Google may delete millions of Gmail accounts!

Google announced that next December it will begin a campaign to delete Gmail accounts that have not been used by their owners for a long time.

Google had indicated approximately 6 months ago that it would begin a policy of deleting inactive Gmail accounts, and would not begin implementing it before December of this year, explaining that the deletion would affect accounts that their owners had not used for at least two years, and to avoid this matter, account holders would have to follow some simple steps. .

These actions will not affect data associated with calendar apps or photos associated with email accounts, but rather the Gmail account and its associated archived data will be deleted.

Google indicated that, before deleting any Gmail account, it will send several notifications to its user via email or to the backup electronic accounts that the user has linked to the Google account, if available.

It also stated on its official websites that these measures come for security reasons, as old and inactive accounts are likely to become a target for fraudsters or Internet hackers, explaining that forgotten or unmonitored accounts often contain old or reused passwords that can be hacked.

Controversial plans to monitor online behavior in the UK!

Ofcom, the UK's communications regulator, has published lengthy guidance on monitoring certain elements of people's online behaviour.

This was done after the controversial Online Safety Act legislation was introduced in Britain last month.

In a publication outlining its initial code of practice on Thursday, Ofcom said technology companies - from social media giants to search engines - will be required to assess potentially harmful material accessible through their platforms, and take steps to mitigate any threats discovered.

The law will also require platforms to scan online content, including end-to-end encrypted text messaging services such as WhatsApp, for illegal material such as images of child abuse.

However, critics of the legislation said that mandating technology to scan people's personal correspondence undermines users' privacy rights.

"Ofcom is not a censor. We have no powers to remove content," Melanie Dawes, executive director, said in a statement on Thursday, adding that the regulator's mission statement is to "address the root causes of harm."

Meanwhile, British technology chief Michelle Donelan said Ofcom's guidelines would help "clean up the West on social media and make the UK the safest place in the world to go online."

The initial guidance, which spans more than 1,500 pages, focuses primarily on protecting young people online from grooming or other forms of harmful activity.

Among the countless recommendations made by the watchdog is that platforms work to make it more difficult for children's social media profiles to be accessed by unknown parties. It also recommends that accounts that are not on a child's "friends list" should not be able to send them direct messages.

Other crimes Ofcom warns against include sharing so-called "deepfake" pornography, where artificial intelligence (AI) is used to create illicit content from publicly available images or videos.

Some platforms, including WhatsApp, Signal and iMessage, have threatened to withdraw from the UK if they are forced under the Internet Safety Act to jeopardize the security encryption of their services.

Proton, which describes itself as a "private email service", said it would be willing to bring legal action against the UK government to protect its users' rights to privacy.

Ofcom says it hopes to have its rules in place by the end of next year. Each law will require full parliamentary approval before being implemented.

A letter from Google employees criticizes the company's "double standards" and demands the cancellation of an Israeli contract for a huge sum

Google employees are witnessing escalating disagreements over the company's business ties with Israel, which include a $1.2 billion agreement to provide cloud services to the Israeli government called Project Nimbus.

On Wednesday, a group of Google employees published an open letter on the Medium website demanding that the technology giant cancel “Project Nimbus.”

The letter criticizes the company's double standards regarding freedom of expression surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian war. It condemns "hatred, abuse and revenge" within the company against Muslim, Arab and Palestinian workers.  

The letter did not include the identities of the employees who wrote it for fear of “retaliation,” and called on CEO Sundar Pichai, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian and other senior leaders at the tech giant to condemn “the ongoing genocide in the strongest possible terms.” In addition, they are urging the company to cancel Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion deal to supply the Israeli military with artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies.

The group said: “We demand that Google stop providing material support for this genocide by canceling the Nimbus Project contract and immediately stop dealing with the Israeli apartheid government and its army.”

Critics and activists working at Google have attacked the Nimbus project since the contract was signed in 2021, claiming that it gives Israel tools to secretly monitor Palestine.

The letter begins: “We are Muslim, Palestinian and Arab employees at Google, joined by anti-Zionist Jewish colleagues. We cannot remain silent in the face of the hate, abuse and retaliation we are being subjected to in the workplace at this moment.”

The letter cites specific examples of emotionally charged and inappropriate behavior in the workplace, including unnamed Google employees who accuse Palestinians of supporting terrorism as part of their religion, and those who publicly call Palestinians “animals” on official Google platforms without No disciplinary action from leadership.

The group describes leadership as "standing idly by" and says Google managers have described employees as "sick" and clinging to a "lost cause" when expressing sympathy toward Gazans.

The employees who wrote the letter say that Google managers publicly asked Arabs and Muslims in the company whether they supported Hamas. “There is also a coordinated effort to prosecute employees sympathetic to Palestine in public life and report them to Google and law enforcement on charges of supporting terrorism,” the letter said.

In the open letter issued on Wednesday, employees wrote: “We call on Sundar Pichai, Thomas Kurian, and other Google leaders to publicly condemn the ongoing genocide in the strongest possible terms.”

Software engineer Sarmad Gilani, who joined Google in 2012, told Engadget that as a Google employee, “you have to be very careful, because any kind of criticism directed at the Israeli state can easily be viewed as a "It's anti-Semitism."

It is noteworthy that following the start of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, on October 7, Google issued a statement condemning “Hamas,” and days later pledged to Jewish employees that its internal platforms would be monitored for “anti-Semitism,” and that the company was ready to expel violators if necessary. The matter, according to the Times newspaper.