121–130 of 187 posts
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The IRS has always been good with me -- they've been fair and fast (for a federal government operation). My state's revenue department is the one I truly fear.
Illinois? Everything they ever sent was wrong.
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…
Fortunately, with Android, the Play Store is not the only way to release an app.
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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.
Would a bank hire a security company that has a previous bank robber on staff? Would you put your kids in a school that has a previous child molester on staff?
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Lifetime bans are pretty harsh, but some form of time-based penalty is probably quite reasonable to keep out truly bad actors and recidivists. (Even with the current measures, the Play store was/is teeming with malware and scammers.) Perhaps some simple form of exponentially increasing penalty (start with 3 months, double/triple/quadruple at every next ban).
Perhaps some simple form of justice system, as has been developed in many societies over centuries?
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This has been the way Google has worked from the beginning. Stories like this need to be shouted from the rooftops every time they happen, just to warn people. Google got to where they are today by building absolutely everything with a mind to scale, and justice doesn't scale.
turns out "don't be evil" doesn't scale.
I'm not sure what specifically caused it, but a representative from the Play policy team just reached out to us and has given a thorough review of our developer account and reinstated it. We are extremely grateful to anyone in this community that may have played a hand in having a real person at the Play policy team reach out, as well as the ongoing conversation here to improve overall relations between the Play stor…
I'm not sure what specifically caused it, but a representative from the Play policy team just reached out to us and has given a thorough review of our developer account and reinstated it. We are extremely grateful to anyone in this community that may have played a hand in having a real person at the Play policy team reach out, as well as the ongoing conversation here to improve overall relations between the Play stor…
I was just rationalizing in my head that I only hear one side of the story, that surely there were some good reasons they were banned. Google has a lot of users, and I only hear about those worst cases and so on. But no, get to the frontpage and poof, it's solved. It really sucks for all those startups who didn't have luck getting their post viral.
Any company that controls more than (some) percent of a significant (by some definition) market/medium/distribution channel loses the ability to unilaterally ban/refuse to serve a user except for VERY limited reasons, such as non-payment, intentional vandalism, fraud, or other criminal (not company policy-violating but actual law-breaking) activity. If such serious violation is alleged, account can be suspended pending ruling by regulatory agency. If reg agency rules that no such violation took place, the suspension will be ordered lifted and a fine imposed as compensation--no lawsuit by MomsBasementStartup against WeOwnYouMegaCorp is necessary.
So, if you really want to have the power to ban whoever you want for whatever "terms of service" reasons please you, better make sure you never grow very big. Your ability to reject users falls as their ability to reject you and go with your competitors falls.
The obvious answer is to save money. Maybe they reckon the Play Store is saturated so it doesnt really matter if 5% of devs say meet an impassable roadblock ,it wont affect their revenue.
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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.
Can't reinforce this enough. Would a bank hire a security company that has a previous bank robber on staff? Would you put your kids in a school that has a previous child molester on staff?
A more comparable analogy would be one where the hypothetical security company isn't told who of their staff is banned, or for what reason they were banned. Maybe they were a bank robber, or maybe they were just doing business with bitcoin, and it's the bank's policy to ban all such businesses. And the security company isn't just not hired - they're banned from being hired ever again, from 88% of all banks in the world.
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Can't reinforce this enough. Would a bank hire a security company that has a previous bank robber on staff? Would you put your kids in a school that has a previous child molester on staff?
You can make any move seem reasonable if you make a sufficiently bad analogy. A more comparable analogy would be one where the hypothetical security company isn't told who of their staff is banned, or for what reason they were banned. Maybe they were a bank robber, or maybe they were just doing business with bitcoin, and it's the bank's policy to ban all such businesses. And the security company isn't just not hired…
That's what background checks are for. If you're hiring someone, it is your responsibility.