Good Lifestyle

From the smartphone to your pocket to the laptop on your desktop, technology now allows us to store many of our most important information online. But while these advances can often make life much more practical and secure, they also open us to a entirely different Vulnerability set When something is wrong. The endless risk of losing access to sensitive documents, important files and even irreplaceable memories is also on the digital domain of each. And now Google has announced that it would delete certain messaging and photos from its servers in just two weeks. Read the rest to know how to protect yours from the planned purge.

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It is not uncommon to modify the email addresses or to go from one digital account to another over time. So if you have a Google reception box, it's seated sleepy , you may want to take note, because the technology giant will start to delete inactive accounts on December 1.

This decision was announced for the first time in a blog article of May 16 of Ruth Kricheli , vice-president of the management of the company's products. From next month, any Google account which "has not been used or signed in or used for at least two years" will be deleted, as well as all their recorded data.

The company said it adopted a several level approach to purge dormant accounts, starting by deleting accounts that have been created and never used again.

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According to the announcement, this decision will see the data recorded via the most popular tools of the technology giant deleted when the new policy comes into force. This includes files and data in Google Workspace, which covers Gmail; Online desktop tools; Drive of online file storage services; Video conference tool meet; calendar planning tool; and Google Photos digital image storage tool. AE0FCC31AE342FD3A1346EBB1F342FCB

In particular, changes will affect any commercial accounts or people affiliated with organizations such as schools, and they will not affect accounts Published a video on YouTube at any time, The independent reports. The company says that it will "send several notifications" in the months which perform any potential deletion, as well as on all the recovery email addresses for accounts.

"We are going to deploy it slowly and carefully, with a lot of notice," wrote Kricheli in the blog post.

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Although this may seem a simple digital household maintenance, Kricheli explained that mass deletions are carried out in the name of user safety, especially because the older inactive accounts are more likely to be hacked or flying.

"Indeed, the forgotten or unattended accounts are often based on old or reused passwords which may have been compromised, have not been configured with two factors with two factors and to receive fewer safety checks by the user "She wrote.

Kricheli explained how it could create serious problems on the whole line. "Our internal analysis shows that abandoned accounts are at least 10 times less likely than active accounts to have a 2 -step verification", adding that once someone has taken control of vulnerable accounts, they could be used to commit identity theft or even transmit transferred phishing messages or other spam.

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Fortunately, the vast majority of Google's regular users do not have to worry about wiping their reception box or digital files in a few weeks. But if you have an older or separate account that does not attract much attention, you can always do a few things to stay safe.

At the very least, Google suggests signing your account once every 24 months to maintain its active status. From there, use the account to read or send an email, watch a YouTube video, open documents on Google Drive, download an application from the Google Play Store, or even run a Google search while being connected to save the activity. The company also claims that it considers active subscriptions to count as an account activity.

The Kricheli post also warned that "you will have to connect specifically to Google photos every two years to be considered active, which will guarantee that your photos and other content is not deleted".

Users are also invited to configure a recovery email for their accounts, which allows them to receive potential closure notices or other notifications when at risk. Anyone who wishes to delete old accounts can use tools provided by Google to download and export your data before doing so.

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