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Comment by Pxtl | Hacker News Reader

The problem is when you have companies that bundle multiple services under an account and ban them wholesale.

Like, if I screw around on Reddit enough to get banned, I lose my Reddit account.

If I screw around on YouTube enough to get banned, I lose my YouTube account, my email account, my domain name, my cloud stored files, my music, and my cellphone apps.

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I didn’t screw around on YouTube but I did get banned from YouTube for some odd reason last month.

The rest of my google account is still working.

You’re right though. I had this HUGE sinking feeling for the initial moments when realizing what had happened. Regretting not having moved my Gmail away yet and so on.

This is still a huge risk. Maybe if whatever YouTube trip I ran over was more severe, my entire Google account would have been banned.

And now remember that a substantial amount of us had accounts on both services before they merged. I'd like to see them slapped hard for this in the future. Was I supposed to read multiple dictionaries worth of legalese to understand that they now unilaterally have the right to ban my (now not so important) google account if I call someone a troll on youtube?

That is both deeply concerning and somewhat reassuring at the same time. Best of luck with recovering your YouTube account.

I think the problem is more that we lack laws and rulings for a fair treatment of users. A wholesome ban for a trivial reason should simply not be allowed, considering the importance of most services today. Something like an industry standard how to handle this, with proper escalation-phases should be the norm, instead of just nuking everything as it is now.

You flamed someone on YouTube? Ok, now you have lost the ability to chat on YouTube, instead of losing the whole account with all your videos, the gmail-account and all your android-apps you paid for.

Maybe sue for damages but the problem is the difference in size between any of those commpanies and any of us.

Sounds like you should diversify.

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