Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

They do all this and meanwhile, in between startups and a few personal accounts, when I try to register a new Gmail account and do the text message verification (the old/current TOTP style) I get "This phone number has been used too many times."

Meanwhile the amount of spam from Gmail I'm getting goes up and up and up.

A couple years after a hurricane left me without power for a week two, I fired up a generator, configured my phone as an AP, and went to do some important things in my Gmail account.

We need to prove it's really you, they posited. Simple enough I thought. I'll just use the same password I've used since 2001.

Oh, I must authenticate with a text, you say? Certainly not a configuration I've made myself, but they're holding the cards on this one, so be it.

I enter the confirmation code.

We still need to prove it's really you, again.

Shucks. I try again. And again. And again.

Sorry, but you'll now have to fuck off. Why? Because we've locked your account for complying with our security theater.

Fuck. I'm in a disaster zone. I need to get things done!

Google cares.

But thankfully, so did the FCC, which I registered a complaint with, arguing from the perspective of interference with emergency communications.

The FCC actually sent the rascals a letter. The leviathan complied and unlocked my account, and suddenly my password was secure again.

Thank you FCC. Although I doubt I'd get the same results with current adm...

This is not new, back I think in Feb when I registered a new one, it did ask to send an SMS instead

I also receive too much spam, I'll believe in their AI whenever they are able to fix spam.

The real problem for privacy is that governments are increasingly outsourcing the verification of identity and bot protection to private companies.

This is a hard no for me. Google is out of control.

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