When Google did a backroom deal with Dun & Bradstreet for business verification, it was the nail in the coffin for this overly bureaucratic turd.

Can't wait for the open-source release of Google on GitHub.

Of course they do, I never expected anything else. That's why I never gave it to them for any of my accounts with them (that I barely use anyway).

I don't think this is new. If you have ever gotten a "fuck off and die" letter from AdSense after like 2010 or so, then you know they will correlate your identity and ban your other accounts too. They don't ban accounts, they ban people.

I've also heard of people getting oopsied trying to farm the GCP demo credits and someone on HN once claimed that a company's gsuite tenant was actioned when they hired somebody on google's naughty list.

They work with full "license to kill" by most of the nations for decades. Both cooperate and that is why Google has grown so much and appears "mighty". It was never been really stopped by any law. We only get excuses or arguments towards idiots of why they are not outlawed out of existence.

In other words it is not only Google.

Oh awesome. As it is, when starting a new position, I often can't use my phone as a backup second factor, or can't verify my account at all, as Google tells me my phone number "has been used too many times".

Oof.

I'm sorry, did anyone assume this wasn't the case?

That's why I'm bombarded all the time to give my phone number...

Of course they are. What else are those highly paid developers going to do with their time? Utilize their resources to help humanity or more invasion of privacy?

"Now" ? I assumed they always did that. And I'd also assume the documentation change is CYA in case someone tried to sue them over it

Google is not so silently deleting the accounts (gmail, etc) of anyone that has not given them a phone number to link and generate information sales profit from. It happened to my gmail account and there was nothing I could do, short of supplying a phone number, to stop it. They lock you out of your account saying you must add a phone number to log in, even if you put in your user and pass and even alternate secondary auth mechanisms are completed successfully, they say you still haven't logged in. And because you haven't "logged in", they say the account has become inactive for $x months and delete it.

Stop using google services for your personal stuff. I know many can't avoid it at work, but personally, we all can.