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Google lastly launched an answer for folks with “legacy” G Suite Google accounts. After initially threatening to close down free G Suite accounts if customers did not begin paying for the service, Google has utterly backed off. As soon as customers leap via some sign-up hoops, Google will enable their ~16-year-old accounts to proceed functioning. You may even get to maintain your e-mail deal with.
The saga to date, if you have not been following, is that Google has a custom-domain person account service, at the moment known as “Google Workspace” and beforehand known as “G Suite” and “Google Apps.” The service is generally a traditional Google account that allows you to use an e-mail that ends in your {custom} area title reasonably than “@gmail.com.” In the present day this service is aimed toward companies and prices cash every month, however that was not all the time the case. From 2006 to 2012, {custom} area Google accounts had been free and had been even pitched at households as a geeky method to have an internet Google id.
In January, some bean counter at Google apparently observed this tiny group of longtime customers was technically getting a paid service at no cost and determined this was unacceptable. Google posted an announcement in January declaring these folks “Legacy G Suite customers” and principally advised them, “Pay up or lose your account.” These customers signed up for a free Google service and saved information on it for so long as 16 years, and there have been no indications it will ever be charged. Google held this decade-plus of person information hostage, telling customers to begin paying enterprise charges for Workspace or face an account shutdown.
Every week later, after the inevitable public outcry, Google relented considerably and mentioned vaguely that it will ultimately present “an possibility so that you can transfer your non-Google Workspace paid content material and most of your information to a no-cost possibility.” Saying you’ll maintain “most of your information” that you’ve got been accumulating for 16 years is a reasonably alarming assertion. Google’s one little bit of specifics in January was that “this new possibility will not embody premium options like {custom} e-mail,” so that you’d must cease internet hosting your e-mail with Google, and also you’d presumably must undergo some wild Google account conversion course of. It then let these customers anxiously flap within the wind, with no additional particulars, for six months.
Easy methods to Save Your Free G Suite Account
In Could, Google lastly advised these customers what would occur to their accounts. The new assist web page says, “For people and households utilizing your account for non-commercial functions, you possibly can proceed utilizing the G Suite legacy free version and choose out of the transition to Google Workspace.” The hyperlink for that’s right here or in your G Suite admin panel. You may want to verify that your G Suite account is for private use, and never enterprise use, as a result of companies are nonetheless anticipated to pay for Workspace. For those who already bent to Google’s will and began paying for Workspace due to the January announcement, Google says it is best to contact assist.
The most important information from this newest announcement is that Google has determined towards taking folks’s {custom} e-mail away. A second assist web page says, “You’ll be able to proceed utilizing your {custom} area with Gmail, retain entry to no-cost Google companies comparable to Google Drive and Google Meet, and maintain your purchases and information.” It now seems like there will probably be no adjustments to your account, supplied you click on via the “self-transition” display earlier than the deadline.
The deadline to choose out of an account shutdown, which has modified a number of occasions now, is June 27, 2022. For those who do not full this opt-out by June 27, you can be routinely billed for Workspace. If you do not have a card on file and do not choose out, your account will probably be suspended on August 1 and shut down.
The automated enrollment and billing, with out specific person consent, is likely one of the wilder components of this story. For those who do not carefully observe the tech information scene, there is a good likelihood you will not know that is coming, and you’ll both instantly be billed with out your consent or discover that your Google account has instantly stopped working.
For a corporation whose key enterprise pillar is convincing customers to retailer huge quantities of knowledge on its servers, enjoying video games like this can be a weird choice. Not less than it got here to an inexpensive conclusion.
This story initially appeared on Ars Technica.
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