> I had created a Google Developer Account simply so I could pass on the login details to my app developers who uploaded and updated the app via my account each time. Sounds like one of those developers was previously banned for violating ToS and Google suspects the author is the same person with a new account trying to evade the ban. Instead of sharing login details, the correct thing to do is add a user and give th…
Or maybe those devs were unfairly banned because another bullshit reason. Unfortunately we don't know because Google operates in the most opaque ways.
People here assume it's developers' fault. This is just a speculation (at least, OP only mentioned it as a possibility). It could be, for example, that developers previously used one of their client's accounts (to deploy an app), which was later banned (could be even for a different app they have no connection to).
Some information is missing here (developers' side of story?)
I feel lucky to have had this experience with a regular Amazon account. It has made me realize that this is a regular part of doing business with such companies and is to be expected. Internet accounts can all be closed at any time for no reason and they will be. I would never in a million years invest in iOS or Android apps whose success depends on these stores ran by artificial intelligence aka human stupidity. I feel bad for people that do like this couple, but I hope the more stories like this come out, the more people will be aware of this situation, a situation unlikely to change soon. This is the Internet we've allowed to be built because we value profits over anything else. Imagine if the power company just shut off the power for no reason despite you paying the bill or the mortgage company came and took your house away by force despite you being paid up. We have laws against such things because we know they would happen if we didn't. Yet we allow these Internet companies to do whatever they want. This is what they will do without regulation. At this point it's so widely known that it shouldn't be a surprise. These two owners failed to do a proper risk analysis for their business and they got burned. I hate to blame them when it's our lack of laws and regulations that allow this, but in the known absence of such laws and regulations the ultimate responsibility rests with them: they trusted an untrustworthy company and got burned. Welcome to the club. Next time, they should spend a few million dollars (just enough to outspend the big tech companies) greasing palms in Washington and getting regulations changed in their favor before starting a business. That's the American way, after all.
I sympathize with this guy, and I feel sad and awful every time I read about something like this, because all I can think is man, this could happen to me any day. It also serves as a very unfortunate reminder of a couple of things: 1. Just how incredibly important it is for us to be able to use the platforms of the future as we see fit. We look at app stores and think well, this is good, right, applications are vette…
Google is not just an ordinary company though. It is so dominant that its basically like Google is effectively its own government but with no public oversight or legal recourse.
I think instead of relying on these giant monopolies we should built open platforms on decentralized technopolies.
Another one of these aspiring app developers bites the dust. I have some advice to such developers - work on making a good web app. You automatically reach more platforms than just the two big ones, and you won’t have to deal with too big to fail corporations taking you down.
Sorry for the bad Karma but seriously this is 2019. If the OP hasn't seen a zillion other stories like this about Apple, Google, Facebook et al the they clearly have $25,000 to burn so sorry OP but why bother posting this? If your business model is dependent on someone else's service/store/website/slients then YOU DONT HAVE A BUSINESS you have AT BEST a franchise.
“Why bother posting this?” - that’s easy, because it might hit the front page of HN and someone from Google might see it and actually apply human reasoning to the problem.
>Isn't this legally actionable fraud? Does it matter if it is? B2B lawsuits only get down to the actual law if the parties have a relatively equal amount of money. A small or medium business going after google _after google has shut off their revenue_ is not going to ever win
Why not? If you take them to court over this they would have to at least send a representative and that costs money - in a case like this they would almost definitely tell the engineering team to fix this specific case. Especially since this is in the UK so if Google lost they would be liable for the process fees. Maybe even small claims court would be enough, and that's 100% not worth sending a lawyer for.
I'm nowhere close to a lawyer and law is always a head-scratcher for me, but I'd hope that if that theory held even the slightest amount of legal water, a letter for your lawyer to their legal team might be enough to nudge them to fix your account and that'd be the end of it.
Sorry for the bad Karma but seriously this is 2019. If the OP hasn't seen a zillion other stories like this about Apple, Google, Facebook et al the they clearly have $25,000 to burn so sorry OP but why bother posting this? If your business model is dependent on someone else's service/store/website/slients then YOU DONT HAVE A BUSINESS you have AT BEST a franchise.
I argue there is no merit in this stance because:
a) all businesses are dependent on others
b) even an individual is dependent on others
It’s usually smart to have a backup plan, but sometimes the backup plan can only be: deal with it when-if it arises.