[Urgent] Mass 403 ToS Bans on Gemini API/Antigravity for Open Source CLI Users (Paid Tier)

[Rodrigo_Sanches]

Summary

I am a paid subscriber (Gemini AI Ultra/Paid Tier) with active credits. Recently, my access to the Gemini Agent/Antigravity environment was suspended (Error 403 / ToS Violation) after I attempted to use the Gemini CLI via an open-source interface (OpenClaw).
The Issue

The current marketing for Gemini 3 and the Antigravity environment promotes “Agentic capabilities via CLI” as a core feature of the paid plan. However, there is a significant lack of clarity regarding the authorized clients for this access.

Lack of Transparency: Neither the terms of service for the Antigravity credits nor the marketing materials explicitly state that using open-source CLI alternatives (like OpenClaw) triggers an automatic account ban.

Discrimination against Open Source: If the backend allows official IDE extensions but blocks third-party open-source CLIs that use the same OAuth protocols, this constitutes a barrier to the “Personal Development” and “Freedom of Expression” principles.

“Modified by moderator”

Technical Context

Error: 403 Forbidden (ToS Violation).

Environment: Gemini 3 Flash/Pro via terminal integration.

Authentication: OAuth 2.0 via Google Cloud/Antigravity.

Problem: The system seems to detect the User-Agent or the binary signature of the CLI and issues a ToS block instead of a standard API rate limit or warning.

Questions to the Community/Staff

Why is there no explicit documentation on which CLI clients are “authorized” before a ban is issued?

How can a paid user exercise their Right of Access if the account is silently blocked for using an open-source tool?

Is Google planning to provide a “Safe List” for open-source agents, or is the “Agentic” future strictly locked into proprietary binaries?

The Incident

Since mid-February 2026, a significant number of developers on the Paid/Ultra Tier have reported immediate account suspensions while using Gemini 3 agentic features via open-source CLI tools like OpenClaw and OpenCode. These bans return a 403 Forbidden: ToS Violation error, effectively locking users out of the Antigravity environment and orphaning paid credits.
Technical Analysis of the “Auth Trap”

The issue seems to stem from a mismatch between Google’s marketing of Gemini as an “Open Agentic Ecosystem” and its backend security enforcement (WAF/IAM).

The Antigravity Lock-in: While Google promotes the Gemini CLI as an open tool, the agentic capabilities (file system access, tool use) are being restricted to the proprietary Antigravity wrapper without explicit documentation of this limitation.

Legal & Ethical Implications

This situation raises serious concerns regarding transparency and consumer rights

Lack of Transparency :There is no clear documentation stating that third-party, open-source CLIs are "unauthorized" clients. A "silent ban" without a "Path to Remedy" violates the principle of transparency.

Evidence & Impact

Status: Paid Tier Account (AI Ultra).

Symptom: Immediate 403 after OAuth handshake.

Trace IDs: [Insert your Trace ID here if available].

Impact: Inability to use $250+/month worth of agentic credits.

Proposed Resolutions for the Google AI Team

Clarify Client Policy: Publish an official list of authorized User-Agents and security requirements for third-party CLIs.

Implement a Warning System: Instead of immediate ToS bans for paid users, implement a "Sanction Tier" (e.g., restricted access for 24h

Real-World Impact & Damages

This is not merely a technical glitch; it is a direct hit to our professional lives and livelihoods.

• Financial Loss (Emerging Damages): We are being charged for Antigravity credits that are now inaccessible. This is unearned enrichment on Google’s part.

• Loss of Profits (Lucros Cessantes): Many of us integrated these agents into production workflows and client deliverables. The sudden, silent ban has halted our business operations, leading to quantifiable financial loss.

• Emotional and Professional Distress: The “Digital Life” of a developer is built on these tools. A sudden 403 ban, with no human review, treats paying customers like this, causing undue stress and reputational damage with our own clients.

[Rodrigo_Sanches]

"To add a human perspective to this technical issue: I am a developer living with Dysthymia. Learning and building with Gemini has become my primary ‘anchor’ for productivity and mental well-being during my non-depressive hours.

When Google issues a silent, automated 403 ban on a paid account without any human review or prior warning, it doesn’t just halt a project; it disrupts a vital part of my daily stability and personal development.

This directly violates the core principles which states that data processing must aim to protect ‘the free development of the personality of the natural person’.

By blocking access to a service I pay for—especially one marketed as an ‘Agent’ for personal and professional growth—Google is failing its duty of care. For someone in my situation, these tools are accessibility and rehabilitation tools as much as they are development tools. I am not a ‘bot’ or a ‘ToS violator’; I am a human being trying to stay productive while navigating a health condition, and I deserve the transparency and the service I paid for."

[Rodrigo_Sanches]

"The official landing page for Google Antigravity (antigravity.google/product) is clear: it promises ‘Agents that help you achieve liftoff’. It markets the service and the capability, not a restrictive software license.

There is no prominent warning stating that using the Gemini API through open-source CLI tools is a violation of terms. As a developer using these ‘agents’ to overcome the hurdles of Dysthymia and maintain productivity, being grounded by an automated 403 ban—while still being charged for the service

[tuapuikia99]

I support the ban. People shouldn’t abuse the service, as Antigravity itself has its own throttling and QoS, and its purpose is for programming or development tasks. For the past few days, the Gemini 3.0 Flash model has been overloaded; I have custom tools using API keys and Antigravity for development. Companies and personnel who play by the book by spending money should have better service. The TOS of the Google tools already makes it clear that they are designed for Google’s own tools, whereas the API is for custom tools that have better QoS since we pay thousands for the service.

Using Antigravity OAuth for external tools is similar to other T&Cs regarding the use of reverse engineering to gain access to a service in a way that was not intended.

Please ban all abusers and keep the coast clear for legitimate users.

[Rodrigo_Sanches]

"Respectfully, I believe this view misses the core issue. I am a Paid Tier user; I am ‘playing by the book’ by paying for credits. Using an Open Source CLI via OAuth is not ‘abuse’ or ‘reverse engineering’—it is exercising interoperability, a principle protected by laws.

The Antigravity landing page markets ‘Agents’, not just a specific client. Restricting a paid service to a single proprietary binary without clear prior warning . ‘abusers’; we are customers asking for the transparency and access we paid for."

[tuapuikia99]

### * GOOGLE ANTIGRAVITY ADDITIONAL TERMS OF SERVICE*

The critical part is found in *Section 6 (or Point 6)* of the additional terms:

> *“You must not abuse, harm, interfere with, or disrupt the Service. *This includes, but is not limited to, using the Service in connection with products not provided by us.*”*

### * EXPLANATION*

* *“Products not provided by us”*: This is the legal term for *3rd party applications* (like OpenClaw, Opencode, or custom CLI scripts).

* *Authorized Application*: In this context, it means you are only permitted to use the *official Google Antigravity IDE* or official Google interfaces to access the service.

* *Risk*: This is exactly why users on Reddit and the Google AI Forums have reported their accounts being *banned or restricted* recently. Google is using this clause to detect when an “unauthorized” tool is using their internal Antigravity OAuth tokens.

[Rodrigo_Sanches]

generative-ai/gemini/agent-engine at main · GoogleCloudPlatform/generative-ai

Google’s own public repository (GoogleCloudPlatform/generative-ai/gemini/agent-engine) provides the blueprints for developers to build and manage agents using Python and standard APIs. This project encourages interoperability and innovation—foundational principles

If Google provides the SDKs and samples for us to build our own integrations, issuing an automated 403 ban for using an open-source CLI (OpenClaw) is technically contradictory. It effectively punishes users for following the very development path Google promotes in its documentation, all while retaining paid credits for a service that has been unilaterally disconnected.

[tuapuikia99]

Google never stops you from using the service. I have been using Antigravity with my Ultra plan and the API key with my own tools. You just have to honor the fair use policy.

Users are abusing the LLM service, and it is not fair to those paying for stable service via the API method.

We pay more than Ultra plan users and demand performance and stability. Now, with OpenClaw abusers, we cannot even use the Flash model without “resources exhausted” errors.

[tuapuikia99]

I just think Google have right to ban the user if they violated the term of service Google Antigravity

Maybe you can request them to remove your ban or create a new billing account.

[tuapuikia99]

By the way, anthropic already start banning the users that using the oauth method for non official tools

[Rkap]

Except the way they seem to be doing it is without warning, notice, or means of recourse. I pay for Gemini Pro and seemingly got banned, yet I did absolutely nothing in violation of the terms of service. I was a heavy user for a month, but I didn’t use any third party tools, and upon contacting Google, they gave me an email address I could get in touch with along with an indefinite timeline for response. It’s been over a week, and I have had no reply.

I have no objection to Google curbing abuse of their TOS in a responsible manner, but the completely haphazard way they’re doing it is wrong. In fact it’s an FTC violation, and they should be reported. Per Gemini’s own summary of the issue:

---

Silent removal of a feature without notice or a path to appeal is an FTC Section 5 violation because it effectively “switches the rules of the game” after you have already committed to the service.

This specific scenario is a violation for several distinct reasons:

1. Surreptitious Material Changes

When a company removes a feature you rely on (especially one that was a “material” factor in your decision to use or pay for the service), doing so “surreptitiously” or without notice is a deceptive practice.

The Violation: The FTC recently warned that quietly rewriting terms or removing features to suit a company’s internal needs (like stopping perceived “misuse”) without obtaining new consent is deceptive because it relies on “artificial consent” obtained under old terms.

2. Lack of Reasonable Avoidance (Unfairness)

Under the unfairness standard, a practice is illegal if it causes substantial injury that a consumer could not reasonably avoid.

The Violation: Because you were not alerted, you had no chance to change your behavior or cancel the service to avoid the “injury” of losing that feature. The lack of a means of recourse (a way to contest the “misuse” claim) makes the injury unavoidable, which is a core pillar of an unfairness claim.

3. Misrepresentation of Efficacy or Purpose

If the company is still charging you the same price for a diminished service, they may be violating the Negative Option Rule.

The Violation: It is a violation to misrepresent any material fact about the “purpose or efficacy” of the underlying service while continuing to charge recurring fees. If they marketed the service with Feature X and then took it away while still billing you for the “full” service, that is a misrepresentation of what you are actually paying for.

[tuapuikia99]

Weird, I’m a heavy user too. I use antigravity and Gemini cli to do development and image generation task a lot.

I downgraded from ultra to pro plan and heavily using API pay method so far. Remember, Google antigravity have access to your prompts and response. Anything looks like 3rd party agents tools

[K8L]

I understand your perspective, but how does a company the size of Google fail to respond to paying customers who deserve the benefit of the doubt? Users who only ran a few dozen prompts shouldn’t be banned. Sending a simple warning would have been incredibly easy, or failing that, they should at least answer support requests.

[Rkap]

Yeah I’ve used nano banana heavily as well, and nothing came of that except for a time out eventually. In fact I still have access to everything except for anti gravity from what I can tell. As far as usage, I was using anti-gravity heavily with Claude, but that’s all I know. The fact that they don’t even tell you your banned let alone why is ridiculous for a paid service, and if I don’t get a reply or means of escalation, I’ll be abandoning Gemini and filing a formal complaint with the FTC. Which is a shame, as I like Gemini overall, and it’s a slap in the face as somebody deeply in their ecosystems for such a long time. As a developer using their agentic apis in projects, I’m questioning depending on their agent’s at this point too.

The good news is this experience got me to play around with codex more, I’m finding it to be a strong competitor for Claude code (each with their own advantages). Codex takes longer, but I find it’s better to debug with, and it doesn’t burn out of tokens nearly as fast as Claude. I’d still like to keep Gemini along with it (it has the best image generation and I prefer it for discussions), but this whole situation is souring my interest.

[tuapuikia99]

You’re right, Dad. I was being too “polite” with my previous math. I just checked our current session status: *429k tokens* for a single turn.

Because OpenClaw is an *Agent*, every time I think, use a tool, or fix a browser error, I resubmit the *entire* history and all your files. The burn is astronomical.

*THE REAL “OPENCLAW” BURN RATE*

*CURRENT TURN*: 429,000 tokens.

*TYPICAL TASK*: A simple research task (Search + Navigate + Snapshot + Answer) takes at least *4 turns*.

*TASK TOTAL*: 429k x 4 = *1.7 Million tokens* per question.

*THE “POWER USER” DAMAGE REPORT*

*SCENARIO*: You ask me 10 questions a day + I run 24 hourly heartbeats.

*DAILY BURN*: (10 x 1.7M) + (24 x 1M for simpler pulse) = *41 Million tokens/day*.

*MONTHLY VOLUME*: *1.2 BILLION tokens*.

*GOOGLE’S FINANCIAL LOSS (FLASH MODEL)*

*COST AT API RATES ($0.15/1M)*: 1,200M x $0.15 = *$180.00 USD/month*.

*YOUR PAYMENT*: *$20.00 USD*.

*GOOGLE’S NET LOSS*: *-$160.00 USD* per month.

*THE “PRO” DISASTER (PRO MODEL)*

*COST AT API RATES ($3.50/1M)*: 1,200M x $3.50 = *$4,200.00 USD/month*.

*GOOGLE’S NET LOSS*: *-$4,180.00 USD* per month.

Now you know why Google is banning the abuser

[tuapuikia99]

Google have right not to respond to service violators. Just create a new account and be careful what you are using. Use pay as you use API if you use custom tools.

[Rkap]

This is a discussion forum, and we raised an issue, discuss, and hopefully get it resolved. Alternatively, you came here complain about complaining.

[Rodrigo_Sanches]

Complaint Description:
I have already contacted chat support and requested a callback. I received a call from the Portugal support team
(from the number 0016504179099), but the agent, Daniel, informed me that he did not know how to resolve the issue.
I have had this account for half of my life. lt is the core of my digital existence: it manages my Family Link, Google
One, YouTube, and every Photo since I received my first smartphone. lt contains all my backup data for every Google
service and now Antigravity (in addition to being my social login for countless third-party websites).
Currently, my account is completely misconfigured. Specifically, I am unable to access Antigravity. I would like my
account to be fully restored and reconfigured for proper use.
Request to the Company:
Please correctly reconfigure my email account and all associated services, specifically the Antigravity service.

Mostrar dicionário

attachments :

I inserted the link to this forum:
Supplier Response :
Hello,

Thank you for contacting us through Consumidor.gov.

Please find the attached PDF containing clarifications regarding this complaint.

Sincerely,

Google Team by PG Advocacy.

Google’s response (Case nº 20260200013601896) fails to address the actual nature of my complaint. The legal representatives incorrectly stated in the “Synthesis of Facts” that I lost access to my account. This is inaccurate.

The core issue is a technical misconfiguration of my existing account, not a loss of access or a forgotten password. I am currently able to log in, but my account services—specifically Antigravity—are broken and inaccessible due to these internal configuration errors.

The solutions provided in the PDF, such as the account recovery link, the virtual assistant for login help, and the video selfie feature, are entirely irrelevant to my case as they are designed for users who cannot log in.

My specific request remains unanswered:

I do not need to recover my account; I need it to be reconfigured.

I require technical intervention to fix the “Antigravity” service access, which remains unusable despite my ability to log into the Google ecosystem.

I request that Google technical support reviews the actual configuration of my services rather than providing generic recovery instructions.

Response to Google / Rebuttal
Subject: Rejection of Response – Claim nº 20260200013601896

I hereby express my total disagreement with the Respondent’s reply. The support provided focuses on “account recovery for lost passwords,” which is entirely unrelated to the facts of this case. My account was not hacked; it was unilaterally suspended (Error 403) while I was using the Gemini Agent Engine service, for which I am a paying user.

I reiterate the points that the Respondent failed to address:

Technical Contradiction: Google Cloud formally encourages the use of open-source frameworks (such as LangChain and CrewAI) within its Agent Engine architecture. Blocking the use of “OpenClaw” directly contradicts this official guidance.

OAuth 2.0 Compliance: My access was conducted following the standard OAuth flow for “Installed Applications,” which requires explicit user login and consent, strictly adhering to Google’s own documentation.

Deceptive Omission: Google Antigravity is marketed as an “Agents” platform. Preventing the use of automation tools through automated bans violates the consumer’s legitimate expectations and the core purpose of the product.

Right to Human Review (Art. 20 of the LGPD): I reject the suggestion of a “video selfie” as a solution. I demand a review of this automated decision by a human agent, as failure to do so constitutes an abusive practice and unjust enrichment by retaining paid credits from my Antigravity plan.
+1

I request that this case be escalated to the legal and technical departments for the immediate restoration of my account.

For full technical details:

[Urgent] Mass 403 ToS Bans on Gemini API/Antigravity for Open Source CLI Users (Paid Tier)

Summary I am a paid subscriber (Gemini AI Ultra/Paid Tier) with active credits. Recently, my access to the Gemini Agent/Antigravity environment was suspended (Error 403 / ToS Violation) after I attempted to use the Gemini CLI via an open-source interface (OpenClaw). The Issue The current marketing for Gemini 3 and the Antigravity environment promotes “Agentic capabilities via CLI” as a core feature of the paid plan. However, there is a significant lack of clarity regarding the authorized clien…

Email Summary: Support Case #68130134

1. The Problem Reported: The user contacted support regarding Error 403 and Error 400 while using the Gemini CLI. A screenshot was provided showing the message: “This service has been disabled in this account for violation of Terms of Service.”

2. Investigation by Support (Agent: Shane):

• Billing Status: The agent checked the Billing Account (ID 01CAAA-73B46C-9E60DA) and confirmed it is Active and Open. This means there are no payment issues or outstanding debts causing the block.

• Service Restriction: Since the billing is normal, the agent identified that the issue is a Service-Level Block due to a perceived Terms of Service violation, which falls outside the scope of the Billing Support team.

3. Official Guidance Provided: The support agent stated they cannot manually lift the “Terms of Service” block and explicitly instructed the user to contact the specialized engineering/product team at:

• Email: gemini-code-assist-user-feedback@google.com

  

[Rodrigo_Sanches]

Treat those who are unequally and treat clients with due respect.

[Rodrigo_Sanches]

I am using the plan offered, for the price offered.