Google Dystopia – the danger of unbridled concentrated power

I am taking the time to write this article while waiting for access to my Google account to be reinstated after the company unilaterally decided to deny me access this morning.

This article will demonstrate three principles to be taken to heart:

1. The true idiocy that hides behind Google’s claims to have advanced “Artificial Intelligence” (AI)
2. Why you should NEVER rely on a cloud based service provider to store or process data that has value to you
3. An example of being hacked without your login ID having leaked – but due to bugs in the cloud provider’s software – or more likely deliberate or negligent behaviour of staff inside the company

Along the way I will touch on issues such as who owns and controls access to YOUR data and what exactly did you buy when you signed a contract or just laid out real, hard earned money for a shiny new phone – that can be turned into a lump of scrap at the whim of Google or [insert name of any other high tech provider here].

How many realise that – like it or not – we have all become “digital citizens” whose lives depend upon access to services (paid or “free”) and whose digital existence can be wiped from view at the whim of a faceless corporation?

Even those of us who take care to guard our privacy, keep our data and “digital selves” safe are subject to the whims of a company that has appointed itself gatekeeper to everything else and at whose despotic whim we are all forced to kneel.

So, what happened?

Yesterday I received three emails – identical apart from the link to a video – which looked like this:

This is the fifth time I have received such emails from Google. The only difference is that this time, the company promised not to take action against me just warning me not to do it again. Note the assumption throughout all of this that I and I alone was responsible for posting the objectionable material. Anyone else wondering at this point what happened to “innocent until proven guilty”? Me too.

On the previous occasions the company immediately (before I could even respond) suspended my entire Google account.

Like all such idiot companies, the only means of contacting them to contest the accusation was via a web link embedded in the email:

Pretty clear – a promise not to close down my account access and a simple link to a web page.

Let’s take a moment to step aside and ask ourselves if these emails were sent by a human being member of “The YouTube Team”.

The answer is no – the mails are generated by a crude piece of software – an alleged “AI” – with all the intelligence of a gnat. It has performed some pattern recognition on a video that someone or something has posted to a YouTube channel that I have never posted a thing to containing material that I genuinely thank Google for not allowing to appear alongside my name as the responsible party.

Which is a different statement from saying I am grateful to Google for sending me such accusatory emails and then – despite (a) promising not to and (b) me following all the procedures they specified – disabling (that means “locking me out of”) my account without further discussion.

Google account suspension these days affects not just a Gmail account (if you use one) but also your phone (if it is Android based), and denies access to any and all files, photos, work documents or other data you have been foolish enough to commit into Google’s hands.

And, of course, if you rely on GooglePay to buy your coffee, pay for your transit fares etc. – sorry – you have just been denied access to your own money. You can’t have a drink or get on a bus to go to work.

As account suspension has such very serious impact on a (Google trusting) person’s ability to go about their daily lives and business you might expect that the company has the alleged infraction not just reviewed by a real human being with some real intelligence but also that person looks at the context surrounding the issue.

You’d be wrong.

Because a human being (you know, somebody with half a gram of common sense) would notice:

1. My account at Google has been open and in good standing almost since the company opened its doors. Scammers and people who truly post material that breaches Google’s policies usually use accounts that were opened last week. Facts of which Google is well aware.
2. If you look back at the email Google sent me to accuse me of posting illicit material the video link it provides (and all the embedded links to websites that would almost certainly infect your computer and network) is written in Cyrillic. Now, if you believe Google does not scan every message and attachment flowing through its email and storage servers you also believe in unicorns. Read the form you MUST complete (any European GDPR officers reading this?) if you are to make any progress toward restoring your account you MUST give Google the right to access your entire account! European GDPR officials will have a field day. So, Google reads everything and anything anyway and – by forcing you to say yes while holding you over a barrel – thinks it has gained the right to do so legally. I think the company has a lesson heading its way.
3. Not only do I not speak nor write nor read any language that uses Cyrillic characters no email or attachment associated with me that has ever flowed past Google’s ever-watchful eyes has contained any Cyrillic characters. A fact of which Google is well aware.
4. As mentioned at the start this is the FIFTH time somebody (or something) has posted graphically sexual videos to a YouTube channel I never use and have never posted to. On ALL previous occasions I have danced through and around the multiple hoops and loops of Google’s account restoration procedure and my account has been restored without explanation or apology. A fact of which Google is well aware.

Anyway, I took the following steps:

• Immediately changed my Google password (from an already real-world-uncrackable 12 character string of mixed gibberish to a 16 character string of mixed gibberish
• Clicked the “appeal” link on the accusatory (actually defamatory, but not let’s get legal – yet) email Google sent me – which produced this web page form:

A couple of things to note here:

THE only way of making progress is to enter another, separate email address. I am guessing here (though happen to know many people I am about to describe) that the majority of Gmail / Google account holders will have no email address other than their Gmail address … the one Google just blocked and is now inaccessible to them. What are these people to do?

1. Use their work email address (assuming they have access to one) – probably breaching their terms of employment that ban use of company email accounts for personal use
2. Spend half the day opening up a new email account (way to go Google – gifting customers to Microsoft or …)
3. Give up – as there is no other way offered of engaging with Google’s dispute process other than writing to the company – by which time Google will likely have carried out its threat (see below) to wipe every bit of data, photo, email and contact held in your account.

Lucky for me, I have run my own email servers since the dawn of the Internet (that’s before Sergey and Larry were out of high school and making their way toward college) so can provide my personal email address (hosted on my own servers – which I do not intend to deny myself access to any time soon) and which is the secondary (security) email address Google already has associated with this Google account.

Google insists on helping itself to ALL data held in your account.

If you are a typical user of Google’s services that means in this one form you are giving the company permission to trawl through your email, contacts, calendar, documents, photos and videos. Again, GDPR officers take note. One might usefully ask why the company needs such broad access to investigate why three errant videos have popped up on YouTube. Especially when you consider the technical and other data it already has access to that should be the first things any sensible person would look at to determine the likelihood of an account holder (legally, a “customer” as – like many – I have purchased Google Android devices which require me to register as a Google customer in order to function – we will get to the part where that also gives them the ability, if not the right – moral or legal – to disable those Android devices at whim) suddenly deciding to post in their own name obscene, malware dripping videos that will certainly be removed by Google within a short(ish) period of time.

Anyway – back to the form – I can enter a valid email address and hit “Next” to be confronted with:

OK – here is an opportunity for the pre-judged “guilty party” (me – I have already been sentenced – see that big Account disabled headline?) to spend time proving themselves innocent.

All without having the foggiest idea who or how somebody gained access to a part of Google they have never used and never want to use.

But Google doesn’t let this stand in the way of allowing its “AI” to trample and trash the lives of its customers – already judged guilty.

I went round the circle of (eventually) submitting yet another plea to regain access to MY data held ransom by Google yesterday.

I woke this morning to discover this:

and this:

“Graphic sexual contact that is meant to be sexually gratifying is not allowed on YouTube” (grammatical and sense errors all the responsibility of Google).

I have been judged, found guilty, sentenced and subjected to the harshest possible penalty … by a “robot”.

Take note that I am also “… proibited from accessing, possessing or creating any other YouTube accounts” and in order to preserve any data I entrusted Google to safeguard I must act quickly (it doesn’t say how quickly – talk about spreading fear) “because disabled accounts are eventually deleted, along with your emails, contacts, photos, and other data stored with Google“.

Pity the poor, average Google user who has no second email account, probably uses only an Android phone or tablet – or Chrome laptop – to store all their information … and whose devices can no longer log in to Google because Google has disabled all their devices very neatly turning them into expensive slabs of useless junk.

Judge, jury and executioner all programmed into one conveniently mindless package.

Dystopia, anyone?

It is now for me to spend my (somewhat valuable) time running in circles and exhausting the mindless “AI”s (huh!) until some human finally gets round to looking into this … and discovers what was obvious from the start:

1. GOOGLE allowed somebody or something to hack in to my account
2. That access was GRANTED BY GOOGLE without either of my email addresses or my then current password being subject to any form of data breach – ie; my 12 character gibberish password was known only to me and Google.

How can I be so confident in saying my passwords are secure?

Troy Hunt runs the hugely useful website HaveIbeenPWNED? (https://haveibeenpwned.com/). A quick trip to Troy’s website and check of my Gmail address (ie; Google ID) tells me that ID has never been found in any data breach. EVER. That might be coincidental with the fact that I do not use Google or Gmail as my main email account, use very few of their services and do not use my Google ID to login to or communicate with any other web or cloud based services (despite Google’s oft repeated blandishment to do so).

My personal email address has been found in 15 major data breaches (which is a very low number for somebody who has been active on the web using the same email address since the Internet came into being). Of these 15 data breaches a full 10 leaked passwords associated with the email address. How does this happen (I hear you ask)? The answer is sloppy programming and poor practice by BIG web sites that should know better – sites like Adobe, 500px, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Trillian and others. These sites are guilty of either storing their customers’ passwords in plain text or using outdated encryption algorithms which by various methods can be easily cracked – and have been known to be broken for decades. And then negligent enough to (eg) post copies of their entire customer database on an open cloud instance – unprotected by any password whatever.

But, as irrelevant to this matter and article as it is, all of those affected websites have long ago been repeatedly password-changed or accounts closed down (after passwords were changed) and none are in anyway relevant to the matter here – my Google ID and password having nothing in common with any other ID I have ever used.

Troy also provides a very useful web page at https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords where you can enter a password you use and the site will tell you if that password has ever appeared in any data breach. Having changed my Google password to something new and even stronger than it was before I entered my previous Google password (the one in use at the time the objectionable videos were allegedly posted):

and received this:

Great news! Not only has the password I used to access Google never been released or discovered in connection with Google, it is entirely unique and not among the 555,278,657 passwords that have ever been discovered and released.

In other words only I and Google know my Google account password.

So, how did someone gain access to Google and post banned material in my name?

I have asked Google this question each and every time this same event has happened.

I have yet to receive so much as an acknowledgement let alone a reply to the question.

So, let’s look at the possible ways this might happen. In order of probability:

1. Human error or deliberate human action within Google. I have just shown that only I and Google know my Google account credentials so, as the majority of account access breaches are the result of human stupidity or deliberate human action, the most likely cause is that somebody within Google either gave my password away or used it themselves to access a part of Google I never use.
2. Direct database access inside Google abusing administrative privileges. Basically, a slightly different slant on the most likely. But a Google system admin with sufficient privileges could easily place videos directly wherever they chose without logging in to Google via a normal (ie; web browser) route – this would leave no trail (unless the crafty sysadmin also forged the access logs) but there are always forensic trails left and any sensible company (question: is Google a sensible company?) understands the concept of separation of access – in simple terms no individual working within Google should be able to update databases AND have the ability to change log records, in fact NOBODY should have the rights to alter log records. Which is why it is so important that Google provides information about the how and where these videos appeared from.
3. Unreported breach and theft of easily decrypted password cache from Google. No such breach known or disclosed.
4. Software fault allowing a “back door” entrance. This is the criminal hacking beloved of many a Hollywood film – where somebody discovers a flaw in the software protecting a computer service (in this case YouTube) and uses it to gain access to all or parts of the system he/she should be nowhere near. Such cases do happen (an entire website is devoted to documenting and monitoring such bugs – across ALL computer system types) but, Google, do you really want to take the crown for allowing zero-day exploits into the wild from Microsoft? One back door hack of YouTube against my account would be bad. But FIVE? Honestly Google, are you going to claim this?
5. I let someone gain access to my Google credentials. No. My Google password (was 12, now 16 characters of gibberish) is known to (a) Google, (b) me.
6. A passing Russian speaking nogooder gained access to my home and entered my study, logged in to my workstation and spent time uploading three illicit videos using credentials that aren’t even available on the machine unless you can crack an entirely different set of credentials (including the requirement to possess a physical 2FA key after entering my complex access password). Confession time: I, an IT “expert” since before the pre-dawn of the Internet now live in a remote spot in rural France where there exists not even the possibility of an old modem dial-up Internet connection. My Internet connection comes via a useless, bandwidth limited satellite feed (more often down than up – and FULLY bandwidth clogged overnight) plus a WiMax connection .. with an upload data rate of 512kbps – yes, you read that correctly a MAXIMUM of 512 kilobits (about 50 characters or bytes – oh for a telephone landline and an old modem) per second. So, our Russian hacker would have had to sit here for about a week (maybe two if the line is as slow as it normally is) to upload just one of the alleged videos. I think I would have noticed a Russian sitting at my desk – and the combined weight of my powered wheelchair and I (about a quarter of a ton) would have made short work of shifting him/her from their position. This is not a very likely way these videos ended up on YouTube – whether posted by a Russian hacker OR ME – Truth is I just don’t possess the upload bandwidth to go wasting it on posting videos to YouTube, especially porn that so clearly breaches Google’s “Guidelines” that it is quickly taken down.

But try explaining that to an AI programmed to only look at a very limited set of “Guidelines”.

We are left with the most likely route this material took on to a YouTube channel attached to my name is with the collusion of a Google employee or employees.

It is perhaps relevant that no other Google service in my name shows signs of hacking. Google generously gives (forces) all its services on you as soon as you purchase an Android phone but, though I can no longer say for certain (somebody blocked my account, D’uh!) I have zero indication that anything else nefarious has been done via my Google account.

Remember, my password consisted of 12 random gibberish characters. The only known ways to access such a password are (a) access a database in which it lies unencrypted or easily decrypted or (b) brute force.

A quick search of Troy Hunt’s site rules out (a).

To assess (b) head over to https://random-ize.com/how-long-to-hack-pass/ . I just generated a few new 12 random character gibberish passwords and tested them. By “random gibberish” I mean that I am using 62 characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, !”£$…) so a 12 character password comprising this character set provides 62¹² possible combinations – or 3,226,266,762,397,900,000,000 which (without going through all the stats and assumptions) the random-ize site estimates would take 5,389,762 years, 2 months – call it 5.3 million years – to guess using the fastest computer known to exist today. A 16 random character gibberish password provides 47,672,401,706,823,500,000,000,000,000 combinations which random-ize estimates would take today’s computers a mere 420,805,123,888,006 years, 6 months – call it 420 trillion years to crack.

To consider the uniqueness of a random 12 character password, if every single one (babies to centenarians) of the current global population of 7.7 billion people used a 12 character random password, the chances that any one of them would use the same as mine is 1 in 8,051. So I can be pretty sure my old Google password wasn’t being used by anyone else – let alone alongside my Google ID.

And those time-to-crack estimates assume the cracker knows which of many currently used encryption algorithms was used to encrypt the password in the first place. If that information is not known multiply the above time estimates by x where x is the number of possible encryption algorithms used (hint: the resultant number is large enough to cast the problem beyond the currently estimated lifespan of the universe – ie; the entire universe will have collapsed into entropy before somebody cracks a password comprised of 62¹⁶ random characters).

It is inconceivably unlikely that anybody happened on the combination of my Gmail address and 12 character password by chance.

While I would be flattered should somebody devote the entire compute power of the world’s most powerful computer to me for even 5.3 million years I would feel compelled to tell them I am not worth the effort.

It is inconceivable that somebody gained access to the encrypted password and brute-force decrypted it.

As I haven’t heard of a working quantum computer with enough qubits in its innards to so much as attempt to calculate the prime number sequence (the basis of almost all forms of computer based encryption) I believe I can safely say that my passwords are all safely locked away.

It follows that these videos were not posted using my login credentials and, therefore, Google has an awful lot of questions to answer.

How would Google’s denial of service affect someone who used many of Google’s services?

An incident eerily similar to this one recently happened to an acquaintance who turned up on my doorstep in tears. A user of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, Google Cloud and Google Docs, Google Pay (among fripperies such as Google Music, Google Books and Google Movies) for personal use and business this person had their entire life wiped out overnight.

• No more contacts – so couldn’t phone or email anyone.
• No more calendar appointments – so had no idea what meetings were due, flights or hotels were booked and had no proof of the bookings anyway as all the reservations resided in email or PDFs locked inside Google.
• No more email – so no way of receiving new emails or accessing past emails and continuing conversations with important clients and contacts.
• No access to all the thousands of photos and documents entrusted to Google Cloud – entire life’s records and all current and past business documents – including documents required for tax and other regulatory purposes – wiped out in the blink of an eye.
• Without so much as a euro in the pocket and without credit cards – everything purchased from the morning coffee to the train ride home was just a swipe with GooglePay … until Google decided to stop honouring their account.

It was worse. I asked about backups. “Why do I need backups – Google does all that stuff – isn’t that the purpose? I back up my photos to Google!”.

Like me, they had done nothing wrong but received an email from YouTube stating they had breached Google’s guidelines – followed very quickly by an email telling them their account was disabled.

I was unable to help … beyond pointing them to the appeals procedure described here and offering some encouragement and a little help in getting past the AIs.

They remain locked out of their former life.

Lessons for businesses

Quite simply, if a business places its data (which evolves second by second (millisecond for a large enterprise) in “the Cloud” and relies on a third-party supplier to safeguard that data and keep it accessible and that business has no real-time synchronised copies of data and processes within its own premises under its own control then that is a business heading for disaster.

What can happen to an individual can be done to a business – scaled accordingly. It is not for me to name them here but if you are responsible (as owner or director of any size of company) research the number of cloud businesses that have suddenly declared bankruptcy and left all their customers high and dry overnight. Look at the number of “accidental” errors that have denied businesses access to their own data held on the cloud services of the biggest providers.

The modern lesson that no data = no business suddenly hits home.

Which begs the question why so many businesses use cloud-based processing and storage services. Especially if those same businesses have employees and an absence of management supervision that understands the enormous dangers and responsibilities involved. A discussion for another day, perhaps.

How has this affected me?

I could care two figs for a YouTube Channel – I have already thanked Google for removing material I certainly do not want associated with my name and reputation.

I wrote my own video making and broadcasting channel so have no need of Google’s paltry effort, thank you. And mine isn’t designed to harvest mountains of data from everybody who posts (or allegedly posts) or views videos – it was specifically designed to allow schoolchildren to have everything Google and its ilk offer and more within a walled garden within which they can safely explore and document the world, carry out their schoolwork, publish and share only to people they decide they want to see their work – and the only people looking over their virtual shoulders while they do all that are their teachers – who are entrusted to do that in the real world.

I have no messages stored on Gmail I could care tuppence about.

None of my contacts are stored on Google.

I have no calendar appointments, documents, photos, business records or anything of value to me entrusted to Google’s unreliable embrace.

Because I have long known this day would come (again) – and whether it was Google or any other Cloud provider – not only does all data entrusted to them become theirs (read those long boring EULAs some time) but when the tap is suddenly turned off a sharp lesson is suddenly learned that in modern society – with a change that has happened so fast nobody seems to have noticed it – we all are our data.

Even those of us who spurn the embrace and enticements of “the Big Four” as far as humanly possible in the 21^st Century.

My one and only concern is that I have several Android based devices (my main mobile phone, a tablet and an old phone I use as a reader) that are effectively now lumps of junk. Very expensive lumps of junk as my phone alone cost around €1,000 and can no longer even access the Play Store. So, when new disability apps (for which there is a thriving community of developers) that might help me comes along I will have no access to them. I have yet to test whether I still have access to existing apps on my devices … because many will have been tied – by Google – to my Google ID.

Which Google has just disabled.

As I wrote in another article, there is no such thing as a free service. If you use a free service you are paying for it with your very soul. If the company decides to eliminate your data they are as good as killing you. Scrubbing you from the digital world.

It even seems that if you – perforce – MUST use a free service after having paid to purchase some very expensive hardware and software you are at just as much risk of having your property turned into junk and your life disrupted.

Google is guilty

Where do I start, for the list is long.

First the company jumped to the conclusion that I posted videos that breached its (mostly reasonable) guidelines. I did not.

Second it ignored copious evidence right under its nose that I most definitely did no such thing. I am not the guilty party here – Google is, for allowing my account to be breached and allowing the material to be posted in my name. Listen hard Google – in Europe (especially the UK) such an action, accompanied by your accusatory worded emails and false accusation of guilt followed by harmful action, is cause for defamation and is taken very seriously indeed. You may have ignored my requests to answer how somebody/thing is repeatedly posting objectionable materials to an account YOU have opened in my name but you will find it more difficult to refuse to answer a court of law.

Third it followed no acceptable process to establish the facts of this matter – merely followed its own “guidelines” and with effectively no notice at all – the original emails arrived here in Europe late last night and the decision to block my entire Google account was taken while I was sleeping – so, while arrogant corporate America was awake.

Fourth it has provided no evidence of how the objectionable videos were posted – and continues to refuse to do so. It could, for example, provide information as simple as the IP address from which the videos were posted. It will not. It could say definitively whether the material was posted using my login credentials or was somehow inserted in “my” YouTube channel by other means. It will not.

It has issued judgement and sentence based on assumption alone, providing nothing that might remotely stand up as evidence and refusing to engage in the slightest of conversations (it has not responded to a single point I have put to it).

Ultimately the company has leapt to guilty without so much as looking at a fact – just an assumption made by an AI that is in reality just another computer program written by fallible, biased humans. Not a scrap of artificial intelligence in sight. Which accompanies the total absence of any human intelligence.

Current status

As I finish this article (for now) I have just received the following email from “The YouTube Team” – I include my appeal submission (as much as the form allows you to type) to show the evidence I gave:

“Hello,

Thank you for your account suspension appeal. We have decided to keep your account suspended based on our Community Guidelines and Terms of Service. Please visit http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines for more information.

Sincerely,
The YouTube Team

On March 7, 2020 george@xxxxxx.xxx wrote:

I assume this was because somebody – not for the first time – gained access to the Youtube channel (which I do not want and have NEVER posted to) and posted the three examples of sexual material I saw yesterday. I immediately (a) changed my Google account password for another – 16 random character – password and (b) responded to Youtube in the only way possible (by replying via Appeals) stating that I had NOT hand any part in the action and asking (again) how it is that somebody is able to post Youtube videos in my name without access to my login. I also provided the information that I am Fellow of the British Computer Society (with a hand in bringing the Internet to life) and Fellow of the Institute of Directors (ie; senior businessman). I provided the SAME signature I use on every email sent through Gmail which contains a link to https://www.biznik.co.uk/about which has a potted bio and links to my presence on Linkedin and Twitter as well as some of my other websites.”

Is any further proof needed that the Google account suspension and deletion process is run by bots? Kindly note that nothing in my appeal addressed Google’s “Community Guidelines and Terms of Service”. Seriously – that is because I could not address those guidelines – I had done nothing to contravene them and the materials posted are certainly indefensible. But the “AI bot” pretending to be “The YouTube Team” has only been programmed to respond to pleas relating the the “Guidelines” so does nothing more than spit out anything coming from a real, intelligent human being discussing the real issues at hand.

Did I say that Google is far, far away from delivering any form of Artificial intelligence. If not, I apologise. But offer here an excellent example of just how far away they are from achieving a goal they claim to have surpassed.

The email quoted above is PRECISELY the same email I received on each of the previous occasions this kind of event has occurred.

Business advice

I am a mere white-haired old businessman and modest IT specialist with decades of business experience behind him – naturally including the field of customer retention and growth.

From where I sit the people running Google are children learning how to walk.

So I will offer some simple guidance.

• The quickest way to lose a customer is to so irritate them that they take their business elsewhere.
• The quickest way for even the mightiest company to come crashing to its knees is to lose the customers who feed it.

And Google, just in case anyone of your minions reads this and wants to know who it is they have just snubbed they can look me up in the public register of the British Computer Society at https://www.bcs.org/membership/register-of-bcs-members/

Try looking up Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Bill Gates (both elected to Fellowship several years after me) and, while there look up Sergey Brin, Larry Page or other names familiar to you from Google’s ranks. After all you employ enough people from around the globe – surely somebody in your employ has achieved enough in the field of computer science and application to justify election by his peers?

No? It looks like you have to do more than rehash a search engine or pretend to develop artificial intelligence to qualify (https://www.bcs.org/membership/become-a-member/membership-grades-and-fees/fellowship-criteria-checklist/).

Either that or they couldn’t find another BCS Fellow to sponsor them.

Your company and its nefarious behaviours cannot be exposed and broken into a million shards soon enough.

Your company motto was once “Do no evil“. You dropped that motto several years ago after it became impossible to sustain its pretence in the face of so many who already saw through your actions and behaviours.

Sergey, Larry – keep at it lads. When the backlash comes it could well be you who loses everything you possess.

Updates

10 March 2020: It seems that if you make enough clamour you can actually get a live person within Google to take notice within a couple of days – rather than the weeks it has taken in previous runs round this loop. I awoke this morning to find this email (once again, the original email I had fired off to Google (and their Twitter feeds etc) is left attached:

“Hello,

We’ve re-reviewed the circumstances of your suspension and have concluded it’s appropriate to reinstate your account. This means your account is once again active and operational.

If you’ve forgotten your password, visit this link to reset it: http://www.youtube.com/account_recovery.

Thank you for your patience.

Sincerely,
The YouTube Team

On March 8, 2020 george@anadigi.net wrote:

see: https://www.biznik.co.uk/google-dystopia-the-danger-of-unbridled-concentrated-power/ which will explain that YOU caused this problem and YOU have failed to use the tiniest spec of common sense in dealing with it. Meanwhile I am left staring at €1,000 of junk phone that I never gave you permission to switch off. And yet you have. Am I Mad? What do you think?”

As you can see, no hint of an apology nor admission of the harm or cost to my time. And, call me an old English Grammar School boy but “re-reviewed” is just plain irritating. The correct expression is “reviewed again”. But that takes three more characters to type and they seem to be busy people.

I am not prepared to leave it there. Recall that this is the FIFTH time Google/YouTube has disabled my Google ID under exactly the same circumstances. So, I replied:

Dear YouTube Team,

Thank you for re-re-re-re-re-reinstating my account.

I see that the quickest way to get your attention is to post an article publicly exposing your actions copied to my Twitter channel, your Twitter channel and a hundred other social media outlets. I shall make a note should I need to have a real Google person respond in future.

As you have now erroneously (some would say “at whim”) disabled my account FIVE TIMES under precisely the same pretext and I wish to avoid you doing so again I would be grateful if you would now answer the questions I have politely asked many times and to which you have never so much as given the courtesy of an acknowledgement.

I find I must now insist you answer these questions as each time you allow/enable the publication of obscene material against my name you place my extremely valuable professional and personal reputation at risk. Should you fail to answer fully I will arrange for legal action to be instigated in a suitable English court seeking compensation for defamation. You may then answer directly to an English judge.

SPECIFICALLY with regard to this LATEST episode please provide the following information:

1. The precise time and date that each of the obscene Russian videos (“the materials”) and associated malware were placed in the YouTube channel that you insist is “mine” including the start and end times of each file transfer.
2. The precise time and date each video comprising the materials was removed from public view and the precise length of time the videos were available for public view anywhere in the world (please do not forget to include local content delivery network providers – eg; Akamai).
   
3. The precise time, date and means used to create the YouTube channel you allege is mine.
4. Full disclosure of all evidence available to you whether used in the process that led to my Google ID being disabled or not.
5. Full disclosure of which elements of that evidence were considered before my Google ID was disabled by you.
   
6. The source of the materials.
   
   1. If the materials were uploaded via web browser (or apparent web browser) to YouTube please provide (a) the source IP address you have on record, (b) all metadata (eg; including the browser identification and any “fingerprinting” or other tracking mechanisms employed by you that produce any form of data or metadata, (c) the login ID and password used to login to YouTube in order to upload the materials. In the highly unlikely event that you wish to allege that my then current Google password was used you have my permission to send it by open email as the password has already been changed to something that bears no relationship nor familiarity to.it
      
   2. If the materials arrived via an API please provide full details of (a) when that API and associated keys were issued by YouTube, (b) the email address and any other contact details you hold to which you sent API keys, (c) the precise time and date the API was opened by YouTube.
      
   3. If they arrived by neither of these methods please provide a detailed account of how they came to be published alongside my name. For example, if the source of the materials was an internal Google IP address provide (a) that internal IP address, (b) the identity of the Google employee signed in at that IP address at the time the materials were placed, (c) the physical location of the device using that IP address at the time the materials were placed, (d) all logs (or full extracts) from all file stores, databases and processes involved in or affected by the placement and publication of the materials.
      
   4. Extracts from all log files containing data or metadata relevant to the receipt, storage, publication, dissemination, review and removal from public view of the materials regardless of how they came to be published, reviewed and action taken by you.
7. A detailed description of the review and content moderation process employed by YouTube including the process that leads to immediate defamatory accusation of a Google Account holder and disabling of that person’s Google account.

8. A detailed description of the “Appeals” process followed by YouTube.
9. A detailed description of the separate process operated by Google (under which I asked for my account to be reinstated) that resulted in reconfirmation that my account was to remain disabled.

In relation to general matters please provide:

1. A formal written apology for the damage and harm you have caused to my reputation and the far from inconsiderable cost and abuse of my time that you have forced me to expend on dealing with you.
2. The proper legal names of the entities commonly known as “YouTube”, “Google” and “Alphabet” and contact addresses for each in the U.S.A. and the UK or inside the EU where legal correspondence can be served should it prove necessary.
3. A detailed description of the legal basis which allows an alleged infraction by YouTube to result in the disabling or suspension of a Google ID and subsequent denial of access to all Google services and devices using the Android operating system.
4. A detailed description of the actions you will take to prevent this episode or its like happening again.
5. A detailed explanation of how the appeals processes operated by both YouTube and Google comply with European GDPR legislation.

Actions I require you to perform:

1. Provide a written assurance that all the materials and previous examples of similar material which have formed the basis of previous denial of access actions by you will be retained and remain available to me in the form as they currently exist on YouTube and/or Google.
2. Provide a written confirmation that the YouTube channel, and only that YouTube channel – NOT my Google ID again – alleged to be mine will be blocked with immediate effect such that no further material or files of any kind can be posted or placed on it. For clarity I will state yet again that I do not want a YouTube channel. For the sake of absolute clarity my  READ (and view) access to the alleged channel and its current content must be preserved and open to me (in case of legal need) but NO MORE material of any sort should be allowed to be placed on that channel- it must be made READ ONLY.

Means of communication:

1. All responses are to be issued by a person or persons authorised to issue such response on behalf of the legal entity (eg; company) concerned.
2. Responses may be sent by email. My email servers are SPF / DKIM identified, the domain’s HTTPS certificate can be verified and message exchange via TLS encrypted channel is preferred.
3. Alternatively, my postal address is: xxxx, xxxxx, France. If responding by post I would appreciate (and you would find it expedient to send) an email stating the response sent and which of the matters raised above it addresses.

Timing:

1. I see no reason why all of the responses and actions described above cannot be dealt with within 24 hours. As YouTube/Google is able to disable my account, remove all access to data and services it provides and disables my several expensive Android devices within minutes I consider 24 hours a fully reasonable period of time for you to deal with everything above to my satisfaction. However …
2. Legal advice suggests that I allow you a period of 10 working days to respond in full.
3. If I remain unsatisfied after 10 working days have passed no further warning will be issued before further action is taken.
   

Yours

George Perfect FBCS, FIoD
About me

cc:    xxxxxx, Legal Intake Coordinator, Electronic Frontier Foundation
        (by letter attachment) Xxx llp, Solicitors, UK

which produced this reply within a very short time:

Hello,

We received your YouTube complaint and sent it for review. We will get back to you as soon as possible.

Sincerely,
The YouTube Team

I now wait to see if Google wishes to confess its sins and apologise or wishes to answer questions before an English court.