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The world’s largest search engine, Google, your Gmail email address, and the video-sharing site YouTube, which is also owned by Google, became unavailable in about two hours to millions of users around the world. The cause of the accident is unclear, but according to DownDetector, most of those affected are in Western Europe and especially in the UK.
In Bulgaria, the problem lasted about an hour, and in Western Europe, Google services were not available for a long time.
There are also problems accessing other Google services, such as Google Drive and Google Classroom. The latter can complicate the online learning process, as many schools in Bulgaria use this app to teach, not Zoom.
According to students in Varna, Google’s “classrooms” stopped working at the end of the school day.
There are also many complaints about losing access to data uploaded to the Google Drive cloud. The information stored and uploaded there turns out to be inaccessible to many who have chosen to store it outside of their computer.
Fewer users complain of problems with Google Maps. This can create havoc in transportation because the navigation app is used by both large logistics companies and many drivers.
There are also problems for advertisers, as well as for almost every industry that uses Google services.
The collapse of Google services can also have political and social consequences, as many people get their information from the search engine.
Today, the collapse of Google and YouTube has similar effects to data blackouts.
Users also report problems with the Discord chat and communication app.
In the Balkans, most reports of problems come from Romania and the capital, Bucharest.
In Bulgaria, some users have access to the search engine. Gmail and YouTube were temporarily unavailable. Native users report that Google is working, but with an atypical lag.
Google has not commented on the reasons for the block. Ironically, one of the reasons for this is that search engine employees’ Gmail accounts are down and unable to respond to media inquiries. However, the search engine indicates that they are working on the problem.
The problem appears to be with the part of the Google service that processes user accounts and their information. YouTube is available in incognito mode in a browser.compatible with a function like Google Chrome.
All of this begs the question how secure user data is and how it is used.
