INDIANA – Beginning Friday, Google is moving ahead with its plan to delete accounts that have been inactive for at least two years.
The company said in May the move is primarily intended to beef up security, as older accounts are more likely to rely on recycled passwords and less likely to employ measures like two-step verification — making them far more vulnerable to issues like phishing, hacking, and spam.
Google has been sending warnings to affected users since August, with multiple alerts sent to impacted accounts and user-provided backup emails.
Google accounts include everything from Gmail to Docs to Drive to Photos, meaning all content sitting across an inactive user’s Google suite is at risk of erasure.
There are a few exceptions to the deletion move: Accounts with YouTube channels, those with remaining balances on gift cards, those used to purchase a digital item like a book or movie, and those that have published apps that are active on a platform like the Google Play store, the company said in August.
Deleting old accounts is a key step to ensure security, according to Oren Koren, CPO and Co-founder of cybersecurity firm Veriti, who says that old accounts are frequently viewed as low risk and, thus, can be an opening for malicious actors. Deleting old accounts might force hackers to create new accounts –- an action that now requires phone number verification. Additionally, the erasure eliminates older data that may have been leaked in a data breach at some point.
