Google's New 'Inactive Account' Policy Won't Delete Years of YouTube Videos

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google's new inactive account policy already has people up in arms. The company announced on Tuesday that accounts that have gone unused for two years will be deleted, and a lot of people are asking what exactly this means for YouTube content. There are probably millions of videos out there from dead and inactive YouTube creators -- would Google's new data policy mean deleting nearly two decades of online history?

A day later, Google now says there will be no digital burning of Alexandria. YouTube's creator liaison, Rene Ritchie, clarified on Twitter that Google has 'no plans to delete accounts with YT videos.' 9to5Google heard the same statement from a Google spokesperson.

That is great news, but that's also very vague and runs contrary to what all of Google's current documentation says, including the blog post. Can people keep a Google account alive forever with a single video? It seems like the company is still figuring this out. 'It doesn't make sense to delete old YouTube content,' adds Ars' Ron Amadeo. 'While inactive data for things like Gmail and Google Photos are nothing but a money pit, YouTube content is available to the public, and Google runs ads on those videos, so those videos make money. If there's no creator to share revenue with, that's even better! Culling old videos would not just damage YouTube as a platform, it would also hurt Google's bottom line.'

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