NY
CNN
—
If you haven’t signed in to your Google account in a while, you better use it or lose it.
Google announced on tuesday it will begin deleting accounts that have been inactive for at least two years, a move the company says is aimed at preventing security risks.
The updated policy takes effect immediately, but Google said it won’t start deleting accounts until December. The company plans to send multiple warning notifications to users and purge inactive accounts in phases.
The first accounts on the chopping block will be those that were created and then never reviewed by the user, Google said. The policy will also only affect personal accounts, leaving organizations like schools and businesses untouched.
Google said its decision is based on internal findings that old accounts are more likely to rely on recycled passwords and less likely to employ updated security measures like two-step verification, making them much more vulnerable to problems like phishing. , piracy. and spam
The decision to delete accounts goes a step further than a older policy. In 2020, Google said that users would have their content removed from services they stopped using, but the accounts themselves would not be removed.
To save your account, all you need to do is sign in to sign in to your Google account or any Google service and maybe read an email, watch a video, perform a single search, or any other activity.