[HN Gopher] Addressing Antigravity Bans and Reinstating Access
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Addressing Antigravity Bans and Reinstating Access
        
       Author : RyanShook
       Score  : 249 points
       Date   : 2026-02-28 13:50 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | cogman10 wrote:
       | This is the correct way to handle this situation.
        
       | iepathos wrote:
       | Refreshing response from Google especially given the incompetence
       | with which Anthropic has handled bans.
        
       | xrd wrote:
       | Another recent concern on other posts here on HN is whether a
       | private company should have veto power over the US government.
       | Or, another way to look at it, whether the US government should
       | be able to designate a company as a supply chain risk and ban
       | them from most business in the host country.
       | 
       | If I squint at the conversation, it doesn't seem that different
       | from a behemoth company taking an employee of a private company
       | and forcing them to still stop working for arbitrary reasons.
       | 
       | I'm giving agents and coding tools wide berth here, but if AI is
       | going to replace all employees, what guarantees do you have as
       | the employer that your employees will do your bidding, and not
       | the bidding of enterprises with a shifting moral landscape?
       | 
       | Once we have tooling wrapped around specific agents, it'll be
       | hard to rehire. What will we do then when our "employees" are
       | furloughed?
       | 
       | This will be especially relevant when the big AI labs decide they
       | need to enter a market to justify an obscene valuation. Or, when
       | the sovereign wealth fund decides they don't like the direction
       | of a business.
       | 
       | This is a good and honorable decision by Google. But it also
       | brings up scary times ahead.
        
       | jascha_eng wrote:
       | I still kinda wish that the subscriptions would just allow you to
       | use the tokens however you wish. I get that they rely on people
       | not using all of their quota. But e.g. with open code it doesn't
       | really matter if I use antigravity or gemini-cli the usage should
       | be about the same.
       | 
       | What they are actually trying to force you to do is to pay for
       | the tokens that you don't use in their applications to increase
       | their revenue and/or give their in-house tools an "unfair"
       | advantage. But this is bad for the consumer because it means that
       | there is less competition between coding agents and unless I'm
       | willing to pay per token I have to take one of the model labs
       | agents.
       | 
       | Anticompetitive behaviour imo they could just ban reselling
       | tokens or something like that instead of locking your
       | subscription in like this.
        
         | NitpickLawyer wrote:
         | > I get that they rely on people not using all of their quota
         | 
         | They have no problem with users using their quota on their own
         | software. Because they get the signals. They do have a problem
         | with users using the API in 3rd party software, because they
         | don't get the signals.
        
           | falcor84 wrote:
           | Well ... the clear signal is that people want to use Google's
           | models but not Google products
        
             | theblazehen wrote:
             | Most people have actually just been using Opus through
             | antigravity
        
               | falcor84 wrote:
               | That's very different from what I'm seeing around me, but
               | yes, I suppose that happens to. And I guess Google
               | wouldn't have as much of an issue with that, right?
        
               | theblazehen wrote:
               | Ah, in my spaces (Involved in the proxy dev), most people
               | have been using it for Opus. I suspect they may even have
               | more of an issue with it, as they don't get the cost
               | advantage of serving an in-house model
        
           | xiphias2 wrote:
           | I don't really understand this reasoning actually:
           | 
           | if OpenClaw usage go up, and a service (OpenAI it looks like)
           | gets lots of usage data for personal assistent usage, they
           | can optimize to make it better for people who get a $200
           | subscription just because of that use case.
        
           | smashah wrote:
           | I turned off tracking on Antigravity. Do I deserve to get my
           | account banned from a service I pay for now? Silly.
        
         | Analemma_ wrote:
         | > But e.g. with open code it doesn't really matter if I use
         | antigravity or gemini-cli the usage should be about the same.
         | 
         | This is not at all true. What is prompting this behavior from
         | Google and Anthropic is that people are using their oauth
         | creds/API keys to run OpenClaw bots that use orders of
         | magnitude more tokens than the IDEs. The official clients also
         | can use a lot more prompt caching because they have expected
         | workflows.
         | 
         | And like, if you want to run OpenClaw, they're not saying you
         | can't do that: use the API pricing, that's what it's for. But
         | people are getting mad that they're not allowed to roll their
         | pickup truck up to the all-you-can-eat buffet table and fill
         | it.
        
         | gruez wrote:
         | >I still kinda wish that the subscriptions would just allow you
         | to use the tokens however you wish. I get that they rely on
         | people not using all of their quota. But e.g. with open code it
         | doesn't really matter if I use antigravity or gemini-cli the
         | usage should be about the same.
         | 
         | This is almost as realistic as "I wish netflix or youtube
         | allowed me to use VLC to watch their content".
        
           | nottorp wrote:
           | Haha maybe that would reduce piracy.
           | 
           | The easiest way to watch a movie in the player of my choice -
           | even if i have legal access to it because it's in my netflix
           | subscription - is to download it off piratebay.
           | 
           | Add to that Netflix's shitty discovery system, I'm pretty
           | sure I watched some downloaded movies in spite of actually
           | having legal access to them.
           | 
           | Oh, remember when PC games used to come on disks? For the
           | Netflix example I can only guess, but I'm 100% sure I
           | downloaded isos for games I had actually bought and had the
           | physical disc... somewhere.
        
             | throawayonthe wrote:
             | i don't believe this is a significant driver of piracy tbh,
             | normal people don't care about that kinda thing :P
             | 
             | especially considering most modern movie/tv piracy is free
             | streaming websites - shitty quality and awkward player
             | controls, definitely no choice of player here
        
           | plagiarist wrote:
           | I do wish that though. I have given up on streaming services,
           | I am not paying for this bullshit experience. We used to have
           | all the content unlimited on one service for like $10/mo. I
           | can accept prices increasing with inflation but society
           | should not accept such a backslide in service quality.
        
             | ShroudedNight wrote:
             | I would take things somewhat further: I'd be happy to pay
             | the equivalent of $20 2015 dollars for this service if it
             | were comprehensive. Unfortunately, that might allow for a
             | consumer surplus to occur in the viewing experience and the
             | motion picture industry ties with maybe nVidia for peak
             | pathological hostility to retail consumer surplus.
        
           | raincole wrote:
           | This is almost as realistic as "I wish OpenAI supports using
           | OpenCode with ChatGPT subscription account."
           | 
           | Oh, except they do[0].
           | 
           | [0]: https://x.com/thsottiaux/status/2009742187484065881
        
             | NewsaHackO wrote:
             | Yea, there are the last to the party (have they even
             | arrived?), so they are going to have to make some
             | concessions. I wonder if they at rollout will have a third-
             | party subscription token service in addition to their
             | first-party one.
        
               | raincole wrote:
               | > there are the last to the party
               | 
               | Anecdotally, I'm having a _very_ hard time imagining
               | there are more Gemini Cli users than Codex users.
        
               | joshstrange wrote:
               | There are a lot of people who have access to Gemini for
               | "free" through Google workspace.
               | 
               | That said, I am unimpressed by Gemini CLI overall and
               | even though I have 2 workspace accounts with access, I
               | use neither.
        
           | smashah wrote:
           | Why is that unrealistic?
           | 
           | Think of it like the digital right-to-repair.
           | 
           | I pay for it, I get to use it with any client I want. Simple.
        
             | verdverm wrote:
             | Except that is a false equivalent, when you clicked "agree"
             | you did so for their ToS to get a discount or bulk deal
             | with strings attached. It's pretty easy these days to have
             | a LLM extract the unique parts into a summary.
        
           | cyberax wrote:
           | > This is almost as realistic as "I wish netflix or youtube
           | allowed me to use VLC to watch their content".
           | 
           | This is exactly what should be happening. There's no reason
           | to limit the client apps for things like _paid_ Netflix or
           | Youtube Premium.
        
             | hahn-kev wrote:
             | Except you can't prevent people stealing the videos then.
             | And as much as I don't like how things work right now, I
             | think people have a right to get paid for stuff they make
             | and Netflix is one way of doing that.
        
         | bluecalm wrote:
         | I think the deal is quite clear: subscription for personal
         | usage in their products, API token for everything else. You get
         | a rebate for subscription because they get the data. I would be
         | quite sad if they removed the subscription option just to not
         | be "anticompetitive".
        
         | notatoad wrote:
         | Nobody is forcing you to pay for tokens you don't use. If you
         | only want to pay for the tokens you use, switch to api billing
         | and pay for tokens at api rates.
         | 
         | If you want the discounted rates they offer in their monthly
         | plans, then expect to follow the terms that discount is offered
         | under.
        
         | agentifysh wrote:
         | I wrote this as a work around to use my subscriptions for
         | claude, chatgpt pro, grok from codex cli but seems like gemini
         | is already broken and will require another approach after this
         | 
         | https://github.com/agentify-sh/desktop
        
       | cube00 wrote:
       | _Over the past week,_
       | 
       | A week? Try at least 16 days
       | 
       | https://discuss.ai.google.dev/t/account-restricted-without-w...
       | 
       | The danger here is they'll ban you with no specific reason, fill
       | out the form and you get an automatic unban and then something
       | else automatically flags and you're banned the second time
       | permanently.
       | 
       | Support bot will then say "you were warned, read the TOS" and you
       | get to guess what you did wrong.
       | 
       | You'll notice there are no appeals or reviews in this workflow.
       | 
       | Google has no creditability when it comes to handling account
       | bans.
        
         | clickety_clack wrote:
         | People are crazy to use Google as the core of their online
         | identity.
        
           | elAhmo wrote:
           | Not crazy, it is just convenient. Constant pushes with
           | Android, Chrome, random websites asking for Google login.
           | 
           | Google wasn't always like this, and moving of from an email
           | address isn't technically hard, but something that 99% of the
           | people will be very very reluctant to do.
        
         | oofbey wrote:
         | Ex googler here. It is based on Google's fundamental disdain of
         | customers. Googlers are repeatedly told by management that they
         | are the smartest people in the world and that their time is too
         | valuable to spend on silly things like helping customers.
        
           | ph4rsikal wrote:
           | I build AI for banks. A couple of weeks ago, I had a meeting
           | with a Google team on Legacy Modernization using Agentic AI.
           | Let me phrase it this way. None of them were smart. My team
           | and I were shaking our heads at the low skills of the team.
           | While this might have been true 20 years ago, I am sure there
           | are pockets of smart people somewhere. But Google now employs
           | 200K people worldwide. I am certain that it's hard to keep up
           | the quality.
        
             | oofbey wrote:
             | But I bet you they still acted like they were the smartest
             | people in the room, right? Charming isn't it?
        
               | charcircuit wrote:
               | That has not been my experience working with Google
               | employees at all.
        
             | StilesCrisis wrote:
             | You can't pass the Google hiring screen and be _dumb_. But
             | I'm 100% willing to believe that they had no knowledge of
             | your domain whatsoever, because the Google hiring screen is
             | also totally generic and doesn't hire for any domain
             | knowledge beyond "general comp sci."
        
         | jijji wrote:
         | Google has zero customer service. using them for anything
         | serious makes no business sense. the only thing that they're
         | good for is serving ads to people, and they have a support team
         | for that, but only if you're spending a lot of money, and even
         | then good luck finding it
        
       | consumer451 wrote:
       | Just wanted to say that Windsurf is chugging along just great. No
       | drama for users, excellent outputs at low cost. I am confused why
       | they are not used more widely.
        
         | johnebgd wrote:
         | We use them as well. Great product.
        
         | WarmWash wrote:
         | The problem wasn't antigravity, the problem was funneling
         | clawdbot tokens through it (with a 3rd party plugin) to skirt
         | API costs.
        
         | TiredOfLife wrote:
         | Windsurf also doesn't coredump constantly.
        
       | koolba wrote:
       | Way too risky to use Google services like this tied to your
       | primary account. There's too much risk of cross damage. Imagine
       | losing access to your Gmail because some Gemini request flags you
       | as an undesirable. The digital death sentence of losing access to
       | your email with a company that notoriously has no way for the
       | average human to contact a human is not worth the risk.
        
         | gman83 wrote:
         | This wasn't due to some random Gemini request. Users were using
         | sketchy antigravity auth plugins to use their antigravity
         | tokens on things like OpenClaw, clearly against ToS. It's great
         | that Google is giving these users a second chance.
        
           | johnebgd wrote:
           | It's be great if Google just revoked antigravity access if
           | terms were violated. No need to disable the entire account.
        
             | dangus wrote:
             | I'll go further: there should be laws addressing account
             | consolidation. Getting banned from an Apple or Google
             | account is an incredibly wide blast radius. It would be
             | like being banned from buying Unilever or Nestle food from
             | your grocery store.
        
               | plagiarist wrote:
               | Email providers should be utilities and also legally
               | require a warrant before disclosing any information
               | whatsoever to the government.
               | 
               | Unfortunately the government is full of corrupt
               | geriatrics who do not understand technology and are paid
               | to continue not understanding technology as they sign
               | bills prepared for them by ALEC.
        
             | LiamPowell wrote:
             | > just revoked antigravity access
             | 
             | That's exactly what they did, plus Gemini CLI and Code
             | Assist, which are the same product in different formats.
        
             | TGower wrote:
             | Only Antigravity and Gemini access was banned, not email or
             | other google account stuff.
        
             | NewsaHackO wrote:
             | No Google account has been banned for this. People just
             | keep spreading this lie because no one agrees that they
             | have the right to steal the OAuth token.
        
               | sneak wrote:
               | It's _their_ OAuth token, it 's not being stolen. It's
               | just being copied from one place on their computer to
               | another. This is no different than a competing browser
               | importing your localStorage and cookies from Chrome on
               | first launch.
        
               | NewsaHackO wrote:
               | No, the OAuth token is supposed to be used solely with
               | the context of a first-party app only. Clearly, if you
               | need to extract the key by reverse engineering or set up
               | a proxy to spoof requests to a service, you're doing
               | something shady.
        
               | sneak wrote:
               | > No, the OAuth token is supposed to be used solely with
               | the context of a first-party app only.
               | 
               | The web doesn't work like that. The operators of
               | google.com saying you must only use Chrome to load it is
               | a ridiculous concept. It's not spoofing to use your own
               | access credentials on your own computer to access your
               | own account on an HTTP API.
        
               | NewsaHackO wrote:
               | >The web doesn't work like that. The operators of
               | google.com saying you must only use Chrome to load it is
               | a ridiculous concept.
               | 
               | I have no idea what you are talking about. Chrome? Are
               | you sure you are replying to the right thread?
        
               | sneak wrote:
               | Chrome is an HTTP client that accesses webservers at
               | specified addresses.
               | 
               | Antigravity and OpenClaw are HTTP clients that access
               | webservers at specified addresses.
        
               | squeaky-clean wrote:
               | By this logic video game companies shouldn't be allowed
               | to ban cheaters.
        
               | sneak wrote:
               | Technically speaking, they haven't been able to. There's
               | really no way of stopping someone using an alternate
               | client if it appears to the server the same way.
               | 
               | The only reason video game cheating is more difficult is
               | because it uses custom protocols and message types, and
               | it needs to be reverse engineered. Usually it's just
               | easier to reuse the existing game client and patch it to
               | report to the server that everything is normal.
               | 
               | It's why anticheat runs in the kernel now.
        
               | DangitBobby wrote:
               | Most people would agree both that getting rid of cheating
               | is desirable and that the methods of control exerted over
               | users to accomplish it is questionable. It's one of the
               | few freedom/security tradeoffs where people generally
               | agree we have to come down on the side of authoritarian,
               | because otherwise it destroys online gaming as a whole.
               | That scenario doesn't apply here. The world is a complex
               | place.
        
               | DangitBobby wrote:
               | That's not what stealing is.
        
               | joquarky wrote:
               | "steal" is semantically incorrect here.
        
             | Aurornis wrote:
             | How do so many people think this happened? All of the
             | articles I've read have been clear that it did not happen.
             | Yet it's all over the comments here. Why?
        
               | DangitBobby wrote:
               | It's very easy to believe, and that's how Google bans
               | usually go. Probably nothing more to it than that.
        
           | crawshaw wrote:
           | The concern is not losing access to some new IDE for
           | operating outside the terms of service. The concern is when
           | you lose access to the IDE, you also lose access to your 20
           | year old Gmail account.
           | 
           | A general problem for Google products is that everything is
           | mixed together.
        
             | BoredPositron wrote:
             | But that's not what happened.
        
           | amiga386 wrote:
           | Yes, our masters once again embarrass us unworthy peons with
           | their endless grace, generosity and forebearance. How lucky
           | we are to entrust our data and our lives to them!
        
             | WarmWash wrote:
             | Anyone can buy the tokens via the API and do whatever they
             | want with them.
             | 
             | Its not evil of Google to say "Here is an allotment of
             | steeply discounted tokens, but you can only use them with
             | our services."
        
               | fooker wrote:
               | It is evil to block your email and hold your photos
               | hostage over it though :)
        
               | ZekeSulastin wrote:
               | Didn't they only block Antigravity though, leaving other
               | services available?
        
               | WarmWash wrote:
               | They only blocked access to Antigravity and GeminiCLI for
               | the offense.
        
               | joquarky wrote:
               | I would question the judgment of anyone who thought they
               | would maintain "don't be evil" beyond IPO.
        
               | fooker wrote:
               | Your argument is basically : human being will always
               | choose money over ethics.
               | 
               | Could be true, but a somewhat depressing worldview.
        
               | squeaky-clean wrote:
               | That didn't happen though.
        
               | Aurornis wrote:
               | I'm amazed at how many people think this happened,
               | despite it not being true.
        
             | GaryBluto wrote:
             | https://youtu.be/ntICHMV-WMA?t=40
             | 
             | "Google Shuts Down Gmail For Two Hours To Show Its Immense
             | Power"
        
             | throwaway290 wrote:
             | > our masters once again embarrass us unworthy peons with
             | their endless grace
             | 
             | Masters who serve you in exchange for money?
             | 
             | be as sarcastic as you want but you demand a thing they did
             | not agree to provide, for the same money = they have a
             | right not to serve you. If you disagree with that and think
             | they owe you something then you are the one playing master
             | here.
        
             | mikkupikku wrote:
             | It's easy to sneer at huge corps getting mildly scammed by
             | people stretching or breaking the rules. Certainly I don't
             | shed any tears for these corporations.
             | 
             | On the other hand, I have learned that people who are
             | willing to find exploits with trust-based systems operated
             | by huge corps are very often willing to apply that same
             | cheating and exploitation mentality without regard for who
             | the other party is. These are very often the same people
             | who try to coerce teenage cashiers at locally owned shops
             | to accept expired coupons or combine them in invalid ways,
             | or take produce from a roadside farm stand instead of
             | paying into the honor jar. The mentality of cheating the
             | system seems great when it's against huge inhumane
             | corporations, but from what I've personally seen it rarely
             | stops there, and on the whole it contributes to a low trust
             | society.
        
           | zarzavat wrote:
           | Okay but they were paying customers paying $$$ for the
           | service. Banning your customers without prior warning is not
           | right, however sketchy their behaviour might appear. Even if
           | it's obvious to Google that there's a difference between a
           | Gemini API key and an Antigravity API key, it's not
           | necessarily obvious to others.
           | 
           | The correct and sane thing to do is to send them an email,
           | with _at most_ a 24 hour suspension. If they keep doing it
           | despite being warned then by all means fire them.
        
           | exitb wrote:
           | If a 3rd party product advertises compatibility with a Google
           | service and you use it to login via a first party Google
           | login page, doesn't the responsibility fall somewhere between
           | the offending product and Google itself? In practice it's
           | structured pretty much like a phishing attempt.
           | 
           | Notably some model providers explicitly allow that very flow,
           | while others will ban you without notice.
        
             | n8m8 wrote:
             | If the "3rd party product" is you selfhosting FOSS, then
             | that's you (OpenClaw users)
        
               | exitb wrote:
               | Why do you call it self-hosting? It appears to be
               | installable app with a fancy homepage. At what point does
               | the software being covered by an open license changes the
               | responsibility model?
        
               | squeaky-clean wrote:
               | That's exactly what self hosting is, you install some app
               | on your own computer host(s).
               | 
               | > At what point does the software being covered by an
               | open license changes the responsibility model
               | 
               | When you agree to an open license that says you're liable
               | for anything and not the author of the software.
               | 
               | > THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF
               | ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED
               | TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A
               | PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL
               | THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM,
               | DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF
               | CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN
               | CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS
               | IN THE SOFTWARE.
        
           | NicuCalcea wrote:
           | When's the last time you read the ToS of a service you signed
           | up for?
        
             | sowbug wrote:
             | This would be a great job for an AI agent. Even better if a
             | few million such agents collectively refused to agree to
             | unconscionable terms.
        
           | jamesnorden wrote:
           | >It's great that Google is giving these users a second
           | chance.
           | 
           | I hope this is sarcasm. A permaban as the first action is
           | never a good idea.
        
           | 982307932084 wrote:
           | "Hey Gemini, write a short blurb casting our capriciousness
           | in a good light."
        
           | sneak wrote:
           | Telling your users they can't use certain software to access
           | your HTTP API is exactly the same as telling people they
           | can't use certain browsers to load https://google.com.
        
           | theturtletalks wrote:
           | They were banning people and those people couldn't even
           | cancel their subscription. That's a rookie mistake and you
           | expect the same company to have a flawless ban system?
        
         | HardCodedBias wrote:
         | AFAIK it has clearly been a ban of Gemini and not of all
         | people's Google accounts.
         | 
         | However many stories appeared where people tried to claim that
         | their whole Google account was banned to gain traction.
         | 
         | Unless it is clear that a full Google account has been banned
         | we should push back on any story that claims this.
        
           | nottorp wrote:
           | Why? Google has been doing automated bans for ages, even
           | before "AI".
           | 
           | By now they lost any trace of goodwill they ever had and are
           | guilty until proven innocent.
        
         | tjoff wrote:
         | Use a custom domain and don't use google for email.
         | 
         | And if you do use your gmail address just forward it and start
         | to transition to something else. With time everything of
         | importance has been transferred.
        
           | aliljet wrote:
           | How do you even pull away from a Gmail address? I'm nearly
           | twenty years into that service. Getting banned would be
           | absolutely devastating...
        
             | calcifer wrote:
             | Use your own domain to sign up for a paid email service,
             | provided by a company that focuses on email. I use
             | Fastmail, but there are many other options.
             | 
             | Set up forwarding in Gmail to your new address.
             | 
             | Then, whenever you log in to a website or app with your
             | Gmail, take a moment to change it to your new address. In a
             | few weeks, most of your important accounts will be covered.
             | In a few months, almost everything you still actively use
             | will be done.
             | 
             | I did this ~5 years ago and the only thing that still
             | arrives at my Gmail is spam.
        
               | genxy wrote:
               | Solid advice, but I want to double, watch out for things
               | you only log into once a year.
               | 
               | Making a new local account on your machine is a good
               | first step.
        
               | caseysoftware wrote:
               | Same here but ~8 years.
               | 
               | You can mitigate/speed the process using your password
               | manager too.
               | 
               | I still use a filter in my email so that if something
               | comes in under my Gmail, it gets a special tag that I can
               | filter on and treat those as a todo list. Rarely happens
               | beyond the occasional Google Meet connection.
        
               | wafflemaker wrote:
               | For quite some time (approx 8 years) I've used an email
               | forwarding (Blur, but any works) to avoid spam.
               | 
               | This looks like perfect case for change of email, since
               | lot of these accounts can be moved out from Gmail by
               | changing the address that email is forwarded too.
               | 
               | Looks like all this hassle with generating a new email
               | for each service pays for the second time (by ease of
               | changing the main mail), in addition to spam and privacy
               | protection.
        
               | hogwasher wrote:
               | ^this is the way.
               | 
               | You can buy a domain name for like $10 per year; I
               | recommend getting it from porkbun.com.
               | 
               | Cloudflare.com is good too, EXCEPT if you buy your domain
               | from them, you'll be required to use their nameservers
               | until and unless you transfer your domain elsewhere
               | (which you won't be able to do for a while). Though to be
               | fair, their free DNS is good and lots of people use it
               | anyway. It makes email setup slightly more complicated,
               | but it's still doable.
               | 
               | Spaceship.com also has a pretty good reputation, but I
               | think their customer service isn't as good, they're quite
               | new, and they're owned by Namecheap (a bigger domain
               | registrar with a much worse reputation).
               | 
               | Whatever you do, DO NOT buy from GoDaddy. Do not even
               | search for the domain you're considering on GoDaddy.
               | Literally any option is better than GoDaddy.
               | 
               | By far the most reliable TLD options are .com, .net, and
               | .org. These will look relatively trustworthy for email,
               | and the price stays very very stable from year to year.
               | If you don't want to think about it, just get one of
               | these. You can even still find single dictionary word
               | domains for .org or .net relatively easily.
               | 
               | Do not buy any domain marked "premium". This means the
               | owner of the TLD can change the price at renewal as
               | dramatically as they want, for any reason (e.g. if you
               | have a website hosted at that domain that becomes
               | popular). Your $20 per year domain might suddenly become
               | a $300 or $3000 per year domain for no reason but greed,
               | and you wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
               | 
               | Non-premium nTLD's (.club, .horse, .rocks, .theater, etc)
               | can increase quite dramatically in price, BUT the price
               | is required to be set the same for all domains using that
               | nTLD, so they can't target any individual person for
               | having a successful website or whatever. Also, you can
               | pre-buy up to 10 years, which locks in your price for
               | those 10 years. I'd still not recommend them for a
               | primary email, but it's better than buying a "premium"
               | domain. Just be aware that the yearly price might
               | unexpectedly increase in the future.
               | 
               | Some country code TLD's are also good, but for email,
               | probably stay away from the ones that spammers like to
               | use.
               | 
               | ___
               | 
               | Anyway, what I actually originally meant to comment about
               | is: if you set up forwarding from gmail and don't check
               | that account regularly anymore, I recommend setting up a
               | gmail filter rule that forwards all your gmail spam to
               | you (their regular forwarding setting leaves it out and
               | just sends it to the gmail spam folder). It's a little
               | annoying to have to re-flag some of the spam as spam in
               | your new email, but gmail has a habit of marking non-spam
               | as spam for me, and if you're not regularly checking that
               | spam folder you can easily miss important email.
        
               | dwedge wrote:
               | Porkbun have started demanding ID verification for
               | registrations, which depending how you feel about current
               | events might make you reconsider having them on your list
        
               | ZeWaka wrote:
               | They've been doing it for a few years. KYC laws. See:
               | legally required for registrants from India
        
               | Sophira wrote:
               | > Your $20 per year domain might suddenly become a $300
               | or $3000 per year domain for no reason but greed, and you
               | wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
               | 
               | Seconding this. Tthis is exactly what happened with the
               | .sexy TLD: https://www.reddit.com/r/Domaining/comments/ui
               | a8pc/sexy_tlds...
        
               | hellojesus wrote:
               | I did this but don't forward. Instead, every new email in
               | Gmail I got would prompt me to go update that service's
               | contact info for me.
               | 
               | It probably doesn't matter, but it made me feel a little
               | better because that way Google wouldn't have direct info
               | on to which email/domain I transfered (ignoring other
               | Gmail contacts that start emailing me at my new
               | address(es) ).
        
               | nextaccountic wrote:
               | > Use your own domain to sign up for a paid email
               | service, provided by a company that focuses on email.
               | 
               | Note you don't need to pay. just use zoho mail or any
               | other free email that lets you bring your own domain.
               | Switch email providers as needed without changing your
               | domain
               | 
               | The trouble with paying is that if you forget to pay, you
               | may lose email. (arguably this is also a problem with
               | domains, generally you should pay some years in advance)
        
               | mulmen wrote:
               | I prefer to pay for the product so I do not become the
               | product.
        
               | hboon wrote:
               | Zoho lets you pay a small monthly (yearly?) fee and link
               | several domains to it.
        
               | nextaccountic wrote:
               | Yeah, I did think like that, until the day I couldn't
               | afford and lost some important stuff. Forgetting to pay
               | also happens
        
               | itake wrote:
               | I switched to a password manager (bitwarden) about 7
               | years ago. I have over 200 accounts (not all of them use
               | my @gmail). it would take me weeks to convert those
               | accounts to a new domain, if the application could even
               | support it.
               | 
               | I will admit, many of the accounts are not needed any
               | more. but the process will still be emotionally boring to
               | filter through that.
        
               | fwn wrote:
               | > ... it would take me weeks to convert those accounts to
               | a new domain ...
               | 
               | I did the same with about the same amount of accounts and
               | it took me the better part of a Saturday. Even if you
               | were really slow and needed five minutes per account, 200
               | accounts would still only take about 17 hours.
               | 
               | I don't think that's a lot of effort. You could easily
               | spend that time fixing something around the house or
               | garden, which often might not have nearly as big of an
               | impact on personal agency.
        
               | victorbjorklund wrote:
               | Just give access to clawdbot and let it change the emails
               | for you /jk
        
               | jllyhill wrote:
               | Do you use single email address on your domain or
               | multiple for different purposes? Or do you have one main
               | address and throwaway aliases for the one-time
               | registration purposes? I see that the Fastmail provides a
               | single inbox that can handle multiple addresses and
               | wonder how does it work.
        
             | cube00 wrote:
             | Get your own domain so you can easily change providers in
             | the future. Start with your password manager and change the
             | address on all the accounts you have in there.
             | 
             | After a few years you'll notice you stop bothering to check
             | your Gmail and you can delete it to close the address.
             | 
             | If you need motivation, skim the /r/GMail subreddit and see
             | how many people are getting locked out daily.
        
               | 8cvor6j844qw_d6 wrote:
               | Do you have a recommendation for a major email provider
               | as a fallback if you have to pick one?
               | 
               | I vaguely recall encountering a service that only
               | accepted addresses from a whitelist of big providers
               | (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc.), even @icloud did not
               | qualify.
        
               | JoshTriplett wrote:
               | That's a service that doesn't want your business. If you
               | care, message them about it
               | 
               | I've never once run into a service with such a
               | restriction, but I can imagine someone being that short-
               | sighted. I _have_ seen services that only support  "log
               | in with Google or Facebook", which is comparably
               | terrible.
        
               | genxy wrote:
               | Discogs will not let me login with my own domain (of 30
               | years) and required one of the big providers. It kept
               | complaining about "risky domain". But that is the only
               | incident I can think of.
        
               | CamperBob2 wrote:
               | _Discogs_
               | 
               | Who? Never heard of them, and it sounds like there's a
               | good reason for that.
        
               | throwaway2037 wrote:
               | It is a top 1000 web site according to Alexa rankings. It
               | would take you about 5 seconds to Google about it.
               | Probably less time than it took you to write your post.
        
               | CamperBob2 wrote:
               | Oh.
        
               | sir0010010 wrote:
               | I've run into services that will flag specific tlds as
               | invalid.
        
               | JoshTriplett wrote:
               | I have heard of that, yeah. It's still busted, but
               | marginally more understandable if they're dealing with a
               | lot of scams. For instance, `.xyz` and some others have
               | bad reputations. I've never seen something that'll reject
               | an arbitrary self-owned `.org`, by way of example.
        
             | 8cvor6j844qw_d6 wrote:
             | Same. I still have an old Gmail address that receives
             | forgotten but still considered important emails from
             | various services.
             | 
             | What's the playbook for migrating away in this situation?
        
               | cube00 wrote:
               | Companies need to allow you update your personal
               | information including your email. It may need tickets to
               | support but it's doable.
        
             | Hikikomori wrote:
             | Just have to get started and suffer for a while and make it
             | a practice to switch emails when you log into places.
             | 
             | I switched to fastmail with my own domain.
        
               | 8cvor6j844qw_d6 wrote:
               | I went with SimpleLogin.
               | 
               | Although I am increasingly concerned with its longevity
               | since there's a non-zero risk that Proton might shut down
               | SimpleLogin since Proton Pass has its own alias feature.
        
             | ikidd wrote:
             | I just sold a domain I had for 25 years and used for
             | everything including API endpoints, email, authentication,
             | etc. It took a couple weeks to transition myself and my
             | family/friends.
             | 
             | Pretty sure just moving emails would have take a lot less
             | effort. I had the advantage of keeping the domain until I
             | was ready to move, now imagine Google just turned it off
             | one day and what your workload would be. I shudder to think
             | about having to deal with that.
        
             | gmerc wrote:
             | took about 30 minutes to switch to proton mail
        
               | Xevion wrote:
               | This service is basically a nightmare to export/move away
               | from. 30 minutes to switch to, maybe 30 hours to switch
               | away from.
        
               | rhdunn wrote:
               | Now move all the services and accounts you have
               | registered to that account, along with all the friends
               | and family who have your old email account.
        
             | ptero wrote:
             | Register your own domain, use a third-party provider to
             | handle actual sending and receiving (I use proton, which
             | makes the setup very easy), forward your Gmail to your
             | personal domain address and as renewals and reminders come
             | in switch your email on services to your personal domain.
             | 
             | After a year or two losing Gmail becomes an inconvenience;
             | after a few more years it is nothing. As everything is now
             | on your own domain name you can switch providers without
             | affecting anything.
             | 
             | That's what I did about 5 years ago and my only regret is
             | not doing it earlier.
        
             | ok_dad wrote:
             | Just start changing addresses. Forward the rest. It takes
             | about a year. Changing your name is way harder and tons of
             | folks do that all the time.
        
             | ForHackernews wrote:
             | Sign up at fastmail.com, set up forwarding, change your
             | "reply-to" address. A year later, you'll have nothing
             | arriving in gmail except marketing cruft.
        
             | simonjgreen wrote:
             | It will never be easier than right now. Every day you stay,
             | you dig their moat around you even deeper
        
             | benhurmarcel wrote:
             | I just went through all accounts in my password manager,
             | logged in and changed my email. It takes a little while but
             | not that much.
        
             | bhuga wrote:
             | I moved away from a gmail address that was that old, dating
             | back to the invitation-only days. It had become more spam
             | than not, mostly other people who share my initials not
             | knowing their own email addresses. But the possible
             | devastation you mention was more worrying. It had become
             | too much of a risk for my banking and identity generally to
             | not own my email address.
             | 
             | I got a custom domain. I still host it on google, because I
             | know how impossible it is for small companies to have a
             | reasonable program to deal with insider threats. Because of
             | that, I think only one of the giant companies can
             | realistically provide secure email. And the google app
             | suite is great. Now that I pay for google workspace,
             | there's support and appeals available, and if they ban me
             | anyway, I still control the domain and can regain access to
             | everything.
             | 
             | I have not been able to delete the old address, even after
             | 3 years. There are some things like Google Fi that can only
             | use a non-workplace google account. Very, very rarely, I
             | still get an email that matters on it. But I got to the
             | point where I could stop checking it in about 2 months, and
             | now I look at it about once a week quickly, more out of
             | habit than anything else.
             | 
             | The switch was annoying, but not "hard". It was worth it.
        
             | svilen_dobrev wrote:
             | gmail uses IMAP.
             | 
             | make another mailbox (another provider - migadu, fastmail,
             | proton, whoever) that has IMAP as well. (selfhosting.. is
             | PITA. only if u _really_ need it).
             | 
             | install some standalone mail-client - thunderbird,
             | clawsmail, applemail, or k9 , aqua on android, whatever.
             | Attach both mailboxes into that. Find out how to copy an
             | e-mail from one folder into another.
             | 
             | Folder by folder, select all mails, copy from one mailbox
             | into the other. Will take time.
             | 
             | (Beware, some clients (apple) will fuckup the mail-date,
             | anything older than 5 years becomes 5 years old. or it
             | shows like that. YMMV.)
             | 
             | i have made this multiple times, for 20+ years of mails...
        
             | danielheath wrote:
             | I switched to my own domain ages ago; it only took 2-3
             | years to stop getting relevant mail to the old one (I put a
             | forwarding rule in place and just used the new one for
             | everything).
             | 
             | Imported all my past mail on day one, forwarding meant I
             | had one inbox only, and I only sent mail from the new
             | domain. A few gentle "please stop using my old address"
             | conversations with family.
        
             | teyopi wrote:
             | buy a domain.
             | 
             | create icloud account.
             | 
             | use their custom domain email setup (free btw) -
             | https://support.apple.com/en-us/102540
             | 
             | Start replacing important account emails with your custom
             | domain.
             | 
             | Every time you get an important email in gmail, login and
             | update.
             | 
             | Bonus: icloud let's you create catch all emails, so you can
             | create many burner emails such as hackernews@mydomain.com
        
               | eviks wrote:
               | How is it free?
               | 
               | > When you subscribe to iCloud+, you can use a custom
               | domain name
        
             | andrepd wrote:
             | It's really not that hard. I switched about 10 years ago.
             | Just every time you log in with your old email, replace it
             | with your new one. Every time you email someone, email them
             | from your new one with a note: "this is my new email". In a
             | few months I had migrated everything to the new email.
        
             | nextaccountic wrote:
             | Begin with making a list of all services where you
             | subscribed using gmail...
        
             | Gareth321 wrote:
             | I had my Gmail for almost 20 years and made the transition.
             | It's annoying and time consuming but I think well worth it.
             | I bought a domain and host it on iCloud. It's like $3/month
             | for 6 email addresses (you can use it with the family).
             | That includes a little cloud data and other services like
             | hidden email addresses. DNS is handled by Cloudflare for
             | free. Then start moving each service/login to the new email
             | address. Every time you log into something, change the
             | email address. I took the opportunity to update passwords
             | and passkeys too, using Vaultwarden. I was lazy and had
             | used similar passwords for a lot of services. Passwords are
             | all long and unique now.
             | 
             | Now, even if Apple bans me, I can move my host within
             | minutes. I never lose access to my email domain. It's much
             | more professional and I can do catch-all. E.g.
             | netflix@[domain.com]. This way I can see who sells my email
             | address to spammers and block it.
        
             | akhilchaturvedi wrote:
             | Google Takeout :)
        
             | cadamsdotcom wrote:
             | I just migrated to Fastmail (on my domain), it's fantastic.
             | It works just like Gmail in every way I need, haven't
             | missed Gmail or Google Calendar one bit. It's clearly made
             | by people who know Gmail well and understand why it works
             | the way it does. I thought it'd be a huge migration but it
             | was actually boring. Search works, 20 years of emails just
             | magically migrated over. Spam detection is better. Couldn't
             | be happier!
             | 
             | Accidentally typed gmail.com the other day, it took 4
             | seconds to load (Fastmail is instant) and when it finished
             | loading there was an ad to try some paid Google service.
             | Felt like a flashback to an abusive ex.
        
           | rzerowan wrote:
           | There was a time back when we could get generic LoginWIth
           | OAUTH butons along with the social media roster , allowing
           | one to use whichever provider they wanted.
           | 
           | Current state of OIDC should be pretty much standard across
           | most providers - it put it that devs need too make the push
           | to support alt login providers for preventing vendor lockin
           | in identity like were currently barreling towards in
           | hardware/software.
        
           | bilalq wrote:
           | This has its own risk factors. If your domain renewal lapses
           | due to credit card expiry or something and you fail to
           | notice, it's catastrophic. This is just not realistic advice
           | for the average person.
        
             | cyberax wrote:
             | Not really? You just jump in and fix the domain name. You
             | have 75 days before a lapsed domain is released into
             | general availability.
             | 
             | Sure, you'll likely miss some emails, but otherwise it's
             | safe.
        
             | sowbug wrote:
             | You can usually purchase 10 years up front. But then you
             | should set a reminder for every 3 years or so to keep
             | topping up, or else you'll forget how to even sign into the
             | registrar.
             | 
             | You're right that having a vanity domain for your primary
             | email address isn't for the faint of heart. There isn't any
             | realistic advice for the average person because it's not
             | for the average person.
        
         | jijji wrote:
         | yeah exactly have you ever tried to call Google support? it
         | doesn't exist. the only way to contact Google is by posting
         | something on news.ycombinator.com and then hoping that some
         | person who works at that company actually responds to you and
         | logs in somewhere and then changes your access.
        
         | jauntywundrkind wrote:
         | It's not 100% clear to me, but supposedly it was just access to
         | Antigravity that was shut off.
         | 
         | If people lost access to their whole accounts that would be a
         | major crisis for Google users. But it doesn't seem that that
         | was actually the case.
         | 
         | This doesn't make it super clear, but, the submission from a
         | week ago when bans got handed out:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47115805
        
         | TacticalCoder wrote:
         | > The digital death sentence of losing access to your email
         | 
         | I agree that the digital death sentence is really bad and
         | doubly so seen that many are using single-sign on tied to their
         | Google identity but...
         | 
         | > with a company that notoriously has no way for the average
         | human to contact a human is not worth the risk
         | 
         | There's definitely phone support for paying Google Workspace
         | users: don't tell me there's not, my wife got Google support on
         | the phone more than once and they've been helpful.
         | 
         | And it's not a crazy expensive subscription either.
        
           | ithkuil wrote:
           | This remains a problem for the personal account though
           | (arguably what "primary account" meant in GP)
        
             | stavros wrote:
             | Can that account be upgraded to Workspace just to get the
             | support?
        
               | Hasnep wrote:
               | If you can't access your account to upgrade it then I
               | assume not
        
         | rootnod3 wrote:
         | Here's an idea: run your digital life away from a corporate
         | shitbucket like Google. Don't run your email there. Plenty of
         | good other options.
        
         | aprentic wrote:
         | That's a big part of why I switched to paid email.
         | 
         | I'm the customer, not the product.
        
         | baby_souffle wrote:
         | > Way too risky to use Google services like this tied to your
         | primary account
         | 
         | As a hedge, you can google.com/takeout on a monthly cadence.
         | 
         | At least a few years ago when raspberry pi nodes were cheap,
         | you could set up rClone to sync the `TAKEOUT` folder of your
         | gdrive account locally and then encrypt it and shove it into
         | backblaze. Then set up a monthly reminder to quickly request a
         | takeout and make sure that you choose the "deliver to google
         | drive" option.
        
         | joe_the_user wrote:
         | Using Gmail as your primary email has become a serious risk.
         | Email was once a distinct thing but Google tying it to your
         | everything-account makes gmail terrible.
        
         | wnevets wrote:
         | > Way too risky to use Google services like this tied to your
         | primary account.
         | 
         | I would also avoid using the same credit card between accounts.
         | I used a Venmo card for my chrome extension account as an extra
         | layer of separation.
        
       | fsalbrechter wrote:
       | Still no clarification if they block your whole Google account or
       | just Gemini?
        
         | Thorrez wrote:
         | Not the entire Google account.
         | 
         | > bans for Antigravity usage also blocked access to Gemini CLI
         | and Gemini Code Assist.
         | 
         | Disclosure: I work at Google, but not on anything related to
         | this.
        
       | RyanShook wrote:
       | What I don't understand about policy violations is why Google
       | never warns the user before banning. A simple alert or email
       | would reduce so much frustration on the part of users and so much
       | overhead for Google.
       | 
       | ToS change frequently and it's not really fair to assume the user
       | knows what is and is not correct use of tokens.
        
         | solfox wrote:
         | Not just Google. This seems to be the default for most tech
         | giants. I was banned on Facebook for an unknown reason, not
         | provided any explanation, and given zero recourse. Had to
         | resort to reaching out to a friend who worked there.
        
         | sheept wrote:
         | I think from their end, they see a lot more malicious users
         | (e.g. spam accounts) that it's not worth providing a gentle
         | warning before a ban. There might've been thousands more
         | accounts created for Chinese companies for distillation[0],
         | that Google didn't think of/weren't able to initially
         | distinguish genuine user accounts just using a third party tool
         | on their Antigravity token.
         | 
         | Like in a similar vein, Instagram sometimes randomly bans
         | genuine users without appeal, probably because they deal with
         | thousands more spam accounts that don't deserve a
         | warning/appeals process.
         | 
         | [0] Like as Anthropic reported:
         | https://www.anthropic.com/news/detecting-and-preventing-dist...
        
           | verdverm wrote:
           | This is where mechanisms like ZKP + CBA built from a
           | government ID will allow the company to distinguish, even
           | through third parties, all without exposing actual identity.
        
         | g947o wrote:
         | It is very easy to understand -- Google loses nothing by acting
         | this way. They despise these users (and users in general by not
         | providing any meaningful customer service), so it's natural
         | they just cut off access completely.
         | 
         | If you think about how people's entire Google accounts are
         | getting banned without apparently violating any terms without
         | the ability to talk to someone or appeal, this feels almost
         | nothing.
        
       | MiscIdeaMaker99 wrote:
       | I feel dumb. I've never heard of Antigravity until now.
        
         | gozzoo wrote:
         | Good for you :)
        
         | oofbey wrote:
         | Welcome to the singularity, now in progress. One of its
         | defining features is that things move too fast for people to
         | keep up.
        
           | pocksuppet wrote:
           | By this logic though JavaScript frameworks were the
           | singularity
        
             | oofbey wrote:
             | lol. True. I guess the difference is "things that matter to
             | technological progress" move too fast to keep up.
        
       | esskay wrote:
       | All this whole thing did is ensure I never, ever use any google
       | AI service. The fact that they didn't instantly comprehend what a
       | total account ban means when they've got people with 20+ years
       | worth of personal data in those accounts is incredibly
       | concerning.
        
         | squeaky-clean wrote:
         | But there were no total account bans. If you got banned from
         | antigravity you also got banned from the Gemini API.
        
           | notrealyme123 wrote:
           | Yes, but next time this might be different. Who knows, there
           | are no rules. You ask Gemini about creating a new search
           | engine which might compete with Google: is it fine? Is it a
           | permaban of all your Google services? Let's put it on red and
           | go for it!
        
             | DangitBobby wrote:
             | Right. The point is that the anxiety around total account
             | bans is realistic and has a historical basis.
        
       | narmiouh wrote:
       | I see a lot of comments in googles defense, part of me wonders
       | whats the split between google employees(even so people in teams
       | related to these products) and normies who ignore the true
       | underlying issue here...
       | 
       | Google consistently fails to provide a process to deal with user
       | issues. You donot see many reports of these at Amazon, Microsoft,
       | Apple, and many more providers. Though Meta learns from google I
       | think.
        
         | cube00 wrote:
         | Microsoft has a had a few high profile cases of locking people
         | out and taking their OneDrive with it with no ability to get
         | support.
        
           | TacticalCoder wrote:
           | > Microsoft has a had a few high profile cases of locking
           | people out and taking their OneDrive with it with no ability
           | to get support.
           | 
           | Yes but as we're talking about Microsoft, these cases are
           | probably explained by incompetence.
        
       | marcd35 wrote:
       | cool. now do something about the hundreds/thousands of people
       | getting rate limited on Antigravity even after upgrading their
       | plans, even on their $250 /month plan.
       | 
       | https://discuss.ai.google.dev/c/antigravity/64
        
       | sergiotapia wrote:
       | Complete risk to use google products like this with your real
       | account. My youtube is still banned over uploading two clips of
       | Dexter's Laboratory over 15 years ago.
       | 
       | Today I could have uploaded them fine, and let whoever owns the
       | cartoon make money I was just a fan of the show.
        
       | jijji wrote:
       | this is the long-standing problem with using Google services.
       | either they become deprecated and removed without notification,
       | or they outright ban you for using tools as intended. either way,
       | using Google tools for anything doesn't make business sense to
       | anybody who's seen the history of this.
        
       | writeslowly wrote:
       | It's interesting that with both Anthropic and Google we're seeing
       | them develop agentic models that are supposed to do anything a
       | human can do on computers without human intervention, but at the
       | same time, if you plug one program into another of their programs
       | or APIs in a way that wasn't preapproved you may be blocked or
       | banned.
       | 
       | To be charitable, maybe they're expecting AI agents to eventually
       | start reading the ToS docs
        
       | sidewndr46 wrote:
       | Why is this published on github.com? Is google somehow incapable
       | of making official announcements through their own web
       | properties?
        
       | gck1 wrote:
       | > Using third-party software, tools, or services to harvest or
       | piggyback on Gemini CLI's OAuth authentication to access our
       | backend services is a direct violation of Gemini CLI's applicable
       | terms and policies.
       | 
       | It's been 2 months since these bans have started, first
       | Anthropic, then Google. And their wording is still so confusing
       | that I can't get a simple answer to a simple question:
       | 
       | Is piggybacking on headless 'gemini-cli -p' or 'claude -p' a TOS
       | violation? Because there's really no reason why you can't do
       | exactly what these tools did that caused these two companies to
       | start giving out bans.
       | 
       | Unless you're in for a very specific configuration of models for
       | some niche concern, CLIs give you nearly exact same access to the
       | backend that snatching an OAuth token from them does. They give
       | you JSONL for stdin, JSONL for stdout, and if you spin up a local
       | proxy, you even get the same exact API contract in responses that
       | you get from public APIs.
       | 
       | In fact, I already built a small tool for myself that does
       | exactly that, to allow usage of alternative harnesses I prefer.
       | Once I release it to the public, will -p be banned too?
        
         | blainm wrote:
         | I think the issue is people are using tools in an automated
         | fashion and running up a compute bill for free when they were
         | only meant to be used by humans in a more limited capacity (for
         | companies to gather data on how to improve their products for
         | humans). I think the correct way to use these models in an
         | automated fashion is via the APIs and even then they might also
         | worry about things like abuse/distillation type attacks still
         | if the volume is too high. I think the lack of transparency
         | might actually be by design so that people abusing their
         | services don't figure out what triggers them losing their
         | accounts. I could be wrong of course, this is just speculation
         | on my part.
        
           | gck1 wrote:
           | > I think the issue is people are using tools in an automated
           | fashion
           | 
           | But that's the sole reason why all of the tools have headless
           | modes. Headless mode is textbook definition of supporting
           | automation.
           | 
           | From gemini docs: [1]
           | 
           | > Headless mode allows you to run Gemini CLI programmatically
           | from command line scripts and automation tools without any
           | interactive UI.
           | 
           | And claude code:
           | 
           | > Use the Agent SDK to run Claude Code programmatically from
           | the CLI, Python, or TypeScript
           | 
           | Why does headless mode exist if using it is a bannable
           | offense?
           | 
           | [1] https://google-gemini.github.io/gemini-
           | cli/docs/cli/headless...
           | 
           | [2] https://code.claude.com/docs/en/headless
        
             | szmarczak wrote:
             | Headless is fine as long as there's a human in the loop.
             | Remove the human, their bills skyrocket.
        
             | squeaky-clean wrote:
             | antigravity doesn't have a headless mode and is a separate
             | billing subscription from Gemini API.
        
               | gck1 wrote:
               | Anything you do with antigravity in this manner is
               | definitely a clear-cut TOS violation.
               | 
               | But my question is regarding gemini-cli where lines get
               | blurry.
        
         | NewsaHackO wrote:
         | Have you read the website?
         | https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/agent-sdk/overview
         | 
         | >Unless previously approved, Anthropic does not allow third
         | party developers to offer claude.ai login or rate limits for
         | their products, including agents built on the Claude Agent SDK.
         | Please use the API key authentication methods described in this
         | document instead.
         | 
         | Seems clear-cut to me.
        
           | gck1 wrote:
           | Yes, I have. And it's obvious that restriction was put there
           | for a reason. The most obvious possible reason is that
           | snatching OAuth made it possible for third party tools to
           | utilize subscription to the fullest - like OpenClaw.
           | 
           | But these tools, including openclaw, didn't have to snatch
           | the OAuth tokens, they could have used claude code built in
           | headless stdio and consequences for Anthropic would be
           | exactly the same. OAuth was just faster to plug in.
           | 
           | So if I open source my solution that allows opencode &
           | openclaw to go through claude cli's headless mode, is this
           | allowed? Is this a product that allows claude.ai login?
           | 
           | What if I open source a 1 line bash loop (e.g. ralph loop)
           | that does the same?
           | 
           | What if I build a more complex bash loop that goes through my
           | tasks in a text file, and calls claude cli for each?
           | 
           | I don't know at which point this becomes "offering claude.ai
           | login" or a "product", or "building agents".
           | 
           | Here's my product:
           | 
           | while :; do cat PROMPT.md | claude ; done
           | 
           | Am I blacklisted now?
        
             | NewsaHackO wrote:
             | Before I use time responding, I want to ask again: Did you
             | actually read the website, especially the "Compare the
             | Agent SDK to other Claude tools" section? It answers your
             | question pretty thoroughly.
        
               | gck1 wrote:
               | For the second time, yes. And it's still not clear at
               | what point does a wrapper around claude cli running in
               | headless mode become a 'product' that is going to get my
               | account banned.
               | 
               | My guess is, and others have said this as well in the
               | thread: "when you start utilizing your weekly quotas
               | fully".
               | 
               | But obviously, they can't put "you can't use your weekly
               | allocated quota fully". That would be way too honest and
               | we can't accept that.
        
               | NewsaHackO wrote:
               | No, the link clearly says that if you are not using the
               | harness provided by Claude for the Agent SDK (such as for
               | making tool calls), you have to use the Client SDK. So
               | attempting to prompt the Agent SDK with a third-party app
               | so that the third-party app can then call a tool with the
               | output is not allowed in the Agent SDK. You have to use
               | the Client SDK (API).It even gives an example in the
               | section I asked you to read, which is why I am seriously
               | doubting whether or not you read it.
        
               | gck1 wrote:
               | > the link clearly says that if you are not using the
               | harness provided by Claude for the Agent SDK (such as for
               | making tool calls), you have to use the Client SDK
               | 
               | But you just made this up? There's no text on the page
               | that says this. What the linked page does is explain
               | technical differences between Agent SDK and Client SDK,
               | and Agent SDK and cli (Agent SDK is just a wrapper around
               | cli anyway).
               | 
               | Neither tab says anything remotely like "if a third-party
               | app prompts the Agent SDK and uses the output for tool
               | calls, that's not allowed." You entirely fabricated this
               | from the comparisons.
               | 
               | And your assumption is wrong on another level. The Agent
               | SDK specifically exists so that you can write your own
               | harness and give it custom tools - that's its entire
               | purpose. It's even documented in their custom tools guide
               | [1]. So not only "using a third-party harness with the
               | Agent SDK" isn't forbidden, it's the product's primary
               | use case. There's no such thing as "harness provided by
               | claude for the agent SDK" - _you_ bring the harness.
               | 
               | The _only_ policy statement on that page is this:
               | 
               | > Unless previously approved, Anthropic does not allow
               | third party developers to offer claude.ai login or rate
               | limits for their products..
               | 
               | But I've already addressed this, so it seems we're going
               | in circles.
               | 
               | [1] https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/agent-sdk/custom-
               | tools
        
               | NewsaHackO wrote:
               | >And your assumption is wrong on another level. The Agent
               | SDK specifically exists so that you can write your own
               | harness and give it custom tools - that's its entire
               | purpose. It's even documented in their custom tools guide
               | [1].
               | 
               | Yea, you don't seem to even understand what you are
               | writing. This in no way contradicts any statement I or
               | Anthopic has said.
               | 
               | >Neither tab says anything remotely like "if a third-
               | party app prompts the Agent SDK and uses the output for
               | tool calls, that's not allowed." You entirely fabricated
               | this from the comparisons.
               | 
               | From: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/agent-
               | sdk/overview#agent...
               | 
               | >The Anthropic Client SDK gives you direct API access:
               | you send prompts and implement tool execution yourself.
               | The Agent SDK gives you Claude with built-in tool
               | execution.
               | 
               | >With the Client SDK, you implement a tool loop. With the
               | Agent SDK, Claude handles it:
               | 
               | Python                 # Client SDK: You implement the
               | tool loop       response = client.messages.create(...)
               | while response.stop_reason == "tool_use":
               | result = your_tool_executor(response.tool_use)
               | response = client.messages.create(tool_result=result,
               | \*params)            # Agent SDK: Claude handles tools
               | autonomously       async for message in query(prompt="Fix
               | the bug in auth.py"):           print(message)
               | 
               | At this point, it's clear that you either have
               | questionable reading comprehension skills, are being
               | willfully ignorant, or are arguing in bad faith because
               | it even says that tool calls outside of the Agent SDK
               | harness has to use the Client SDK as the comments to the
               | code used in the examples.
        
               | fc417fc802 wrote:
               | > At this point, it's clear that you either have
               | questionable reading comprehension skills, are being
               | willfully ignorant, or are arguing in bad faith
               | 
               | As an onlooker to this exchange, perhaps things aren't as
               | clear as you're making out. After reading what you wrote
               | I remain unclear. What precise actions with headless mode
               | risk getting me banned?
               | 
               | Is the idea that you are only ever permitted to feed the
               | Agent SDK human generated prompts? That so long as the
               | text you feed into it is 100% human generated you can use
               | your entire quota and won't be banned? To be clear, you
               | could take the output and make a tool call and present
               | that to a human, and the human could go on to make
               | further prompts, but feeding the result of the tool call
               | (which you presented to the human) back into the context
               | is forbidden? Am I on the right track here?
        
               | DangitBobby wrote:
               | Yeah I'm not getting what you're getting from the text
               | you're quoting. Probably should drop the insults until
               | it's actually clear you're correct.
        
             | szmarczak wrote:
             | They just want people to pay more via API. Technically,
             | your example would violate ToS, because the purpose
             | matters. Like a license file may allow personal use and
             | prohibit commercial use (unless you obtain a commercial
             | license).
        
               | simsla wrote:
               | Also because normal usage has predictable usage patterns,
               | which allows them to optimise and predict costs. Flat
               | rate pricing only makes sense in that regime.
        
       | ankit219 wrote:
       | this is good.
       | 
       | problem is google's security concerns. when people connect gmail
       | to openclaw, google flags the activity as weird and suspend the
       | account because of unusual activity. Many whose accounts got
       | locked because of this and they thought it was because they
       | connected it to antigravity use against the policy (which
       | happened in some cases). We will still see google account
       | suspensions, and that would keep making news. and it wont be
       | because of antigravity usage.
        
       | cat_plus_plus wrote:
       | The problem is that Google treats its customers as college kids
       | who can be banned from a college maker lab for using too much 3D
       | filament rather than entrepreneurs who are trusting their
       | livelyhood to a service provider that promises to be reliable. If
       | War Department uses too many Gemini tokens, do they cut them off,
       | make them go through recertification process and permaban the
       | next time around?
       | 
       | Which means that anyone serious about AI and not going local
       | route should be using a provider with better reputation. I don't
       | know if Alibaba, Z.ai or moonshots AI are also known for hair
       | trigger responses, could be decent options for coding AI
       | otherwise? If not, time to look for smaller providers with good
       | reputation?
        
       | hsaliak wrote:
       | The Gemini-CLI situation is poor. They did not communicate that
       | AI Pro or AI Ultra accounts cannot be used with this API broadly
       | earlier. I specifically remember searching for this info. Seeing
       | this made me wonder if I had missed it. Turns out it was added to
       | the TOS 2 days ago - diff https://github.com/google-
       | gemini/gemini-cli/pull/20488/chang.... I'd be happy to stand
       | corrected here.
       | 
       | Anti Gravity I understand, they are subsidizing to promote a
       | general IDE, but I dont understand constraining the generative AI
       | backend that Gemini CLI hits.
       | 
       | Finally, it's unclear what's allowed and what's not if I purchase
       | the API access from google cloud here
       | https://developers.google.com/gemini-code-assist/docs/overvi...
       | 
       | The Apache License of this product at this point is rich. Just
       | make it closed source and close the API reference. Why have it
       | out there?
        
         | tempest_ wrote:
         | I have a Code Assist Standard license to evaluate gemini-cli
         | (and the new models)
         | 
         | To this day I cannot coax the gemini-cli to allow me to use the
         | models they claim you have access to. Enabled all the preview
         | stuff in cloud etc etc.
         | 
         | Still I mostly get 2.5 and rarely get 3 or 3.1 offered.
         | 
         | The gemini-cli repo is a shit show.
         | 
         | I can seem to access the new models using opencode, but am 429
         | rate limited almost immediately such that its like 5 minutes
         | between calls.
        
           | hsaliak wrote:
           | It takes your query, computes the complexity of the request,
           | and tries to route it to the appropriate model. There is a
           | /manual command i think, to pick the right model.
           | 
           | They mask the 429s well in Gemini-Cli - if an endpoint is
           | rate limited, they try another, or route to another model,
           | etc to keep service availability up.
           | 
           | Your experience on the 429s is consistent with mine - the
           | 429s is the first thing they need to fix. Fix that and they
           | have a solid model at a good price point.
           | 
           | I use my own coding agent
           | (https://github.com/hsaliak/std_slop) and not being able to
           | bring my (now cancelled) AI account with Google to it is a
           | bummer.
           | 
           | I'd still use it with the Code Assist Standard license if the
           | google cloud API subscription allows for it but I have no
           | clarification.
        
             | tempest_ wrote:
             | > It takes your query, computes the complexity of the
             | request, and tries to route it to the appropriate model.
             | There is a /manual command i think, to pick the right
             | model.
             | 
             | That is what is should do, but there is no > 2.5 model
             | shown in /model and it always picks a 2.5 model. Ive
             | enabled preview models in the google cloud project as well.
             | 
             | If I pass the 3 model in start param it shows 3 in the
             | lower right corner but it is still using 2.5.
             | 
             | I know google has issues dealing with paying customers but
             | the current state is a shit show. If you go to the gemini-
             | cli repo its a deluge of issues and ai slop. It seems there
             | is a cadre of people jumping to be the first person to pump
             | an issue into claude and get some sort of PR clout.
             | 
             | It might be good but it needs more time to cook, or they
             | need to take a step back and evaluate what they should
             | consider a paid product.
        
       | TiredOfLife wrote:
       | Incompetence of Google is amazing. They take an existing thing
       | like Windsurf and somehow make it constantly coredump. And can't
       | fix it for months.
        
       | chaostheory wrote:
       | > to address violations of the Antigravity Terms of Service
       | (ToS), specifically the use of 3rd party tools or proxies to
       | access Antigravity resources and quotas
       | 
       | Translation: Google doesn't want you using Gemini oauth with
       | openclaw
        
       | zero0529 wrote:
       | I am sick and tired of companies forcing a shitty fork of vscode
       | down my throat. If I am paying let me use your api how I wish to.
       | Most people aren't malicious and just want to use their own
       | workflow.
        
       | wiskinator wrote:
       | Without the context of "Antigravity" being a product name this
       | headline is science fiction gold.
        
       | burgerone wrote:
       | https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli/discussions/2063...
       | 
       | This comment resonated with me in particular.
        
         | verdverm wrote:
         | thank you, I've been putting in work on /new
        
       | meling wrote:
       | What's my remedy when Google's product (Gemini 3.1 pro high)
       | makes a "grave" mistake? This is unrelated to the bans that's
       | been happening recently, but wanted to share ...
       | 
       | This morning I asked Gemini to "save" its output to a local file.
       | However it did more than that ... it committed the file (along
       | with several unrelated staged changes that was not ready to be
       | committed) and even pushed the changes to GitHub. I've never
       | asked any model to commit, let alone push... I'm not impressed;
       | actually a bit disappointed that it would do this without any
       | warning up front. This happened in Antigravity.
        
         | verdverm wrote:
         | Tool confirmation and controls, every LLM with any instructions
         | is susceptible to this "grave mistake", it's in the "nature"
         | 
         | Or just don't give it the keys, this is my strategy. Put them
         | in a box with specific tools and access.
         | 
         | See also The Lethal Trifecta
        
       | isaachinman wrote:
       | The deeper issue here isn't about Antigravity specifically. It's
       | that email is most people's de facto digital identity. Every
       | password reset, every 2FA recovery, every account verification
       | flows through it. When a company can revoke access to your email
       | over a ToS violation in a completely unrelated product, the
       | stakes are disproportionate.
       | 
       | The fix is surprisingly straightforward: own your domain, use a
       | provider that focuses on email, and keep your client separate
       | from your provider. Standard IMAP means all three pieces are
       | interchangeable. If one fails, swap it out.
       | 
       | (I work on Marco [0], an IMAP email client. The number of people
       | looking to decouple from Gmail/Google has been growing steadily,
       | definitely a current trend.)
       | 
       | [0] https://marcoapp.io
        
       | NamlchakKhandro wrote:
       | If i can't use PiMono with the service then the service is
       | effectively dead to market
        
       | sreekanth850 wrote:
       | Kindly fix update bug, everytime when i close it, app get un
       | installed.
        
       | Verdex wrote:
       | In my mind Google is the one AI provider which is more or less
       | guaranteed to make it past the next 2-5 years. Maybe anthropic
       | and openai can be profitable with current model. But they'll
       | never get to stop investing in next model while Google is there
       | with infinite money.
       | 
       | So either scaling stops hard here pretty soon so that spending
       | can stabilize or else the investors are going to be showing up
       | asking for several pounds of flesh.
       | 
       | Suddenly 'dont get left behind, this is the worst these models
       | will ever be' sounds a lot more like 'get locked in with a hyper
       | giant that'll destroy your livelihood and not notice'.
       | 
       | Although who knows, maybe local models will be a thing (however
       | when your dev team gets banned with no explanation and the next
       | milestone is coming up somehow I don't expect that transition to
       | go sufficiently quick).
        
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