Starting in December, Google will begin deleting accounts
that have not been used in at least two years as part of an effort to address
security risks, the company said Tuesday.
اضافة اعلان
The expunging of old accounts does not only mean losing
access to Gmail. Work in Google Docs, Google Workspace, Google Photos, and
other Google products will also be wiped out, as will any videos that an
affected user has uploaded to YouTube.
Ruth Kricheli, the company’s vice president of product
management, said in a statement announcing the new policy that the move was
intended to protect users from security threats because accounts that had not
been used for a while were more likely to be compromised.
An internal analysis at Google found that abandoned accounts
were much less likely than active accounts to have two-factor verification, an
authentication method that helps to confirm a user’s identity, the company
said.
“These accounts are often vulnerable,” Kricheli said, “and
once an account is compromised, it can be used for anything from identity theft
to a vector for unwanted or even malicious content, like spam.”
The policy went into effect Tuesday, but the company said it
would not begin deleting unused accounts until December at the earliest. Google
said it would start by purging accounts that were set up but never used.
Before an account is deleted, Google said it would deliver
several notifications to users through Gmail and any backup email addresses
that had been provided.
Kricheli said the plan to expunge inactive Google accounts
only applied to personal accounts and would not affect organizations like
schools or businesses that use Gmail and other Google services.
Google users who have not used their account in at least two
years and do not want their account to be deleted can keep it active by simply
signing into Gmail or any other Google service, such as Google Drive, YouTube
or Google Search, or by downloading any app from the Google Play Store.
The company said that anyone with an existing subscription that
had been set up with a Google account, such as one linked to a news outlet,
would be considered an active user and their account would not be deleted.
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