The American corporation Google on May 16, for security reasons, updated the policy for old accounts that have not been used for a long time. From December 2023, the company will begin deleting unused accounts, as reported on the organization’s blog.
Google introduced a rule in 2020 to delete content stored in an inactive account. Now the Internet giant will begin to delete accounts that have not been used for two years on their own.
As noted by the company, the measure will help reduce security threats such as spam, phishing and account hacking. If an account has not been used for a long period, then it can be hacked, as forgotten accounts usually do not have up-to-date, sufficiently complex passwords.
“Our internal analysis indicates that abandoned accounts are at least 10 times less likely than active accounts to use two-step verification,” the post reads.
If an account is hacked, it can be used for spam or identity theft. Therefore, unused accounts will be deleted.
As a result, Gmail email address, Gmail messages, Google Calendar events, Drive files will become inaccessible. The company does not plan to delete accounts and videos on YouTube.
“Before deleting an account, we will send a series of notices several months in advance to both the account email address and the recovery email address (if provided),” the corporation said in a statement.
According to experts, in order for Google to consider an account as active, several steps must be taken. So, it will be enough to read or send emails, watch videos on YouTube or use a Google search. Locked page: how to protect your profile on the Internet from “hijacking” Attackers use hacking of “friends” accounts to steal personal pages
In April, Twitter began removing verification checkboxes from users, including media personalities, who did not pay for a Twitter Blue subscription . The pope, TV star Kim Kardashian, singers Beyoncé and Katy Perry remained unchecked.
In December, Twitter owner Elon Musk announced that within a few months, all accounts with obsolete blue verification checkmarks on the social network Twitter would be deleted.
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