Reiterating what it said in May, Google is set to delete inactive accounts of more than two years on December 1st, 2023.
The company advises users to access their Google accounts occasionally to keep them active or else lose them in the upcoming wipeout. Until the final deadline, Google promises to keep sending notifications to the users and tips to back up their data, if any.
Deleting Dormant Accounts
To avoid unnecessary security risks, Google plans to delete all the inactive accounts that haven’t had any activity in the past two years. This move was first announced in May this year, and now the company is preparing to start cleansing the inactive accounts.
Accounts that were created and then never revisited by the user were the first ones to be dumped. However, the deletion will start from December 1st, and Google will send warnings to the affected users regularly until then.
The warning notifications will also include tips to backup emails or any other content that they deem helpful before deleting. Google backs up this move to prevent security risks, as the internal findings show older accounts are more likely to rely on recycled passwords and don’t have proper security measures like two-step verification, making them vulnerable to cyber threats like phishing, hacking and spam.
“We want to protect your private information and prevent any unauthorized access to your account even if you’re no longer using our services.”
This move is even more significant than the 2020 feat, where Google said it’d wipe out data from services that aren’t active but don’t delete the accounts. Well, the deletion of inactive accounts has some exceptions, though, like the policy excludes charges with YouTube channels, remaining balances on gift cards, those that have been 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.
