This afternoon Google “temporarily disabled” my main Google Account, without any notification, thus denying me access to all the different Google services that are attached to that particular account.
The disturbing part is that they didn’t specify a reason for disabling the account except this generic message saying “Google Accounts may be disabled because of a perceived violation of either the Google TOS or product-specific TOS.”
I have been trying to recollect my activity on Google.com for the past few days and all I have done is used their web search, Google Reader, watched some videos on YouTube (didn’t upload anything new there), sent a couple of emails using Gmail for Google Apps and a little bit of Google Maps. I have no clue how any of these regular actions could have violated Google’s TOS.
The access to the account was restored after I confirmed my mobile phone number (they sent a verification code via SMS) but am a little worried now. That’s because I don’t know the exact reason that led to the suspension and therefore it is possible that this thing might repeat in future as well.
Incidents like these are probably rare but they still act as a reminder that over-reliance on one service is often risky.
