Bans Hit OpenClaw Users After Overloading Google’s Antigravity Backend: “Massive Increase in Malicious Usage”
The AI agent of Austrian developer Peter Steinberger has not only made headlines in recent days but also caused unrest among users who have used it in connection with Google AI services. As reported, some of them expressed their displeasure about sudden bans (more on that here).
Google has now confirmed access restrictions for a number of AI users who used the service via third-party tools like OpenClaw. Varun Mohan, former co-founder of Windsurf and now at Google Antigravity, explained the background of the bans:
“We’ve been seeing a massive increase in malicious usage of the Anitgravity backend that has tremendously degraded the quality of service for our users. We needed to find a path to quickly shut off access to these users that are not using the product as intended. We understand that a subset of these users were not aware that this was against our ToS and will get a path for them to come back on but we have limited capacity and want to be fair to our actual users.”
Users apparently accessed the product backend via third-party proxies like the AI agent OpenClaw to access an increased number of tokens. This overloaded the systems and impaired service quality for regular users, which in turn triggered the bans.
Scope of Restrictions
According to Google, the restrictions affect exclusively Antigravity, Gemini CLI, and the Cloud Code Private API. All other Google services remain active, and no full Google accounts were banned, the company states. The vast majority of Antigravity users were not affected by the measures.
Apparently there are affected users who did not know that their activity violated the terms of service. However, the company emphasized that immediate action was necessary to stabilize the platform for the broader community. Further details on the return process will be communicated directly to affected users.
OpenClaw Community Response
Peter Steinberger, developer of the open-source AI agent OpenClaw, has already commented critically on the bans. He described Google’s approach as “quite strict” and announced he might discontinue support. Steinberger compared Google’s approach to that of Anthropic, which contacted him directly when facing similar problems, while Google “just blocks.”
In Google’s own forums as well as on platforms like Hacker News and Reddit, affected users expressed frustration over the procedure. Particularly criticized were the lack of warning, poor communication from Google, and difficulties obtaining support. In some cases, subscriptions were reportedly still being charged while access remained blocked. The affected users should now be able to resolve the issue directly in exchange with Google.
