Imagine having some important documents tucked away in your Google Drive, and when you open it to access them, they’re gone! All files have been wiped clean!
Scary, isn’t it?
Well, recently Google has been making some changes in their policies which can make this nightmare come very true under certain conditions. What are they? Let’s dig in and find out.
Effective from June 1, 2021, the internet behemoth is going to put into action its new policies for consumer accounts. Any Google account holder who has been consistently inactive for two entire years in Gmail, Drive, or Photos will risk getting his/her data wholly wiped off from these products.
The same also applies if a user has gone overboard with their storage limit across Gmail, Drive (which includes Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms and Jamboard files) or Photos.
On Wednesday, the California based tech giant said that they are taking these steps to modify their existing consumer account-related policies in order to better align their product offerings with the standard practices prevalent across the industry.
The company also mentioned that they would notify users a repeated number of times before they go ahead and attempt to remove any data whatsoever.
In case a user ceases to use their Google Account over a certain period of 30-18 months, Google’s ‘Inactive Account Manager’ will help them manage specific parts of their data or content by notifying a user-appointed trusted contact.
Now, when it comes to running out of storage, Google says that users can easily upgrade to a storage plan that gives them more space than 15 Gb which the free account offers. Google One offers premium storage plans starting at 100GB, which also includes other additional features such as adding another member, access to Google experts and so on.
Lastly, when it comes to Google Photos, Google account holders should take note that it no longer will be free starting from June 1, 2021.
According to the company, there are currently over 4 trillion photos and videos on Google Photos with 28 billion news ones being added every single week. Therefore, seeing how so many users around the world trust and use this product from Google, the company has decided to put an end to its unlimited high-quality storage policy.
Starting next year from June, any new photos or videos that users upload on Google Photos will be counted in the 15 GB storage plan that the free account offers. Thus, indicating at the fact that if you require more space in Google Photos, you will have to start paying for it separately.
All in all, it is well understood, with this change, the tech giant has slowly started moving towards taking a more aggressive pricing approach to the freemium model of their best-in-class Google consumer products which will definitely help them further increase their revenue.
If you are one of Google account holders and wish to remain unaffected by these policy changes, make sure
- Visit Gmail, Drive or Photos periodically and sign-in via an internet-connected device be it on the web or mobile.
- Keep a check on how much of the storage you have used up, to avoid crossing the threshold unknowingly.
What’s is your take on Google’s new storage policy? Do let us know your views and comments in the comment section below.
