Google just announced as of June 1st 2021, inactive accounts that have had no activity for 2 years will have their data deleted. (supposedly in line with industry standards)
The death toll is rising for Human Malware, and that puts into focus if people have a digital legacy plan for stuff on Social Media or the cloud.
If this were pre-Human Malware, the other reason someone might not be able to access their Google account is because they permanently moved to China and all Google services are blocked, and they became/are a citizen, so using a VPN would be a crime. (that’s another reason someone could go inactive, but I digress, the primary reason brings to the point of digital legacies)
This video should detail how each company deals with stuff in case someone is declared deceased, and big gotchas. This would be a very relevant video in the time of Human Malware, because one more thing it would preach is offline backups.
What do you think @Wendell? Would this also be a video relevant to Ryan and Krista?
I feel a video on this topic is appropriate not just on the death topic, but on the old data side of things too.
I can see Google’s point of view. Storage isn’t free, but because the account is, many people just create new ones willy-nilly… I personally know at least 5 people who have more than one Google account.
On the other hand, those accounts mostly DO contain useful data. And the user may not always realise their error for a year or 2. The fact they’re talking about separate services, not accounts as a whole is worrying too… I haven’t used Google Photos for years, but it doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned what’s in there… And now I have to go through my various Google services every ~18 months to ensure they don’t delete my stuff
And what even counts as “usage”? I have my GMail account forward into my regular mail. I rarely log in at all. But there’s still emails in there from before I set that up that are important to me… Do they get hosed if I don’t open the web page every 2 years? What about Google Photos - do they get wiped out if I don’t upload any new ones? Or is opening the website enough?
On the virus part - The death toll for State Sponsored Human Hacking is minuscule compared to regular old deaths no one pays attention to throughout the year. For example, the road deaths in my state are ~400 per year. Kung Flu has caused just 55 if I recall. Or another Flu deaths in my state are over 100 most years. Death in general is far more widespread than the Chyna Virus.
I don’t agree with the virus part of your post. But yes, there should be a focus on changing attitudes on where stuff is backed up, because complacency on cloud services is way too high.
