there was more competition around the world. Now however these dominant corporations are international.
To my chagrin, I think the system is capable of working under such highly concentrated control, it’s just not going to be fair or in our interests. US regulators have largely sided with the corporations amassing power, It remains to be seen if the rest of the world are willing & able to do what it takes to stave off the demise of competition and rise of dominant corporations.
Yes, collectively we are dumb. Individually there have been many people calling this out, but none who have had enough influence to push back against the consolidation, corruption, and momentum. I honestly think we’re going to have to re-learn what it’s like to live under robber barons controlling more and more.
Lawyers are in fact finding mode for a potential case against Google. I thought it odd that nobody made a bigger story of this. The fact is it can takes some research to examine the feasibility and articulate a case and no journalist had the specialist knowledge or connections to make anything of this hence the laziness.
Google may also be litigated against in other jurisdictions too which is something most people miss.
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/22/01/22/0137254/google-could-face-class-action-lawsuit-over-free-g-suite-legacy-account-shutdown
https://www.androidpolice.com/google-gsuite-free-legacy-class-action-investigation/
Well…. there’s an huge black market for legacy google suite accounts with unlimited drive storage. That has been abused for years.
Personally, I’ll migrate to Zoho using their migration tool. That’s the beauty of owning your domain. you can get out