Google stated that, as before, they strive to keep free services available to users in Russia
On September 27, 2024, Google told the media that the company still strives to keep free services available to users in Russia.
Google is aware that some users in the Russian Federation have problems using accounts. “We are working on solving these problems. As before, we strive to keep our free services available in Russia,” Google explained to the media.
On September 9, Google began prohibiting users from the Russian Federation from creating new accounts with Russian phone numbers. Google’s cloud system allowed you to take all the steps to create a new account, including choosing a name, gender and date of birth, as well as coming up with an email name and password. But it was not possible to confirm the mobile number of the Russian Federation, because an error appeared that this number cannot be used for confirmation.
Google did not comment on this incident. Profilers believe it was either a server crash or Google had issues with the company sending out the verification codes.
The Habra user was told by Google support that “it is possible that Google accounts have already been created on these phone numbers, so you need to use a new phone number that has not yet been registered to any account. Now Google allows you to create only one account per phone number, while previously you could create up to five accounts per phone number.”
On September 10, Google again began to confirm the authenticity of a user’s account using a phone number from the Russian Federation. It is likely that the earlier problem with this situation was a technical failure, which was resolved in the American service.
On September 26, the Ministry of Digital Media confirmed to the media that Google limited the creation of accounts to Russian users. Communications operators also recorded a significant reduction in the number of SMS sent by the company to Russian users. The Digital Ministry has advised users to back up their data with Google. Google did not announce to the media about the introduction of restrictions for ordinary users from the Russian Federation.
