I hate Google as much as the next guy - well, probably a lot more than the next guy actually - but here I’m siding with them for a change.

They require payment for a feature (your phone number: it is monetizable private data to them and that’s your payment) and you tried to get the feature without paying. And you failed.

The story here is that AI is frighteningly accurate when detecting embedded screenshots, not that Google is “vicious”: they’re not vicious in this case, they’re simply scary successful at detecting your attempts to game their system. Probably because everybody and their dog tries the same trick all the time, I would assume.

Generally speaking, I agree with your assessment of Big Data and Google. But not in this particular instance.