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Re:Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook by victorhooi on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @05:02PM (#15404630)
That website (Inc.) doesn't cite any sources for your quotation at all. It simply appears to be their personal speculation. To me that's rather disingenuous.

I actually work in a support org at Google (on the Enterprise side, admittedly).

That account recovery link I provided (https://accounts.google.com/signin/recovery) is available to anybody (This is for consumer - i.e. GMail. If you have an enterprise - i.e. GSuite account, it's slightly different in that your domain administrator can also restore you as well).

You don't need to be anybody special - you just go to that URL, fill in your details, and somebody will review it for you.

Yes, it will take time. If you make noise, it's possibly it will get escalated and you will get assurances from somebody that it's being looked into. But in general, it will take some time to process it, simply to ensure that we're giving you (and not somebody else) access to your account.

I know it sucks, but account security is tough, and I have nothing but respect for the hardworking people that handle that. In my second week at Google, I accidentally typed my password into a non-secure (but still legitimate) web-form. Within minutes, I got an alert asking me to change my password immediately. They take security very seriously.

Disclaimer: I work for Google, but any opinions above are my own.

Re:Google Pixelbook – A High Performance Chromebook by raesene9 on Friday October 06, 2017 @01:54PM (#15418792)
They have direct quotes from Google's press office, so perhaps not just personal speculation...?

" A Google spokesperson told Inc. that Mehta mistakenly marked some of his own email as spam, which confused the algorithm and triggered the shutdown. By August 21, the account had been fully restored."

Given that you think that a person without that reach would have had a similar experience....

that's your perogative of course, but you should forgive a little doubt from outsiders that things would've been so smooth for those without recourse to similar avenues.