511–520 of 530 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would that be so wrong?
Yes - they're a private company, albeit unfair in this particular instance.
In what universe are companies like Google, Apple, ... classifiable as class II common carriers? On what grounds?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The situation sucks but Google's action seems reasonable? Like they can't just let people create new accounts to evade bans. It seems like the opposite of reasonable to me. You hit the nail on the head for _why_ this happened but this person now has _zero_ recourse for correcting their mistake. Yes, they screwed up. They shouldn't have let them do it through their account. But now, because they screwed up, you're f…
> ... they can literally never be on the Google Play store ever again question: is Google really that good at detecting the relationship between an account they banned, and some other new account created under a different name with someone else's credit card? i mean couldn't this small business get another credit card under a different name and then create a totally new developer account under a different name -- and…
We've heard this story hundreds of times — Google Play's aggressive banning, automated responses that stonewall progress, and general inability to get things fixed even when people get involved — so there's nothing about it that isn't believable. But I have a feeling that some or all of this may not have actually happened to this particular developer account.
The first thing I checked was the history on the app itself. AppBrain shows that the app was originally released almost exactly 1 year ago, and in the 11 months it was available, it had still only reached the 100-500 install count. Apple's App Store doesn't show download numbers, but the listing has zero reviews, which is a fairly good indicator that download numbers are virtually non-existent. https://www.appbrain.com/app/com.hoopapp https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/hoopapployalty/id1287914039
I also then looked into their website, curious if this might still be newsworthy. https://www.hoopapp.co.uk/
It's a proprietary digital loyalty card that requires that businesses pay a subscription fee and either rent or buy hardware from HoopApp, and customers will need the apps on their phones. On a personal note, I think the business idea was bad and doomed to fail, but who am I to judge...
This is when I started to consider the app may not have been delisted by Google, but could have actually been done intentionally by the HoopApp people. After all, the download numbers were abysmal, and the only way a business like this can succeed is if there are a ton of customers interested in using it, which would be incentive for businesses to pay a fee for it.
Their post makes a point to say that they had put some effort into hyping up the product prior to its launch, which was supposedly about to happen, so I looked at their social accounts. https://www.facebook.com/HoopLoyalty/ https://twitter.com/hoopapployalty
Both have posts from 12 months ago that say the app already launched, and some from only a few months earlier that claim the app was just about to launch. To me, this doesn't really line up with the timeline they presented in their post, even taking into account the claims about server troubles. I don't think server troubles should take nearly a year to resolve. Regardless, both apps have been publicly accessible for a year.
https://twitter.com/HoopAppLoyalty/status/928166469136814080 https://twitter.com/JNights2/status/967074426272575488 https://twitter.com/HoopAppLoyalty/status/967723452957208576
https://www.facebook.com/HoopLoyalty/posts/880998315392883?_... https://www.facebook.com/HoopLoyalty/photos/a.80383775977560... https://www.facebook.com/HoopLoyalty/photos/a.80383775977560... https://www.facebook.com/HoopLoyalty/photos/a.80383775977560... https://www.facebook.com/HoopLoyalty/photos/a.80383775977560... https://www.facebook.com/HoopLoyalty/photos/a.80383775977560...
Both accounts have been mostly silent for the better part of the last year, only popping up with a few generic reposts, some stuff about a video, plus a post on each account when they were anticipating an award. Evidently they won a local business award 8 months ago for a service that hadn't officially launched yet?
https://twitter.com/HoopAppLoyalty/status/100990469131517542... https://www.facebook.com/HoopLoyalty/photos/a.80383775977560...
There's still room to dig, but once all of these pieces come together, it looks a lot like they're trying to stir up a mob to get attention for a business that had basically failed. It's not hard to pretend to be a victim of Google's famously bad management of developer accounts, there are screenshots and identical stories all over HN and reddit, all of which are easy to copy and modify.
I'm skeptical of story elements like an investment of only £25,000 (about $33,000 US). The way it's described, it sounds like this is for both the Android and iOS apps, plus server development, and an interface for the business owners. To say that's on the low side would be an understatement. Are there investors, and why aren't they doing something about this? They've supposedly sunk time and effort into promoting the service and making videos, but most of that happened over a year ago over a couple months, then abruptly slowed to very rare posts. This doesn't sound ambitious enough for a startup.
One other thing I noticed is that the HoopApp social accounts don't even point to this post, and the site still links to the Google Play listing even though it has been down for a month. You'd think they would have at least added a note to explain the app would be returning shortly. I'm not going to speculate on this or try to track down details, but I did briefly ponder the possibility that the post wasn't even written by somebody with a connection to the company.
Regardless, the tl;dr is that this whole thing smells a bit like a publicity stunt based on an all too familiar story. Raising the pitchforks for hundreds of other legitimate developers is more than justified, but I think this particular story should be scrutinized quite a bit more before it becomes the poster child for a call to action.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The appeal form is not an actual person, the ombudsman would have a name and a face
What evidence do you have that the name and face would give you a different answer? Somehow paying $50 changes something?
What do you suggest we do?
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We really need tech monopolies like Google to be regulated, in order to stop abuses like this.
Google Play is not a monopoly! It takes one checkbox in Settings to open the floodgates to any app (or app store) you want, and device manufacturers (such as Amazon) can ship their own app stores pre-enabled if they want.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a lot of jurisdictions a contract that you were not able to negotiate properly is simply void. Sure, a ToS is different, and there's basically an implicit contract when you buy a service, but that doesn't mean that the ToS is all powerful. It can be still unfair practice. (Some jurisdictions have that too.) Now of course courts can't really force G to do business with you, but as others mentioned they can be sued…
Still, you have to read TOS first to understand which part is definitely enforceable and which part isn’t. Ignoring it completely is foolish for a business.
That plus business can certainly not terminate your business relationship for any reason they like.
I actually just got my Google Ads account suspended because I forgot to update my billing address before adding a new card. The suspension was for "suspicious billing activity", tried appealing twice with the correct billing address, and was told the suspension is final (some automated email) both times. They won't take my calls because the account is suspended, which leaves me not being able to advertise on the #1 s…
>One tiny mistake leads you to a lifetime of suspension to a service vital to almost any business. One sometimes needs a lawyer to deal with the complexity of government laws. It seems like soon there will be a small thriving job market for "googlawyers" -- people who will earn they bread and butter by getting through the Google's bureaucracy. PS. Jokes aside, it's a sad state of things.
This is terrible and I feel for the developers. I trust that they are honest in their description of their side. I also acknowledge that Google have a long way to go in terms of communication. That said, I’ll offer an alternative history... The author hired developers who have previously uploaded malicious code to the Play store, or actively tried to circumvent restrictions on it. That developer uploaded an app, Goog…
You clearly have no knowledge or experience in this field at all. Because of you did you would have known that creating a new account after suspension immediately results into another suspension. Google is just a shit company. I don't need 50 sentences for that to explain. "A reasonable action by Google" Come on man. Do you have any idea what's going on here. You whole story sounds like big pile of crap.
My "story" was intended to be a hypothetical. I don't know if that's what happened, but to me it sounds like a possible option.
To be honest, I also think you could be more constructive in your tone and present your arguments in a better way. You have a useful opinion to add, but the way you do so is inflammatory.
This is terrible and I feel for the developers. I trust that they are honest in their description of their side. I also acknowledge that Google have a long way to go in terms of communication. That said, I’ll offer an alternative history... The author hired developers who have previously uploaded malicious code to the Play store, or actively tried to circumvent restrictions on it. That developer uploaded an app, Goog…
We have an unrelated app that has been "disappeared" by Google a couple times. I do like that you're trying to be sympathetic to Google. The experience of having your app deleted by Google is a very jarring panic inducing moment. Google's process is not clear. If you miss their warning email this comes as a terrible huge surprise. Google could easily improve this. Even with little things like to replace their 404/403…
> I do like that you're trying to be sympathetic to Google.
I'm only offering up an alternative hypothesis. I have very mixed feelings about Google products and services like many people, but I have seen them be responsive and useful particularly through developer evangelism channels.