This is a public service announcement to never ever use Oracle

Erik Uden 🍑

Moving these servers, despite having no long term impact like data loss, will have some financial impact. Don't feel forced to, your vocal support about this issue was more than enough to turn my evening from a bad to a wonderful one, however if you have the financial resources I'd be happy about a little support:

Erik Uden 🍑 (@[email protected])

It's the beginning of the month again and that means new bills for the servers (*which we now have to partially move due to Oracle*)! We have [various expenses](https://mastodon.de/@MastodonDE/110811119053549314) and moderation work unfortunately takes up a lot of time, which is why we would be very happy about a little support! :boost_requested: - :liberapay: [LiberaPay](https://liberapay.com/MastodonDE) - :paypal: [PayPal](https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=7CZ4CXZ2L32R8) - :kofi: [Ko-Fi](https://ko-fi.com/MastodonDE) - :patreon: [Patreon](https://patreon.com/MastodonDE) Our services will always remain free, but support so that the whole thing can run in the long term and finance itself is welcome :blobcatmeltlove: For a [longer explanation of the costs and other donation options, look here](https://mastodon.de/@MastodonDE/110811119053549314)!

MastodonDE (mastodon.de)

Where will this money go to ;)?

Nick 🇨🇦 V13.9XXA Candidate

@ErikUden
Holy Cr@p.
The thread is scary.
I hope Larry's sailboats sink.

maybeanerd

@ErikUden hetzner all the way!

Laxystem

@ErikUden @chbmeyer there are millions of Oracle users

The chance it happened to you after posting about oracle, without a massive amount of accidentally deleted accounts, is very small.

Erik Uden 🍑

This morning, on February 2nd 2025 at 06:58 (GMT+1) I've received an E-Mail by Oracle stating “Your Oracle Cloud account has been reactivated.”

I couldn't believe my eyes and didn't really understand how to respond. At the point in time where I received this E-mail, my post regarding Oracle's mistreatment has already gathered thousands of shares and was also discussed heavily on Hacker News among other platforms.

My many pleas and requests from the past week didn't do anything. My GDPR request didn't do anything so far. But within a few hours of public complaints and so many people telling me to take this to court... I guess this was simply the easiest way.

I still don't fully understand the E-Mail I've gotten. It talks about an order about universal credits that occurred at 5:20 AM, where I've been cold asleep. When I login to Oracle Cloud, no such credits exist. Additionally, they don't show up when I look into the “Cost and Usage Reports” under my account management. Even more interesting are the dozens of files showing an account and server activity, with the calculated cost of it all, for a time period where my account was supposedly irreversibly deleted.

I'll share more interesting findings soon. I am honestly just shocked about this development. I would've expected many things except for a 180.

Erik Uden 🍑

How are there Cost and Usage Reports for a time period where my account didn't exist?

Erik Uden 🍑

I wish my main and inspiring takeaway here would be that we can fight them and win.

However, I was in no control here. The fact this resonated with a lot of people causing an internet wide uproar was nice, but Oracle's legal time could've decided to not care.

Are they taking the wind out of our sails by reinstating my account? Is this their way of admitting and undoing an honest mistake? Would this have happened if I never complained publicly about it, or was my private GDPR request what did the magic here?

I cannot tell you. All I can say is that your account and all your data still exists on Oracle's servers even over a week after your account has been “irreversibly” wiped. Keep that in mind the next time support tells you there's nothing they can do.

Andy Piper

@ErikUden

Erik Uden 🍑

One week of support calls:

“We cannot provide more details or reactivate your account.”
“There is no way to recover your account.”
“There is no team to which to escalate this.”

12 hours and 39 minutes after a public meltdown regarding their arbitrary deletion and their indifferent, uncooperative sentiment towards that

“Your Oracle Cloud account has been reactivated.”

I also dislike the passiveness in that statement. You reactivated it. Doesn't matter if it was an automated system or a human, you did that. It wasn't magically reactivated by some third party, it was you.

Erik Uden 🍑

What I'm about to say is obviously just speculation, but if it was some terms of service I was violating, or their system goofing up and believing I was a free tier account and hence them stopping everything as they needed to make space for a paid service, wouldn't my server shut down first and my account be deleted second?

If there was some problematic material found to be stored on my server, or if I was illegally running a mail-server, TOR exit node, crypto miner, illegal streaming site, or something else that was violating the TOS, wouldn't the server be the first thing they irreversibly nuke?

The server was apparently constantly running, even when my account was terminated. Its IP address and any public access (ingress, egress rules) were removed or blocked.

The current uptime is 17 days. This makes everything all the more confusing...

Daniela Abade :wecan: :Ryyca:

@ErikUden I suffered exactly the same thing with Hetzner. They simply deleted Ursal.zone account. Thankfully we had backups. But they never said why, never sent a warning mail and never gave my data back.

Alexandre Oliva

ORACLE is a recursive acronym that stands for:

Oracle's Really Assholey Cloud-Lording Environment