Google wanting my phone number.

Adhamh

Why?

I have a gmail account and for the past few months when I've signed in, Google have been asking me (and I assume everybody else with a gmail account) for my phone number, with the option to 'skip this bit' made difficult to find on the page, down towards the bottom in small print.

I also have another email account on a seperate website that they somehow became aware of (I'm assuming through Youtube, because that was the account that I used to register, and I believe that Google own Youtube). For ages they were encouraging me to harmonise my accounts so that I would log into Youtube using gmail, which I resisted, until the day came that I could no longer (i.e. use gmail or you can't log in at all).

Now they are saying that they've detected 'suspicious activity' on my gmail account and won't let me log in to it until I give them my phone number. God knows how much information they have stored on any of us; I don't want to add my phone number to that list and I strongly suspect that the whole 'suspicious activity' thing is bullsh!t.

Will they ever fuck off? I've really come to hate them over the past few months by doing things like changing their logo every second day to celebrate some poncy bullsh!t or trying to reeducate me with all the links to their talks or the patronising informality like when it fails to connect to a webpage and it says 'Opps!'

I very much doubt that there is any suspicious activity on my account, as there's not much top secret information on it anyway that I'd be concerned about.

What possible excuse could they have for wanting my phone number and want justification could they have for their 'holding me hostage' method?

Professey Chin

They text you your password if your account is locked

Eoin

Maybe so they can try and join it up against other data they store to build an even richer idea of people's profiles that they can use for their advertising etc.

kirving

Do you have an Android phone?

thecornflake

I really hope that random number I entered isn't getting all my emails.

red menace

Adhamh wrote: »

Why?

I have a gmail account and for the past few months when I've signed in, Google have been asking me (and I assume everybody else with a gmail account) for my phone number, with the option to 'skip this bit' made difficult to find on the page, down towards the bottom in small print.

I also have another email account on a seperate website that they somehow became aware of (I'm assuming through Youtube, because that was the account that I used to register, and I believe that Google own Youtube). For ages they were encouraging me to harmonise my accounts so that I would log into Youtube using gmail, which I resisted, until the day came that I could no longer (i.e. use gmail or you can't log in at all).

Now they are saying that they've detected 'suspicious activity' on my gmail account and won't let me log in to it until I give them my phone number. God knows how much information they have stored on any of us; I don't want to add my phone number to that list and I strongly suspect that the whole 'suspicious activity' thing is bullsh!t.

Will they ever fuck off? I've really come to hate them over the past few months by doing things like changing their logo every second day to celebrate some poncy bullsh!t or trying to reeducate me with all the links to their talks or the patronising informality like when it fails to connect to a webpage and it says 'Opps!'

I very much doubt that there is any suspicious activity on my account, as there's not much top secret information on it anyway that I'd be concerned about.

What possible excuse could they have for wanting my phone number and want justification could they have for their 'holding me hostage' method?

Mail.yahoo.com
www.hotmail.com

bing.com
Don't like the service go some where else
It's not rocket science

yeahimhere

it makes me feel special....at least someone's asking for my number

Adhamh

I understand that I need to give them my number so they can supply me witha a way to give me a way to unlock my account, but I doubt that my account is locked for any good reason, just that they want to build up their database to spam me with ads.

I would go somewhere else RedMenace, but all the hundreds of email addresses that I collected over the years are on the gmail account and I have no other way of accessing them.

And no, I don't have an Android phone.

flutterflye

Maybe they like you.
Sounds like you're in there

red menace

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=24911&topic=1669027

Exporting Gmail contacts



You can quickly export your Gmail Contacts list into a CSV file. Here's how:
1.Sign in to Gmail.
2.Click Contacts along the side of any Gmail page.
3.From the More actions drop-down menu, select Export....
4.Choose whether to export all contacts or only one group.
5.Select the format in which you'd like to export your contacts' information. Please note, some of these formats can lose some contact information. ◦To transfer contacts between Google accounts, use the Google CSV format. This is the recommended way to back up your Google Contacts.
◦To transfer contacts to Outlook, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, or various other apps, use the Outlook CSV format.
◦To transfer contacts to Apple Address Book, use the vCard format.

6.Click Export.
7.Choose Save to Disk then click OK.
8.Select a location to save your file, and click OK.

Depending on the requirements of the program to which you're exporting your contacts from Gmail, you can easily edit the file to fit your needs.

Adhamh

Red Menace, thanks for the help in exporting contacts but I think that you're missing the point a bit-

'1. Sign into Gmail'

-to sign into gmail to retrieve contact information in the first place, I have to submit more personal information, in this case my phone number, which I am very reluctant to do as I don't know why they want it or what it could be used for.

mfdc

It's so they can let you back into your account if it gets locked. I think it will make do if you give it an alternate email address though? That's what I did anyway for a long time.

If you use Google for anything you don't want to lose though (bank stuff in gmail, online store logins, anything sensitive in gdocs etc), you should really give them your number and set up two factor authentication - makes it so that you need your phone AND your password to log in, it's almost impossible for someone who isn't you to get into your account.

It's a good thing to do, since everything has a login these days and tons of it is your mail address as a username, email security is getting more important all the time. If someone gets into your mail account and sees a receipt from amazon or wherever, they can then go to amazon and do the whole "forgot my password" rigamarole to get a new one mailed to them (your address). You have credit card details stored on the account, and you're screwed.

red menace

Adhamh wrote: »

Red Menace, thanks for the help in exporting contacts but I think that you're missing the point a bit-

'1. Sign into Gmail'

-to sign into gmail to retrieve contact information in the first place, I have to submit more personal information, in this case my phone number, which I am very reluctant to do as I don't know why they want it or what it could be used for.

Usually its verification of a password.
Why not do like I do and buy a prepaid Sim just for this purpose
Only stick it in when you need to be retrieve something or confirm details

My other tip o' the day is install virtual box and get an ISO of webconverger or similar and do all your browsing through that

RichieC

The fear of google is a funny one... look... nobody gives a **** what depraved **** you're googling at 4:30 in the morning.

Hazys

You might get a date out of it...but knowing google's charm, you'll probably put out.

AnonoBoy

I think it's a handy feature.

I was out in the pub having an argument with friends about whether the name of Popeye's enemy was Bluto or Brutus. None of us had a smart phone to solve the debate so I shouted aloud, "HELP ME GOOGLE!"

Just then my phone rang and this voice solved everything.

WolfForager

Don't see what problem is...

Sir Gallagher

Google pisses me off in general with their big fcking happy "oh look at us changing the world, aren't we great" bollox. I'd love nothing more than to smother every last one of them with one big giant beanbag.

Wetai

Verification/GoogleVoice (in the US/Africa [I think])

Professey Chin

RichieC wrote: »

The fear of google is a funny one... look... nobody gives a **** what depraved **** you're googling at 4:30 in the morning.

In fact, theyll just help you find more of it :pac: