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What it’s like to get locked out of Google indefinitely
“I’m angry at myself for not having even thought of the possibility I could lose my Google account with everything in it.”
By Chris Stokel-Walker
When he received the notification from Google he couldn’t quite believe it.
Cleroth, a game developer who asked not to use his real name, woke up to see a message that all his Google accounts were disabled due to “serious violation of Google policies.”
His first reaction was that something must have malfunctioned on his phone.
Then he went to his computer and opened up Chrome, Google’s internet browser. He was signed out. He tried to access Gmail, his main email account, which was also locked.
“Everything was disconnected,” he told Business Insider.
Cleroth had some options he could pursue: One was the option to try and recover his Google data — which gave him hope. But he didn’t go too far into the process because there was also an option to appeal the ban. He sent in an appeal.
He received a response the next day: Google had determined he had broken their terms of service, though they didn’t explain exactly what had happened, and his account wouldn’t be reinstated. (Google has been approached for comment on this story.)
