That would normally raise a bunch of red flags.

If you're stuck, there are dedicated support channels to actually talk to people - or feel free to reach out to me (my non-work email is in my profile.)

I think he realizes that (although I wonder given that he tries to minimize it by saying that it was an 'old 90's cartoon').

I think this is really scary though - did he lose access to YouTube? Or all of gmail? That would really be scary. I'm guessing that he just lost access to YouTube, but if he lost access to his gmail or google docs, then that's an awfully severe penalty for violating someone's copyright. I'm sure the RIAA/MPAA/etc would be pleased... but is that just?

Maybe he just lost access to his YouTube channel?

This comment is a lot more funny now that I'm finally reading "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow:

http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/

Yeah - screw youtube and google. The onus is on their resources vs the individual.

As opposed to what? If the city creates a public park and you decide to commit a crime there, are you somehow no longer responsible?

There is an economic incentive in terms of saved resources to bundle multiple services in a single account like this but it harms consumers to get cutoff from your entire digital life because of some minor infraction.

You use the singular form of "account", which is interesting to me. Are they preventing you in some way (IP address tracking, device tracking, etc) from creating a new account? Why would you not do so?

I wholeheartedly agree that a Youtube violation should not affect your other Google products, like a laptop or email account. Similarly, an Amazon problem should not affect an AWS account. But I will concede that they're within their rights to disable your Youtube account for uploading copyrighted material.

You violated the law and their (rather reasonable in this case) terms of service and are shocked to find they'd rather not do business with you?

so for example here, it appears that someone breached Youtube ToS and lost their whole Google account.

Now imagine you've got all your e-mail/photos/contacts etc in that account and you've just permanently lost them due to that ToS breach.

Of course as technical people we can say "ahh you should have had off-cloud backups", but realistically most non-technical people won't do that and likely won't realise the consequences of their actions.

so for example here, it appears that someone breached Youtube ToS and lost their whole Google account."

Exactly. I recall the incident[1] where some Google Pixel phone customers were reselling their phones and making a tiny profit. Google permanently deleted hundreds of accounts and never restored them, for violating a mobile phone TOS. Ban them from the Fi mobile service, sure, but don't delete their entire digital lives! That's like getting a life sentence for shoplifting in the physical world.

All your eggs in one basket is never a good strategy, and though I wasn't personally affected by it, the Pixel Phone fiasco opened my eyes to just how much Google and Facebook controlled my own digital persona. I now use neither of their services.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/17/google-su...

When I worked in the Intelligence Community I had to go through multiple FBI investigations and polygraphs. Every single one of them asked me about laws I may have violated in the past. One of the agents even said (paraphrased, of course) "Maybe you downloaded some movies? It's illegal but many don't realize it and probably most people do it".

Pirating is one of those crimes that has become normalized. The parent may have realized it was illegal but didn't think much of it and probably didn't realize it would lead to his account being completely disabled.

The trouble with Google accounts and becoming disabled is it can very likely ruin a good part of your life because of how much of your data they hold and there are zero ways to redeem yourself if you did do something wrong and there are zero ways to resolve the problem if it was due to something inaccurate or false (which has happened especially if someone else gets into your account).

What's the correct answer?

If you told your interviewer that yes, you have downloaded some pirated movies, then if somebody calls you up saying "hey, i'll tell your boss you're a movie pirate if you don't tell me X" you'll feel confident shutting them down.

If anything, it makes an asset vulnerable to extortion _from_ the FBI.

See also "The FBI Is Struggling to Hire Hackers Who Don't Smoke Weed". [1]

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/262dde/the_fbi_is_str...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_A...

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

If that is what actually happened then it invites regulatory action considering Google's unparalleled market share and reach.

You bought a Pixel phone, and Google thinks you might be a reseller? Then your account will be terminated, too.

And yes, there should be massive regulatory action, Google is doing so much stuff that should be fixed, it’s impossible to even list it all.

This guy has a for-life veto on a lot of the leading technologies, and cannot use a lot of product (in an every increasing list).

that is how I feel about most of their hardware products. I had a nexus 5 and when ever there was an android release, there were all sorts of problems that filled up the message boards.