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

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

#31

Post by deogeo »

jayd16 wrote: post #25
gowld wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

They were banned for 'association' - that makes me believe that even if you set up a fresh account yourself, if someone that was previously banned works on it, and Google finds out, you could still be banned.

Also, banned by Google != less than reputable.

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

#32

Post by freedomben »

Animats wrote: post #11

Pivot to a product that doesn't require Google approval? All the top apps today come from big companies. Mostly Google, in fact. The era of the app startup is over. Why do you want to compete with Google while under the control of Google? If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever. - Orwell

> Pivot to a product that doesn't require Google approval?

Honest question: what do you pivot too? Apple has different but equally bad risks of having your hands tied or just being barred. What's a safe platform to build on these days that actually has a market?

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

#34

Post by freedomben »

izacus wrote: post #28
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 e…

If we stipulate that you are totally correct (which I sincerely hope you are), what about the effect that permanent blacklisting can have on an individual's life? And if somebody gets banned, apparently now they must become "unclean" and be kept far away lest they "infect" the company.

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

#35

Post by [deleted] »

jshowa3 wrote: post #15
nukeop wrote: post #6

So now anyone who has ever owned a terminated account is a Typhoid Mary and as Google refuses to provide any details about their bans and cuts all communications with banned accounts, it's like being exiled by a commandment from high above. People talk about possible future AI abuses but here we are with people getting abused by an AI system right now. Being banned from ever having a Google Play account is a death se…

That's what happens when you build a store architecture where its the only way to release an app. When stores were introduced offering built-in DRM, not allowing native apps, and only providing a license to use the software, it was only a matter of time before these things happened. Having no control or ownership of what you put on your machine was a death sentence. Problem is, people love stores like Steam and frequ…

[deleted]

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

#36

Post by ben_jones »

_Microft wrote: post #5
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?

I suspect that dealing with complaints or appeals does not scale well and therefore they just do not (or even can not) do it?

Sifting through valid and invalid complaints is hard if your goal is to please your customers, scale, and automate. Something has to give so vendors choose to optimize around one or two key metrics:

* Customers with high volume/spend/influence

* Loud/Viral complainers

At the expense of:

* Everyone else

This is a difficult problem that requires massive investment and dedicated care. I earnestly think Google is trying, maybe they're hiring more people, maybe they're investing dev time in better tooling, but its not cutting it as evidenced here.

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

#37

Post by randomorton »

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…

Why can't they just sue Google? Google can't stop a business from naming their money. Isn't platform member protection rights or something?

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

#38

Post by bitL »

nukeop wrote: post #6

So now anyone who has ever owned a terminated account is a Typhoid Mary and as Google refuses to provide any details about their bans and cuts all communications with banned accounts, it's like being exiled by a commandment from high above. People talk about possible future AI abuses but here we are with people getting abused by an AI system right now. Being banned from ever having a Google Play account is a death se…

Amazon was banning 3rd party sellers residing in the same building as some of their previous offenders for almost a decade already, so Google has still some stuff to do to catch up with them... With bot customer support they are on the same level of usefulness. After a certain point big companies start behaving like big companies; one can only hope there will be another stream of profitable creativity allowing their new competitors to rise with nicer attitude towards customers until inevitable fall to degeneracy after reaching a certain size threshold.

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

#40

Post by stevens32 »

freedomben wrote: post #32
Animats wrote: post #11

Pivot to a product that doesn't require Google approval? All the top apps today come from big companies. Mostly Google, in fact. The era of the app startup is over. Why do you want to compete with Google while under the control of Google? If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever. - Orwell

> Pivot to a product that doesn't require Google approval? Honest question: what do you pivot too? Apple has different but equally bad risks of having your hands tied or just being barred. What's a safe platform to build on these days that actually has a market?

You could pivot to a PWA and rely on others channels to get the word out
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