BrajeshwarGoogle broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/google-broke-its-promise-me-now-ice-has-my-data
This story is the one that finally pushed me to leave google. I moved off my ~20 year old Google account and deleted everything off their services including almost a decade of Google photos. I cancelled my Google one subscription for extra space. I'm now self hosting what I can and paying proton mail for everything else. I refuse to allow a company that will hand over data at the request of an administrative warrant to hold my data.
Migrating is such a good feeling. You don't have to do it all at once, either: I migrated to fastmail over the course of several years. Each time google did something that got my blood pressure up I went into my password manager and migrated another account. In aggregate it was a hassle, but these days I almost miss the feeling of being able to do something in response to stinky actions from google.
Anticipation of stories like this are why I didn't rely much on Google 20 years ago.
Never used Gmail other than as a throwaway account.
Went many years before I had a Youtube account. Finally made one to upload some videos. I am normally not logged in.
(OK, OK - I was more concerned with them suddenly charging for a "free" service, as well as selling data to commercial enterprises than with them giving to the government).
(OK, OK - I do use Android).
Digital gulag of whitelisted opinions and actions you are allowed to think/perform/express