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Google terminated our business via our Google Play Developer Account

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

#291

Post by drcharris »

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?

The trust you have in an app store is because you believe in their processes for auditing apps. But the two do not need to be linked.

Google Play Protect, for instance, works just fine on sideloaded apps or apps downloaded from other stores.

The distribution and marketing channel don't need to be the same as the trust mechanism. There's a whole anti-malware industry out there that can do the latter, and could easily do as good a job as Google currently do.

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

#292

Post by quickthrower2 »

technics256 wrote: post #244

This also happened to me, and I have no idea why. I'm making a Healthcare app using react native, and got banned spontaneously as well. No recourse, nothing. No ability to change anything. I'm making sure all of my resources are spent on AWS and Microsoft services. Never again for Google. And thankfully, physicians prefer iPhones over Android by a large margin.

Sounds like a PWA is the way to go as well.

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

#293

Post by docker_up »

Animats wrote: post #193

The real threat to Google will come when someone sues over this behavior as an antitrust case. This is part of "supply chain" antitrust law. It's sometimes called a "refusal to supply", where a manufacturer refuses to sell to a retailer. That's legal if it is not "part of a predatory or exclusionary strategy to acquire or maintain a monopoly."[1] If you're the only supplier of something, antitrust law starts to apply…

Why hasn't this happened yet? It seems like Google has been behaving this way for a very long time.

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

#294

Post by SamReidHughes »

pizza wrote: post #44
rjknight wrote: post #23

It sounds like the problem is with the outsourced developers responsible for the app. It's their account which has been banned - for multiple violations of the ToS. Now, perhaps this is just over-zealous enforcement on Google's part, but it's also possible that these developers have created shady apps before, or are adding shady code to apps developed for others. The OP doesn't seem to know for certain what code is i…

Google has the burden of proof to show why they are guilty by mere association, but won't do it, likely because they don't want to reveal any information about how they determine who is violating the ToS. There should be greater transparency and a better appeals process, but there won't be. At the very least it doesn't seem that Google has thought of a better way to handle the scenario where an honest client relies u…

The problem is, people would then use that information to evade bans.

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

#295

Post by progval »

reaperducer wrote: post #284
sbov wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something I learned the hard way when I first started out in business is to never make your business dependent on a single entity. Seems impossible. Assuming you're an internet business, how did you make your business not dependent upon your domain registrar?

how did you make your business not dependent upon your domain registrar? It wasn't an internet business, so I didn't have to deal with those kinds of perils. But more to your point, I knew a guy who put one on .com, one on .info, one on a county tld. Advertising material rotated through the three. His logic was that it didn't really matter what address was advertised because people just hit a search engine for the br…

> Advertising material rotated through the three. His logic was that it didn't really matter what address was advertised because people just hit a search engine for the brand name.

This is a great idea, thanks for sharing

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

#296

Post by andrewstuart »

hopler wrote: post #288
andrewstuart wrote: post #271

As I suggested recently, these companies need an ombudsman to escape the crazy when the normal processes lead to crazy outcomes. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19092039 A $50 payment to the ombudsman, refundable if the ombudsman decides in the customers favor, would discourage the obmudsman being overused.

You are describing mandatory binding arbitration, eh?

No, this is an internal ombudsman - Google's own ombudsman who rescues customers when the Google processes frustrate.

Lots of companies need an ombudsman because they provide no way out when the normal processes let customers down.

It's like a backstop for customer satisfaction. A internal "court of appeal" to help customers out.

Kind of like having "a friend in the business", but available to any customer who needs it.

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

#297

Post by mrhappyunhappy »

I used to run ads on google and made a living on it. One day google decided to disallow ads for this particular niche and I could no longer make any money. While I am not against their decision to disallow ads in this niche, I learned a very important lesson not to start any business that depends on google ads for survival. Sooner or later they screw you over.

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

#298

Post by megous »

BEEdwards wrote: post #178
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…

"From there ... really anything goes as to what that developer could have done with those credentials intentionally or otherwise." They paid them to make the app though, they could put literally anything in there and even with them sending them builds that they uploaded themselves it would have been just as easy to be nefarious so this justification is thin at best. Are there shared accounts in the google app scene o…

> They paid them to make the app though, they could put literally anything in there...

Unless Google found something concrete, this speculation doesn't matter at all, shared account or not. A lot of software/websites/services are developed and managed on behalf of other businesses/people, with those people just trusting the developers/admins with no way to verify anything really.

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

#299

Post by emiliobumachar »

reaperducer wrote: post #284
sbov wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something I learned the hard way when I first started out in business is to never make your business dependent on a single entity. Seems impossible. Assuming you're an internet business, how did you make your business not dependent upon your domain registrar?

how did you make your business not dependent upon your domain registrar? It wasn't an internet business, so I didn't have to deal with those kinds of perils. But more to your point, I knew a guy who put one on .com, one on .info, one on a county tld. Advertising material rotated through the three. His logic was that it didn't really matter what address was advertised because people just hit a search engine for the br…

Seems effective, but I assume he took a huge SEO penalty, possibly without being aware of it. The search relevance of the site got divided by all the domains.

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

#300

Post by Operyl »

dmix wrote: post #278
qwertox wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is in a business context. If you think you don't have to read the TOS, then you better have your lawyers doing that for you.

Now back to the real world...

How is reading a legally binding contract with regards to your business not a real world expectation?
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