So, I’m one of the many that used the GCP Gemini API to test Openclaw, only to have my entire account frozen within 12hrs. This freeze occurred March 31, 2026 and has still not been reopened. This post is actually NOT about Google’s TOS, I clearly broke them and accept responsibility. This is about a their reaction to TOS being broken with a 100% full account freeze, slow reaction and sense of urgency, and due to the account freeze, the redundancy of keeping any backups on the platform. It’s been eye opening.
Background: I’m newer to GCP and from a smaller organization, I recently got budget to setup a ETL on BQ and create a dashboard for the marketing deparment. We utilized paid Support Package, GCS, BQ, Cloud Functions and GCPs proprietary database backup and git tools. All stakeholders loved the service, we instantly began exploring what other processes we can put on GCP, for example, our research department, apps, etc. We were discussing how to go 100% GCP.
All this came to a head when I decided to see what the fuss was about Openclaw. I setup a project on the main account and installed OC on a VPS and connected the GCP Gemini API. After about 2 hours of testing, I thought “Meh, this is interesting, but not for me, I’ll delete this tomorrow morning.” The entire account was frozen by then - this includes all projects. ZERO WARNINGS, no API throttle, No API freeze, No project freeze - straight to full account freeze.
I briefed the team. Apart from immediate things like, why didn’t I just setup a new account and why didn’t I do more research - all things I take full accountability for - another insight came to light that I want EVERYONE to be aware of. That is Google’s reaction with a full account freeze and lack of urgency and support. We have a paid service plan where they said they can’t do anything and must wait for the appeals process.
This has frozen 100% of business on the GCP account. Imagine we had onboarded all of the organizations processes? The entire org would have come to a standstill, now 6 days and counting.
Insight: Again, this post is less about Openclaw and TOS and more about “All eggs in one basket”, Google’s excessive reaction and poor support. Now my org has gone from 100% in on GCP to “how can we minimize exposure to any single platform” just in case someone or an agent breaks TOS or whatever and Google decides to freeze the account for some undetermined amount of time. Another insight is because we used GCPs backup tools, those were also locked with zero access. 100% of backup tools were made redundant by the freeze.
Sorry for the long post, I just don’t want anyone else to suffer like we are!
I’ll ensure to keep the thread updated once this is resolved or not.