Google backtracks on legacy GSuite account shutdown, won’t take user emails

Enlarge / An artist's rendering of Google's current reputation. (credit: Aurich Lawson)

Google finally launched a solution for people with "legacy" GSuite Google accounts. After initially threatening to shut down free GSuite accounts if users didn't start paying for the service, Google has completely backed off. Once users jump through some sign-up hoops, Google will allow their ~16-year-old accounts to continue functioning. You'll even get to keep your email address.

The saga so far, if you haven't been following, is that Google has a custom-domain user account service, currently called "Google Workspace" and previously called "G Suite" and "Google Apps." The service is mostly a normal Google account that lets you use an email that ends in your custom domain name rather than "@gmail.com." Today this service is aimed at businesses and costs money each month, but that was not always the case. From 2006 to 2012, custom domain Google accounts were free and were even pitched at families as a geeky way to have an online Google identity.

In January, some bean counter at Google apparently noticed this tiny group of longtime users was technically getting a paid service for free and decided this was unacceptable. Google posted an announcement in January declaring these people "Legacy GSuite users" and basically told them, 'Pay up or lose your account.' These users signed up for a free Google service and stored data on it for as long as 16 years, and there were no indications it would ever be charged. Google held this decade-plus of user data hostage, telling users to start paying business rates for Workspace or face an account shutdown.