Google has blocked resellers of its pair of flagships, the Google Pixel and Pixel XL, from selling the smartphones free of sales tax in the United States.
The practice clearly infracted Google's terms of service, which rejects all types of resale of its products, but the company has since reversed its decision to block them.
Google's 'Digital Death Sentence'
More than 200 people were banned by Google as a result, restricting their access to Google services such as Google Drive, Gmail, Google Photos and a number of other tools offered by the company.
After having reviewed the move, Google eventually re-enabled some accounts accordingly, but there's still slight paranoia associated with the banning spree and lack of a speedy response to reverse its course.
But even if you aren't planning to resell Pixel phones, here's a detailed guide on downloading your data from Google, in case it bars you from accessing its services in the future.
How To Download Your Data Via Google Takeout
News of suspended accounts were first brought into circulation by Daniel Eleff of Dan's Deals who, post-maelstrom, now recommends that people take advantage of Google Takeout, the company's data export option, even for those who think they're out of Google's radar of potential suspendees.
To do this, you must first sign in to your Google account. Click your user profile button and click "My Account." You'll arrive at a new page, looking somewhat like a dashboard, which maps out all your Google account options.
In the Personal info and privacy column, click "Control your content." You'll be taken to another page showing two cards for controlling your content. The first one, which says "Create Archive," is what you'll need to click.
Types Of Content You Can Archive With Google Takeout
After clicking "Create Archive," you'll be taken to another page once more, detailing the types of personal data from Google's list of services available for you to export. The list is quite hefty, with options of the following:
• Blogger sites
• Bookmarks
• Calendar data
• Chrome data
• Contacts
• Google Drive files
• Fit Data
• Google Photos
• Groups
• Hangouts Data
• Google Keep Data
• Location History
• Gmail Data
• Custom Maps,
• Google Searchers
• Tasks
• Google Wallet Data
• YouTube Data
Tick the options as necessary, and you will be taken to another page where Google will show you how many products you've selected for archiving.
You can choose whether to have your archive downloaded as a .zip, .tgz or a .tbz file.
You can also set the maximum archive size for each file. For example, picking 2 GB as the maximum size will automatically parse the backup into 2 GB partitions, assuming your backup data is larger than 2 GB.
Finally, you can set the delivery method. Google can send you a link to your archive or add it to Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive, whichever method suits you best. When the archive is ready, Google will provide you a link that will expire after a week.
Even for users who have no future plans to break Google's terms of service via sketchy reselling practices, it's best to try out Google Takeout for yourself immediately. That is, unless you can imagine a world without Google services.
