Inactive Google Accounts will be Removed from December

Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc, has announced that it will delete accounts that have been inactive for at least two years.

This is reported in the company's press release.

As noted, this innovation is related to the intention to protect user data, since if an account has not been used for a long time, it is likely to be hacked.

This is because forgotten or uncontrolled accounts often do not update or reuse passwords that may have been hacked and do not have two-factor authentication set up for them, so the account undergoes fewer security checks.

The company's internal analysis shows that abandoned accounts are at least 10 times less likely to have two-step verification set up than active accounts.

What this means is that these accounts are often vulnerable, and when an account is compromised, it can be used for anything from identity theft to transmitting unwanted or even malicious content, such as spam, Google says.

“To reduce this risk, we are updating our inactivity policy for Google Accounts to 2 years across our products. Starting later this year, if a Google Account has not been used or logged in to for at least 2 years, we may delete the account and its contents – including content within Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar), YouTube and Google Photos,” Google said in a blog post.

The policy applies only to personal Google accounts and will not affect accounts of organizations such as schools or businesses.

The company will start deleting inactive accounts in December. Google will send users several warnings and block accounts in stages.

“The easiest way to keep your Google account active is to sign in at least once every 2 years,” the company added.

To keep your account active, you will need to sign in to your Google account, read your email, watch a video, or do any other action.

As previously reported, Google is adding two new features to its search for fake and artificially generated images to reduce misinformation amid the development of artificial intelligence services.