@infmom: Should probably make that "trusting your life to free online apps". If you pay for real online services you probably won't have any such problems, since you'll have more control, account verification methods, and actual customer service.

equazcion

Demonstrating yet again the folly of trusting your life to online apps.

infmom

Consumerist has more info on this, also posted today: [consumerist.com]

equazcion

Is it possible to upgrade a standard Google Account to Premium?

xingman

@GregH: That's exactly what i'm thinking.

kli6891

So, if I understand this correctly (which I probably don't), couldn't this delayed account re-activation be used maliciously? For example, could someone that knows your gmail address just try to login to your account a bunch of times until it is locked down? Then you are screwed for days or weeks while the re-activation process takes place.

GregH

I wonder if this will affect T-Mobile G1 users since they need a Gmail account to access their phone. Effectively locking them out of their phone if they have their acct locked.

Lazarus

I guess this is because you have to submit so little personal information when you sign up for an email account. So is sometimes really difficult to verify identity, to give the account access to the real owner, not the hacker.

gravi_t

@GregH: Yeah, that's the first thing I thought of too. This could turn into something really ugly, really quick. In which case google will HAVE to think a little harder about it...right?

Almost makes me consider going back to my ISP's e-mail... I've relied solely on webmail for personal e-mail for years.

But hopefully I'm just being overly paranoid.

CnEY

i have all my email automatically forwarded to a little used yahoo email account. when/if the account is locked out, does that mean i lose the auto forwarding or does it still work? that seems easier to do than scripting a pop fetch.

Khamel

POP backup isn't a cure-all -- I just got locked out because my POP client was logging in too often while archiving old GMail messages. Maybe something in Outlook's unfortunate IMAP implementation?

AirSix

@Khamel: I was thinking the same thing. I have my gmail auto-forwarding to a backup gmail account. I wouldn't imagine the big G would lock you out of BOTH accounts simultaneously...

SpriteMV

@Brian Enigma: Oops--I should add that this was with the Google Apps free edition, not the premiere edition.

Brian Enigma

Keep in mind that things are a bit different for Gmail versus the Gmail app within Google Apps For Domains. If you get locked out of your domain Gmail account (as did my wife from hers--mainly because we forgot the admin password, not because of anything nefarious), the recovery mechanism is quite solid and only takes a couple of minutes. You open a trouble ticket and put some text that they give you in a file named similarly to the trouble ticket number in the root of your website. They then query that and give you back your access. The process took all of 5 minutes and most of that was in reading and understanding the instructions.

I think it all boils down to accountability and [virtual] paper-trails. With anonymous Gmail accounts you don't really have the same accountability as you have with a domain that has been registered and hosted.

Brian Enigma

Gmail has become pretty much my main email source, though I still use Yahoo daily, because it has a better interface, even with the annoying ads.

To hear that they could lock me out of Gmail for weeks is pretty scary. I guess I need to be careful when I type from now on.

MCWHAMMER

I've never fully trusted the cloud, and probably never will. I use POP to my desktop client so that I always have the full archive locally. I also use a combination of accounts (Yahoo & Gmail) for different purposes to diversify my risk. If one account gets screwed up, I've only lost access to one piece. Plus, using multiple accounts helps on the privacy front.

Logical Extremes

If you're paranoid about getting locked out, you might want to switch to a Google Apps account. It's free, if you don't mind the standard Gmail advertising, except for the cost of your domain name. And you can create multiple Administrative accounts in case one gets locked (although I personally haven't heard of a Google Apps administrator ever getting locked out).

My old Gmail account forwards to my Google Apps account and I'm able to to send mail using either my private domain address or my original Gmail address. I backup everything by downloading all my mail via POP to my Mac at home. If I ever have a problem I can switch the MX records of my private domain to another server (or service) and my old Gmail account will continue to forward the new server.

I used to host my email and website on my own server, and much prefer having Google do it. Even though the bandwidth, etc for my server was free.

devnull

@devnull:

Thanks. So you can sign up for a Google Apps account and just use any old Domain name and still use your existing gmail account?

xingman

@AirSix: that happened to me when i first tried to imap my gmail. they locked me out for three days.

natenovs

I had my account hacked last year and was without it for months. Since then I have switched all my email over to a paid for service, which auto-forwards to gmail to take advantage of it's storage and search functions.

Gmail's customer service was, in my experience, non-existent. It was only when I noticed an autoforward from an old email address was no longer failing that I realised they had restored my account. Despite weekly emails asking for information I never had a peep from gmail.

I also refute the claim that gmail is a free service - it is monetized via ads, ads we agree to be shown in return for using their product. We may not be shelling out our own cash for it, but Google are not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. There's a deal between Google and the customer there, and Google are not great at keeping up their end.

labete

@SpriteMV: I don't think Khamel's worried about being locked out of the backup account, but unclear about whether or not email forwarding would be deactivated upon being locked out. I'm wondering the same thing.

collider

@Lazarus: That would definitely be an "OUCH!" event...

Rogue

The cloud sucks.

Deprong Mori

@equazcion: You have a good point, but whether free or paid, if an online app is down, or if you have no internet connection, *pfft* goes your e-life.

infmom

@infmom: You involuntarily made your own point: Don't put your entire life into online apps, just your e-life. Server problems or loss of Internet connectivity should be nothing more than a temporary inconvenience.

eightseventeen

@xingman: As far as I know, you can only upgrade a Google Apps acount to Premium. Check this out.

Alex

Forgive the confusion, I realize its been asked and probably answered already. Auto-forwarding keeps working when locked out of free gmail?

gazer

Pretty funny .. I'd figure most readers here would be tech savvy to know that this is complete crap. If you supplied a secondary email address during registration, or at any time afterwards, you'd have NO problems whatsoever at recovering your password instanteneously.

Of course, if you claim that emails as important to you as your banking information, and you do not take the steps to learn what you need to do and how to protect this information - why is it Google's fault, I do not understand? Like in a bank, they take much of your information down, but you'd arrogantly insist that you only want to give out your home phone number and nothing else. Then you move, and now can't access your bank account info - why is it bank's fault?

Unless of course you are the communist mouthpiece like NY Times is, and would slant everything towards entitlements, and away from responsibility.

There's also this - you don't like it, stick to your xx.rr.com or earthlink or AOL accounts, that will answer your questions right away.

Unreal.

kamdad

Yes....You can upgrade for extra room, so maybe...

SharvariDamrit

That is actually completely incorrect. Account locking is done on a PER IP basis. As for the idiots who forget passwords, you have nobody but yourself to blame.

SansoneHaphy

why not just autoforward copies to another gmail account?

RosanneBattus

As I read it, if someone does this to your account, you only get seriously locked out if you can't recover by normal means - such as having no security question set up, and no alternative email address set up in gmail

FiorenzaEspi