Nasionalberita.com – Surprising news comes from the tech giant, Google, which has announced its plans to delete inactive Gmail accounts starting from December 2023.
This decision has been made by Google as a preventive measure to protect inactive personal accounts from potential hacking attempts.
However, it’s important to note that this deletion policy does not apply to Gmail accounts associated with educational or business institutions using Google services.
For Gmail users who don’t want their accounts to be deleted, they simply need to log into their accounts once a year.
Google will send warning notifications to users several months before implementing this policy, as a reminder and preparation.
Ruth Krichell, Vice President of Google, stated, “Abandoned accounts often have security issues, such as the use of old or previously used passwords, infrequent use of two-factor authentication, and are often neglected in terms of security checks.”
Furthermore, she explained, “Our internal analysis shows that the likelihood of abandoned accounts using two-step verification is at least 10 times lower compared to active accounts.”
It’s important to note that this is a new policy being implemented for the first time by the giant company.
On the other hand, there are speculations suggesting that Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is trying to reduce operational costs. However, this was not conveyed by Krichell in her statement.
As a note, Google’s revenue growth, for the first time in almost two decades, was less than 10 percent for four consecutive quarters.
In an uncertain economic situation, advertisers are also becoming more cautious, and Google’s YouTube service is feeling competitive pressure from platforms like TikTok.
Although Google’s move has good intentions, it hasn’t escaped criticism. Sabrina Meherally, CEO of the Canadian design firm Pause and Effect, expressed her criticism through a post on LinkedIn.
Sabrina commented that the subject of Google’s warning email should be clearer and more explicit, especially when there are serious consequences associated with customer delay.
“I believe the email subject should be more informative, especially considering the potential impact of this policy,” she said.
She also suggested that the announcement could be displayed more effectively on the Google.com website, which is widely used by the public as the primary search engine.
This is important considering the many users who have multiple accounts and often use different email addresses for different purposes, as well as storing data online in various places.
However, providing storage space for free accounts certainly comes with a cost for Google. Additionally, the company’s focus this year seems to be more on profitability.
