Consumer 10.0: One day, she vanished from Google

Google's corporate credo may boil down to "Don't be evil." But for much of the last few weeks, Camden eco-activist Andrea Ferich has felt seriously wronged by the Silicon Valley icon she has come to rely on.

Ferich, 29, is a founder of the Center for Transformation, begun four years ago by members of Camden's Sacred Heart Catholic Church. She operates a greenhouse next to the church, sells heirloom seeds and seedlings started in the greenhouse, and teaches gardening classes to schoolchildren.

She also has a busy life online, via a blog that promotes the center and her belief in the value of living a healthy, sustainable life - even in economically stressed communities such as the Waterfront South neighborhood that is home to Sacred Heart.

It was that virtual life that suddenly lapsed into limbo in mid-March. On St. Patrick's Day, the day of a huge celebration and potato-planting party at the center, Ferich awoke to a nightmare peculiar to the Internet era: Almost her entire online existence - or at least the part linked to Google - seemed to have vanished.

Her Gmail account? Gone.

Her blog? No such site.

Even her YouTube channel was inaccessible. Though her videos were still viewable, Ferich couldn't log into the controls.

Worst of all was what happened next when she tried to reach Google to plead for help: nothing.

Navigating the phone tree at Google's toll-free number led to a recording that says, "Google does not offer live customer support at this time."

Following Google's online help system left her increasingly frustrated. The site repeatedly told her that Google was "unable to verify that you own this account."

Nor did the automated system respond well to her growing panic. After repeated rejections came this message: "Thank you for your report. For account security, we limit the number of requests that can be processed about the same account. Please wait a few days and try filling out the form again."

Waiting a few days might work for the casual e-mail user or blogger. But for Ferich, it was not an option.

Ferich uses her blog as an informal catalog for the seeds and rain barrels the center distributes. Via Gmail she takes orders, works grant proposals, and communicates with the world. She uses YouTube to disseminate her gardening curriculum. (Sample title: "Potato: Seed to Table.")

Ferich didn't know what to do except complain. Ever the activist, she even organized others to help - most notably via a Facebook group: "Help Andrea Get Her Blog Back."

But nothing worked - she couldn't even get an e-mail or phone call from Google acknowledging what to her was a growing disaster.

"Try for yourself," she wrote in an e-mail from a newly created account. "I am a tech-savvy person, and I have really really tech-savvy friends. Nobody has a clue. Really, Google??!!"

Ferich's frustrations even drove her to speculations that she realizes may be a little paranoid - for instance, that she'd been targeted by one of the companies she criticizes for making genetically modified seeds or high-fructose corn syrup, both of which she regards as threats to the world's health and well-being.

Then, 11 days after it vanished, Ferich's online identity was restored almost as mysteriously as it disappeared.

The first hopeful hints had appeared in a thread on a Google Support forum. Amid the many pleas from Ferich's supporters, somebody named "Gatsby" identified himself as a Google employee and offered help. A few days later, Gatsby posted again - complete with a smiley emoticon:

"This should all be resolved now. Thanks for your patience :-)," Gatsby wrote.

Befitting a Catholic activist during Holy Week, Ferich was grateful for her online resurrection. But her story raised some basic questions, so I contacted Google last week to ask why it had tried Ferich's patience so heavily.

The good news was that, unlike Ferich, I got a fairly quick response. The bad news: From Google's standpoint, the system worked as designed - a perspective that's a little more understandable when you consider Google's basic business model. More on that in a moment.

Google says Ferich's nightmare began because someone - apparently an intruder - had deleted the account. Moreover, it says the deletion occurred after its software had detected other "suspicious activity" in the account.

Google declined to be more specific, except to say that red flags can be raised by events such as a change in an account-holder's name, or a password change from a geographically unusual location.

"Google did not delete the account," says spokeswoman Victoria Katsarou. Instead, she says it behaved in properly guarded fashion after someone else deleted it and then Ferich tried to regain access - "an unusually difficult situation," Katsarou says. (Thankfully for Ferich, Google saves deleted-account data for 30 days.)

"We want to help people get their accounts back fast," Katsarou says. "On the other hand, it's a big security challenge, because we don't want to return the account to the wrong person."

To Ferich, that's all well and good - even if it again makes her wonder who might want her blog to disappear. But it begs the question: Why couldn't she reach someone from Google right away, verify her identity, and get things straightened out?

The answer to that is Google's business model. With millions of bloggers and hundreds of millions of Gmail subscribers, Google says its best option is to rely on FAQs and automated responses to deal with problems.

Even sometime Google critics, such as Silicon Valley analyst Derek Kerton, don't dispute the basic math.

"If you've got a business model like theirs that earns pennies per customer, you've got to make sure you don't spend dollars," he says.

But Kerton says Google has been slow to address some of the outliers - including advertising customers who don't spend enough to merit special phone support, or consumers who bought Google's new Nexus One smartphone.

For the rest of us, here's the basic bargain from Google, which last year made a profit of $6.5 billion on $23.7 billion in revenue, mostly from ad sales:

Google offers a host of great online services, starting with its search engine, and it gives them away for free.

But if something goes wrong, don't expect swift, personal attention.

It's not evil, just economics. In essence, you get what you pay for.