Try to use it for a while also. My experience has also been that, after a short time, you will be required to provide your phone number for security reasons.

no it's always optional - they recommend adding one to be able to retrieve a lost/hacked account

It depends on their risk assessment based on all sorts of stuff (perhaps like your IP, browser info, mouse movements etc.). If you're suspicious (VPN, Tor, heuristics etc.), they require the phone confirmation.

Can confirm, I can create a google account on android without phone number but I cannot do so on desktop. When using the android-created account on desktop, it requires (not optional) a phone number.

A phone number on a fully functional google account isn't optional, at least in western Europe (though I doubt another country is better because then people would just VPN to there).

I once did some work for Google that required accounts to do the project (existing accounts weren't a good fit for the project). They couldn't provide us with accounts because it was a huge hassle and another team, so I ended up standing in line for a long time getting my identity verified a half dozen times for various prepaid sim cards with throwaway phone numbers and I think we billed them for it. If there had been another way, they'd simply have told us...

Try it on Tor, a VPN, or some other IP that doesn’t drop your physical location.

I once attempted to create a Google account from a university (which has their own ASN), and Google still asked for a phone number.

  Google still asked for a phone number

Asks for, certainly. Requires was the claim.

Google asks me a dozen times a day to enable Location Services. Yeah, right.

Twitter does not "require" a phone number, but they'll lock your account very quickly for "suspicious activity" if you don't provide one.

I imagine Google to be similar.

Yes, and after that they need additional account information for more security reasons, like your second e-mail.

Oh, that's why mine got locked! I've been wondering about that. I hadn't posted a single tweet, yet got notified that my account was locked for suspicious activity.

Same happened to me about half a year ago. When contacting support to get it unlocked, you need to agree to the Google privacy policy. Twitter is lovely these days.

I'm not sure when the last time you checked was, but I cannot currently create new Google Accounts without providing a phone number. It is required.

I literally did it just before I posted the comment. This was on an unactivated Samsung Galaxy Note 5.

Wouldn't that link the account to the device's hardware ID and by extension, all the other accounts you've made on that device?

No? The web's security model does not expose such identifiers. The best you can do is fingerprinting, which is actively and continuously defended against by browser makers

> which is actively and continuously defended against by browser makers

... except the dominant one (at least for their own web properties), who just happen to be the adversary in this particular discussion.