Google terminated our business via our Google Play Developer Account • Hacker News Board

Re: Google terminated our business via our Google Play Developer Account

#161

Post by detaro » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 10:05 PM UTC

noonespecial wrote: post #146

detaro wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does Google promise that review process? The sign-up flow for a developer account doesn't appear to mention anything like it. Even if they did, fraud is a high barrier, it sometimes producing "bad" results that are reversed for PR reasons isn't enough. Given the case here, "A human has looked at the account and has confirmed that the only developer that has ever used it has been banned, this matches the criteri…

avip actually responded similarly below actually citing the relevant section of the TOS but got downvoted? Don't know why, this is perfectly valid. I'd simply ask, can they very publicly offer a review process which is essentially a functionless placebo button or is that misleading enough to subject them to any liability at all?

I doubt it's actually functionless, but it's not a "please reconsider your decision", but only "please check you haven't made an error" they probably expect everyone to hit, and treat it as such.

Re: Google terminated our business via our Google Play Developer Account

#162

Post by Bahamut » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 10:05 PM UTC

kerng wrote: post #24

This is typical Google behaviour unfortunately. With GCP there have been countless similar stories. Unless you have a dedicated account manager (meaning you spend millions) there is basically no human support.

Yep, Google is by far the company with the worst customer support I've ever seen - they sucked up $500 without telling me and then when I found out, they hid behind a smoke screen as to why they couldn't refund it.

I also have another friend who has been banned for life by Google for the Play Store as well by association. Google refused to reconsider on appeal, and offers no recourse for him, a professor who teaches Android dev.

Google's lesson is clear here - don't use their services if you can help it because you expose tremendous liability due to Google's unwillingness to take any.

Re: Google terminated our business via our Google Play Developer Account

#163

Post by mattlondon » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 10:05 PM UTC

makecheck wrote: post #127

Even in systems with automated processes, the bare minimum for communication should be a log of activities that is visible to all parties (e.g. account owner and company). The log should remain visible for quite awhile even after a severe action such as a ban. And in such a log, every action taken by an employee should be marked with an employee number, even if it is a number that only means something inside the comp…

With respect, I am 100% sure that Google does this (no insider knowledge here - just conjecture on my part). I am completely sure that Google - a company that lives and dies by data - keeps logs.

But there is zero value sharing this with "customers". If you shared this and it said "Algorithm/Employee #12345678 linked this account with previously banned account" where does that get you? It doesn't get you any further - all it gets you is another thing to argue about, but they've already made their decision and you agreed to their TOS about how they can cancel your account at any time, so you've gained nothing really: Google still don't want to do business with you, sorry.

Re: Google terminated our business via our Google Play Developer Account

#164

Post by pyrale » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 10:07 PM UTC

morpheuskafka wrote: post #133

nurettin wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not open a new account, or release a new copy your app using a different namespace? I mean it is an inconvenience, but we aren't exactly as powerless as is described in the article.

What if OP made a new company, and did an arms-length asset sale at fair market value of the old company's IP?

What makes you think google algorithms would care, or that any human would care to review the case ?

Re: Google terminated our business via our Google Play Developer Account

#165

Post by on_and_off » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 10:08 PM UTC

heptathorp wrote: post #51

> 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…

It seems reasonable to me as well.

So far 99% of the people I have seen complaining about their account being suspended were unwilling to read the ToS, even less to try to comply with them.

I am pretty sure that the review process does mistakes as well, but as always bad actors spoil everything for everybody.

FWIW, I had 2 apps removed from the play store earlier this month. They were all based on the same codebase (different flavors) and were banned for using a forbidden permission (after asking it to the user of course).

I was super surprised since when I coded the feature using that permission, it was legal to use it. The rules have changed since then and I had pushed an update to remove the use of that permission (to be honest it was not that necessary, it just made the UX a bit smoother in one case).

BUT I did not realize that for these 2 apps, I had retained apks in the play store for lower api levels with the faulty code :///

(I use an upload script to gain some time .. multiple apks take a long time to upload for each update otherwise; so I don't see the play store console often)

Still; I was clearly in the wrong.

I just removed the faulty retained apps and was again in the play store a couple of hours later.

Re: Google terminated our business via our Google Play Developer Account

#166

Post by NoblePublius » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 10:09 PM UTC

This is a great ad for Firebase and Flutter.

Re: Google terminated our business via our Google Play Developer Account

#167

Post by on_and_off » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 10:09 PM UTC

zmmmmm wrote: post #149

This is awful and I feel terrible for them, but a lot of alarm bells went off when I read this: I then attempted to login to my ‘Google Developer Account’ for the first time. Previous to this our app developers were the only ones to access our account to upload and update our app for us It sounds like they violated probably one of the first requirements of the ToS not to share account credentials. From there ... real…

I have a hard time empathizing with people unwilling to read the ToS.

It contains hard rules regulating what you can do with your app, not just with respect to Google, but also with your consumers.

Re: Google terminated our business via our Google Play Developer Account

#168

Post by noonespecial » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 10:10 PM UTC

detaro wrote: post #161

noonespecial wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

avip actually responded similarly below actually citing the relevant section of the TOS but got downvoted? Don't know why, this is perfectly valid. I'd simply ask, can they very publicly offer a review process which is essentially a functionless placebo button or is that misleading enough to subject them to any liability at all?

I doubt it's actually functionless, but it's not a "please reconsider your decision", but only "please check you haven't made an error" they probably expect everyone to hit, and treat it as such.

I guess it boils down to if anything is actually checked, ever, or if its just a glorified autoresponder. The always super-vague nature of the responses does not fill me with confidence as to the former.

Re: Google terminated our business via our Google Play Developer Account

#169

Post by gammateam » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 10:12 PM UTC

I’m really glad Im not suppporting and advocating for that destructive ecosystem anymore.

While making a living off of it you are only incentivized to defend android and what it COULD be.

Being an android app developer is basically scamming entrepreneurs, especially North American ones as their ideas dont typically leverage any good or monetization related ideas that apply to North American Android users and they are completely tied to Google services.

All while developing for a venture on the Asian continent just wont pay you, the developer, as much.

Good thing developing for yourself is free.

Re: Google terminated our business via our Google Play Developer Account

#170

Post by AnaniasAnanas » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 10:14 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #35

bad_user wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “ This ultimately hurts app stores ” Good, app stores need to die.

App stores are the least-unreliable mechanism I have to trust executable code. I don’t even enable JavaScript by default. Do you have an alternative trust mechanism that can’t be subverted via, for example, algorithmic voting?

> App stores are the least-unreliable mechanism I have to trust executable code

More so than the repositories that various linux distros use? I honestly think that something like apt for android would be a much better solution - too bad, it will never happen because it would mess with google's monopoly.