Google will not delete inactive YouTube accounts, the tech giant has confirmed, amid concerns that a change in policy could lead to the deletion of much of large parts of YouTube’s music archives.
Google had recently released a statement which said that any accounts inactive for more than two years would be permanently deleted, leading many to believe that accounts responsible for uploading out-of-press and rare music to the platform could be lost, and their uploads with them. Commenting to Rolling Stone, however, a company representative has said the update in policy will not include the deletion of accounts with YouTube videos.
The new Google policy was announced on Tuesday (May 16), and will only effect personal accounts rather than those belonging to companies. The company said the change in policy will help them to reduce the possibility of dormant accounts being hacked and used for spamm activity. Dormant accounts are considered to be those that haven’t been signed into for at least two years, with the policy said to come into place at the end of 2023.
