The sooner that IBM and Oracle die the better.

I agree. The free-market did not work, time for regulations.

Dead on!

Violating terms or not- it's still a lot of power for Google to hold over a person and there should be some consumer protections for this.

Is there a way to get your data out if your account is suspended? In the very least there needs to be some recourse and a way for users to export their data if their account is suspended.

Can you access takeout.google.com with a suspended account?

It dePends why the account was suspended. In most cases, you cannot use takeout.

If you are allowed to use takeout, they link you to that on the account suspended page.

I am not sure under GDPR they are “allowed” to stop you.

I'm aware of the threat of Google's decisions and moved the bulk of my email onto self-hosted. Quite the learning curve but a valuable exercise. Then I did a takeout and dumped it all into <a href="https://notmuchmail.org/">"notmuch"</a>. I can search old emails in seconds.

If you live in the EU you could threaten them with GDPR, also you have a right to not have decisions made by algorithms without recourse. If you live in US you are pretty much fucked.

GDPR requires them to answer your request within 30 days. They are allowed to give you your data as it appears when they process your request.

Google's policies, as required by their privacy policy, are to delete all data associated with a suspended account in 30 days.

That means any GDPR request submitted after the account is suspended will be responded to on the 30th day, and the response will be "we hold no data about that account".

That doesn't sound like it would survive a fight with an Information Commissioner.

Note to self: bombard google with GDPR requests so i have monthly backups of my data.

Joking aside: You can schedule automated backups every other month using Google Takeout.

By scheduling you mean schedule a reminder to do it by hand?

No, it actually supports automatic backup and can also upload to third party services like Dropbox.

There is an explicit exception to the GDPR for duplicate/unreasonable requests.

It could be arguable whether monthly data requests are duplicate or unreasonable though. Anything more frequently, sure, but 1 month?

>legally demanded

Meaning whenever the hell they feel like it. From the outside looking in, one problem seems to be a lack of a legitimate legal framework. Is there truly law in China? In the US at least, companies can throw out illegitimate requests for information. Can you tell the Chinese government, "no" for any reason? Citizens in western Democracies regularly sue their own government and win.

This, "everyone does it" defense is bullshit.

My father has been going on about cloud coverage lately. The conspiracy being that they have a cooling effect and invalidate some liberal climate change agenda.

Cloud coverage is in fact left out of most climatological models (too hard to predict, and they would dominate all other factors).

https://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/role.html#COMP_MODS

Yeah, being left out of the models plays into the conspiracy factor. My father mentioned that climate scientists are shills knowingly leaving out this data.

Cloud coverage impact on global temperature is one of the last unknowns hard for us to predict. Hence it is the last defense any serious scientist for denial

We have a clearly observed and measured rapid global warming in the last decades. So whatever mechanism might counteract global warming, it obviously allowed the rapid warming to happen and unless anyone can present a plausible model why the counteraction should get stronger than any further warming, it won't prevent further warming.

They are seeking new revenue in the Chinese market. To them they see a minuscule boycott in the US as the cost of gaining that market- net positive.

China, through its own behavior in situations like these, makes its own market less attractive for companies and investors, though. You'd have to be crazy to see what is going on right now, and go all-in in with the market in China. The arbitrary power of the CPC over market access is a huge liability.

Big companies may still want to do business in China, but they need stronger footholds in other markets to offset the risk.

That's true. The Chinese government could just decide they do not like you and you have no recourse whatsoever. Good point.

Things aren't so black and white behind the scenes. Whether or not a boycott is "minuscule" isn't measured in dollars, it's how the brand is perceived and the second-order effects that perception creates.

Look at it this way- they basically are not allowed to say anything else. I pity them but at the same time I hope things improve for them.

Agreed. It's important to understand such things - to have compassion. It's why I also try to explain the circumstances in detail - in hopes that it may reduce the indoctrination, help them develop critical thinking further; building secret allies within the tyrant's machine.

If it's voluntary, they could voluntarily say nothing instead.

All your peers are doing it and improving their social credit scores. Do you want to fall behind your peers?

"Voluntary" under pressure or fear for safety, repercussions, of course is not voluntary.

Is China a more profitable market than the US? It's worrying that US companies are willing to go this far for foreign profit.

They do have 5x the population. Obviously not the same purchasing power, but it is quickly growing. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a very significant chunk of their revenue.