Inactive Google accounts to be deleted from Friday

Old Google accounts that have not been used for a couple of years could soon be deleted.

Google is going to be getting rid of them, starting from Friday, under its inactive account policy.

The company said it would take a phased approach, starting with accounts that “were created and never used again”.

Simply signing into an account or sending an email should be enough to keep it active.

Google said the change was because of security reasons, highlighting that forgotten and unused accounts are more likely to be compromised.

A Google account gives users access to most Google products, such as email service Gmail and video sharing site YouTube, using the same username and password.

In a blog post in May, the tech giant said the reason old accounts are more vulnerable is because they tend to rely on old or re-used passwords and largely have not had two-factor authentication set up.

Once an account has been abused, it can be used for anything from identity theft to malicious content and spam.

Read more via BBC/CNN