<nettime> Killed by Google / Ucciso da Google

[Domenico <qrndnc@yahoo.it>]

Con la presente intendo informarti che Google ha disabilitato, con  
iniziativa unilaterale, il mio Account Google. Il che significa:

- che l'email quaranta.domenico@gmail.com non ? pi? attiva. Se  
desideri contattarmi, ti prego di scrivere a qrndnc@yahoo.it o 
dom@domenicoquaranta.net . Se mi hai scritto nelle ultime ore all'indirizzo 
Gmail, per favore  girami la mail su questi indirizzi;
- che i blog http://domenico-quaranta.blogspot.com/ e 
http://spawnofthesurreal.blogspot.com/ , seppure ancora accessibili, non 
saranno pi? aggiornati e non sono  pi? di mia propriet?;
- che le dispense e i documenti che ho caricato su Google Documents,  
seppure ancora accessibili, non saranno pi? aggiornati e non sono pi?  
di mia propriet?;
- che i miei canali Picasa (http://picasaweb.google.it/quaranta.domenico/ 
) e Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/user/domenicoquaranta) non saranno  
pi? aggiornati e non sono pi? di mia propriet?.

Questa notte sono stato ucciso da Google. Se vuoi sapere perch? e  
capire se potrebbe succedere a te, continua a leggere.

--

With this email I'd like to inform you that Google disabled my Google  
Account. This means:

- that the email address quaranta.domenico@gmail.com is no longer  
active. If you want to contact me, please use qrndnc@yahoo.it or 
dom@domenicoquaranta.net . If you wrote me in the last few hours, please 
send your message to  these last addresses.
- that the blogs http://domenico-quaranta.blogspot.com/ and 
http://spawnofthesurreal.blogspot.com/ , while still available, won't be 
updated and no longer belong to me;
- that my documents, presentations and teaching material on Google  
Documents, while still available, won't be updated and no longer  
belong to me;
- that my Picasa (http://picasaweb.google.it/quaranta.domenico/) and  
Youtube channels (http://www.youtube.com/user/domenicoquaranta) won't  
be updated and no longer belong to me.

This night I've been killed by Google. If you want to know more and  
understand if you'll be the next, go on reading.

---------------------------------------------------

*This night I've been killed by Google*
Domenico Quaranta

This night I've been killed by Google. When I woke up, I tried to  
enter my Google Account as usual, but what I got was only a short  
message:

?Sorry, your account has been disabled.?

?This fucking password!?, I thought, and I retyped it. Same message.  
At the end of it there was a question mark with a link. I clicked on  
it, and this is what I read:

?If you've been redirected to this page from the sign in page, it  
means that access to your Google Account has been disabled.

In most cases, accounts are disabled because of a perceived violation  
of either the Google Terms of Service or product-specific Terms of  
Service.

Google reserves the right to:

* Suspend a Google Account from using a particular product or the  
entire Google Accounts system if the Terms of Service or product- 
specific policies are violated.
* Terminate your account at any time, for any reason, with or without  
notice.

If your Google Account has been disabled, please review the relevant  
Terms of Service before attempting to create another account. For  
guidelines on a specific Google product, please visit the product  
homepage for a link to its Terms of Service.

If you believe your account has been disabled in error, please contact  
us so that we can assist you.?

?Terminate your account at any time, for any reason, with or without  
notice?? Wow! If God exists, probably he is more democratic than  
Google. But, well, of course it's a mistake. So, let's fill the form.

I did it, and this is what I got:

?Thanks for contacting our Google Accounts team. Please note that  
we'll only reply if we have additional information to share about your  
disabled account.?

I take a cigarette. ?Hope is a good breakfast but a bad supper?, I  
think. Tons of emails, two blogs, about one hundred images, videos,  
documents, web pages, presentations, two years of work lost for...  
what? Because I believed in a fallible God.

I don't believe in God, actually. That's why I always have to  
understand what happens to my life. So, I start making some research.  
Google invites you to put your whole hard disk online. If you have a  
Google account, you can check your email, but you can also run one or  
more blogs. Picasa lets you share your pictures, and since Google  
bought Youtube, you can create and access a Youtube channel with the  
same username and password. Google Documents is a kind of Microsoft  
Office. You can create and share word documents, spreadsheets, Power  
Point presentations, databases. It's far but easy to fascinate me, but  
if I find something useful, I use it. So, I run two blogs, I have a  
Picasa account, a Youtube channel, and several documents online ? most  
of them being material I use for teaching, and that I share with my  
students. All under the same Google Account.

So, let's check if everything is working. My email doesn't work  
anymore. R.I.P. My blogs are still online, but I don't have the right  
to edit, delete or update them anymore. Actually, I'm not the owner of  
these sites anymore. They are still there, but they aren't mine ? they  
belong to Google. I realize right now that they always did. As for my  
Youtube videos and my documents, the same as above: only Google can  
decide if my students can go on studying what I teach. Finally, I look  
for my Picasa channel: it's gone.

?You asshole!?, you may say. ?You are boring us with your fucking  
story, and it ends up that you uploaded some sex images or copyrighted  
material.? I didn't. What I put on my Picasa account are just my  
photos: some holiday pictures (as private albums, accessible only to  
me ? and Google of course) and some pics related to the exhibitions I  
organized up to now (as public albums). I go through the terms of  
agreement about one hundred times, and what I understand is that I  
didn't violate any rule. Maybe the following one?

?4.5 You acknowledge and agree that while Google may not currently  
have set a fixed upper limit on the number of transmissions you may  
send or receive through the Services or on the amount of storage space  
used for the provision of any Service, such fixed upper limits may be  
set by Google at any time, at Google?s discretion.?

I don't know how many megabytes I used ? unlike for Flickr, there were  
no upper limits for Picasa till yesterday. Maybe I used too much disk  
space and they decided to kick me out?

I don't know. Probably, I'll never know. Since this morning, I wrote  
about 10 emails to Google, but I got no answer. I can just look back  
to my dead account and wonder: is it dead because God decided to kill  
it or because it violated some stupid rule?

Of course, I will migrate on other platforms. I'll do even if my  
Google Account comes back from hell. Nothing is really lost, besides  
my time. But don't forget: if it happened to me, it can happen to  
anybody, at any time, everywhere. Everything is there, in the contract  
you signed with God ? or it was the Devil?:

?4.3 As part of this continuing innovation, you acknowledge and agree  
that Google may stop (permanently or temporarily) providing the  
Services (or any features within the Services) to you or to users  
generally at Google?s sole discretion, without prior notice to you.

4.4 You acknowledge and agree that if Google disables access to your  
account, you may be prevented from accessing the Services, your  
account details or any files or other content which is contained in  
your account.?


---

Domenico Quaranta

mob. +39 340 2392478
email. dom@domenicoquaranta.net
home. vicolo San Giorgio 18 - 25122 brescia (BS)
web. http://www.domenicoquaranta.net/

"The world we actually have does not meet my standards". Philip K. Dick




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