And just for anyone who's crazy enough (edit: and I can see they’ve come out already in the comments here) to say that he deserved it because he associated with some non-reputable people...
My Google account was entered as a recovery email address by someone else. Most likely because it was a single letter removed from an abbreviation of their real legal name. I got an email informing me of that fact and instantly disavowed any association with the link right there in the email.
What should happen but a year later but Google letting me know that "your Google account [other email] was deleted due to a violation of our Terms of Service that was left unresolved.".
I tried to contact Google, I tried to disavow the account again, no reply and a dead page. My account isn't dead, but I seem to be irreversibly linked (the hypothetical Google term would be 'avowed' I guess, given that the opposite 'disavowal' was in the URI to reverse the process) to a ToS violation severe enough to warrant account deletion through no fault of my own. Simply because a random person signing up for a new account on the other side of the world typoed i instead of u.
For all I know my reputation with Google is so bad that a single click on the wrong YouTube video or a new algorithm with marginally different scoring running on my account will delete it all. I have zero certainty through no fault of my own.
Edit: Could hypothetically be a great way of shutting up political dissidents (and their YouTube accounts) or anyone you don't like. List their email as a recovery address on ten new accounts, get ToS violations on all of them before they get a chance to disavow them (do it while they're likely sleeping maybe) and you're done.
I presume my comment was one of the ones you were referring to. You just did what I was suggesting: you explain how your account was inappropriately (IMO, based on your explanation) shut down. These types of stories should be shared when Google/Apple are in the wrong. However, notice the complete lack of detail in the linked story re: the associated account that resulted in the termination. If one is going to claim that an account termination was inappropriate, doesn't it seem reasonable to provide details to support the claim? (i.e. it doesn't seem crazy to me to expect an author of such a story to at least make an effort to show that they aren't a bad actor crying foul)
The author of the story said he doesn’t know what the third party may or may not have done and Google didn’t provide an explanation. And I never said my account was shut down.
My Google account was entered as a recovery email address by someone else. Most likely because it was a single letter removed from an abbreviation of their real legal name. I got an email informing me of that fact and instantly disavowed any association with the link right there in the email.
What should happen but a year later but Google letting me know that "your Google account [other email] was deleted due to a violation of our Terms of Service that was left unresolved.".
I tried to contact Google, I tried to disavow the account again, no reply and a dead page. My account isn't dead, but I seem to be irreversibly linked (the hypothetical Google term would be 'avowed' I guess, given that the opposite 'disavowal' was in the URI to reverse the process) to a ToS violation severe enough to warrant account deletion through no fault of my own. Simply because a random person signing up for a new account on the other side of the world typoed i instead of u.
For all I know my reputation with Google is so bad that a single click on the wrong YouTube video or a new algorithm with marginally different scoring running on my account will delete it all. I have zero certainty through no fault of my own.
Edit: Could hypothetically be a great way of shutting up political dissidents (and their YouTube accounts) or anyone you don't like. List their email as a recovery address on ten new accounts, get ToS violations on all of them before they get a chance to disavow them (do it while they're likely sleeping maybe) and you're done.