Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google terminated our startup's developer account – what do we do?

reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 187 posts

Re: Google terminated our startup's developer account – what do we do?

#21

Post by Bahamut »

raverbashing wrote: post #14
nukeop wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a matter of policy for them to never disclose anything but the vaguest possible details about the case if there's any suspicion of wrongdoing on the user's part.

And by suspicion they mean "our algorithms see something weird that might be a signal of wrongdoing or not. So just in case we shut you down"

This does not just apply to shutting down accounts - this also applies to whether to refund money due to borderline fraud by Google. Google is hostile to all customers, I do not trust them when it comes to monetary transactions based on my own experience.

Re: Google terminated our startup's developer account – what do we do?

#22

Post by rootusrootus »

mindslight wrote: post #4

I've got to wonder if, after basic Twit-shaming becomes no longer scalable, Google support will basically end up taking the same essential shape as IRS support - if you receive a nastygram, you turn it over to your professional account/attorney/googvocate who's entire specialty is knowing how to "talk to" the organization.

That is not a great comparison. IRS phone support is actually pretty good. I would be ecstatic if Google could get even halfway there.

Re: Google terminated our startup's developer account – what do we do?

#23

Post by godzillabrennus »

noonespecial wrote: post #16

They seem to think they have plenty of developers to burn through like this as if they were some sort of consumable. But if every developer who has been banned can get other developers banned just by association, this will start slow and then move like an epidemic. They don't know it yet but unchecked this will seem to them to instantly become an existential threat to the play store. There's nothing like a geometric…

Google is already established as a god awful vendor partner.

It’s reflected in their cloud divisions performance.

Anyone sane is using someone else if they can.

Re: Google terminated our startup's developer account – what do we do?

#25

Post by jayd16 »

gowld wrote: post #19
techaddict009 wrote: post #10

https://blog.usejournal.com/google-wrongly-terminated-our-ne... story of another startup. And mine too. I had a small utility calculator app with some 100k download and play store suddenly deleted the account. The app was in partnership with someone. No reason nothing. No way to restore. Play stores auto termination policy sucks to hell. Update: I just saw the post back. Since it went viral google reinitiated their a…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19124324 They (potentially inadvertently) hired a dev team that was previously banned for malware, so Google terminated the account and banned these new partners of the malware team. Did your partnership have the same problem? What is missing from Play (or the ecosystem) is a way to ask if the people you just hired are on their ban list, before you register your app with Google.

It seems like the full story is always less than reputable contractors. Set up fresh accounts yourself, people!

Re: Google terminated our startup's developer account – what do we do?

#27

Post by j16sdiz »

raverbashing wrote: post #14
nukeop wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a matter of policy for them to never disclose anything but the vaguest possible details about the case if there's any suspicion of wrongdoing on the user's part.

And by suspicion they mean "our algorithms see something weird that might be a signal of wrongdoing or not. So just in case we shut you down"

GDPR actually asked for a "right to explanation" in these cases. The actual implementation is different from one country to another.

Re: Google terminated our startup's developer account – what do we do?

#28

Post by izacus »

antonkm wrote: post #3

These are becoming quite common. If my account would be terminated my business would be dead. How is Google not handling this better?

> These are becoming quite common. If my account would be terminated my business would be dead. How is Google not handling this better?

After drilling down into these posts it's very common to find those developers stealing user data, using forbidden advertising techniques, infringing copyright or simply trying to scam around Google's 30% payment cut. Apple would kick them off the App store immediately as well (and even tell them directly that running to media won't help).

If anything, Google is finally starting to clamp down on malware and developers abusing user data.

Re: Google terminated our startup's developer account – what do we do?

#29

Post by on_and_off »

TLDR : The guy that opened the company's account had got his own account terminated years ago.

So their company account was closed as associated to that one.

I don't know what got in that guy's head when he created that account, google is very strict when it comes to terminated devs trying to republish apps.

Post reply on HN