Google is silently linking your phone number across all signed-in accounts

Commenters reacted to reports that Google links phone numbers across signed‑in accounts by warning about privacy and account‑separation erosion. maxo133 argued Google has become aggressively anti‑privacy, citing QR scans, reverse SMS, VPN detection and Gemini failures as pressure to reveal real identities. plorg, barrkel and jamiesonbecker described unexpected linking or differing observations about which accounts picked up SIMs, while anygivnthursday and hoppyhoppy2 said they received emails or device notifications and were able to delete numbers. nullc and rdtsc warned this undermines security practices because forgotten recovery paths can be abused, exabrial noted corporate policies forbid linking personal numbers to work accounts, and burningChrome and PerilousD described carrying separate phones or switching to GrapheneOS to maintain separation.

Opinion split over motive and acceptability. ninininino and ProblemExplorer framed the behavior as a regulatory and anti‑fraud response that trades privacy for safety, and chneu called it convenience over privacy; others like Scaled and Havoc called it surveillance and an outrageous invasion. Some suggested remedies: toomuchtodo recommended reporting to state privacy or attorney general offices, while jabroni_salad and rdtsc warned Google de‑duplicates people across services and can ban users broadly. The debate centers on whether cross‑account linking is an unavoidable anti‑fraud necessity or an unacceptable expansion of ad‑tech surveillance.