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Google removed my ads-free app for “deceptive ads”

purpleleafsoftware.com

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Re: Google removed my ads-free app for “deceptive ads”

#21

Post by btown »

KirinDave wrote: post #11
echelon wrote: post #8

Can we sue Google when they do things like this? No single entity should wield this much power. And we should rewrite the laws to make this so. Google and Apple wanted to be in the role of gatekeeper, so they should be beholden to the apps on their platform. We had a web where developers were in control of their own deployment. Everything was decentralized and required responsibility and diligence. Now the power is o…

> No single entity should wield this much power. And we should rewrite the laws to make this so. I think in fact a lot of people do want them to do this. Folks complain the Play store is full of malware and spam, and that there are data leaks and deceptive ads. Then Google or Apple goes and removes them, and then folks are mad if that process has errors. It seems like a business where you make everyone mad no matter…

It is absolutely possible to do this without making people mad. The solution is simple: educated, intelligent customer service for developers. Heck, make them pay a developer subscription fee to make the customer service cost-neutral. Or make them pay a refundable deposit to escalate a situation for manual review by a trained developer, at the cost of a market salary for however long that developer would take to review the situation.

But this cuts into the gatekeepers' profit. Why have a cost-neutral program when you can not worry about having that program at all, and (in Apple's case) still charge people for access to the store and documentation?

Re: Google removed my ads-free app for “deceptive ads”

#22

Post by hug »

echelon wrote: post #16
KirinDave wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No single entity should wield this much power. And we should rewrite the laws to make this so. I think in fact a lot of people do want them to do this. Folks complain the Play store is full of malware and spam, and that there are data leaks and deceptive ads. Then Google or Apple goes and removes them, and then folks are mad if that process has errors. It seems like a business where you make everyone mad no matter…

> I think in fact a lot of people do want them to do this. I, the engineer, do not want them to do this. Before Google and Apple, I didn't have this problem. I didn't have to pay their tax or march to their beat. You might argue that it's their platform and that's the cost for us to pay. But it wasn't always this way! These companies leveraged their advantages to steal eyeballs away from an open web and lock them in…

> Before Google and Apple, I didn't have this problem. I didn't have to pay their tax or march to their beat.

You still don't! You don't have the play by their rules, and you can still target everyone who has a non-Google or non-Apple phone, which as a target market is appreciably no one, much as it was before Google and Apple entered the phone market.

You can target them if they have phones produced by your hated manufacturers anyway by making your app a webapp instead of a native app.

You don't want to do those things, and that's fine, but you're yearning to go back to a time that never existed.

Re: Google removed my ads-free app for “deceptive ads”

#23

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

joeframbach wrote: post #9
echelon wrote: post #8

Can we sue Google when they do things like this? No single entity should wield this much power. And we should rewrite the laws to make this so. Google and Apple wanted to be in the role of gatekeeper, so they should be beholden to the apps on their platform. We had a web where developers were in control of their own deployment. Everything was decentralized and required responsibility and diligence. Now the power is o…

> And there would probably be better privacy in the world where Mozilla won instead of Google. In that world Mozilla wouldn't sell your data to Pocket or Stranger Things or whoever knows a bizdev at Mozilla?

Pocket isn’t the same as stranger things since, iirc, Mozilla bought pocket.

Re: Google removed my ads-free app for “deceptive ads”

#24

Post by scarface74 »

echelon wrote: post #16
KirinDave wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No single entity should wield this much power. And we should rewrite the laws to make this so. I think in fact a lot of people do want them to do this. Folks complain the Play store is full of malware and spam, and that there are data leaks and deceptive ads. Then Google or Apple goes and removes them, and then folks are mad if that process has errors. It seems like a business where you make everyone mad no matter…

> I think in fact a lot of people do want them to do this. I, the engineer, do not want them to do this. Before Google and Apple, I didn't have this problem. I didn't have to pay their tax or march to their beat. You might argue that it's their platform and that's the cost for us to pay. But it wasn't always this way! These companies leveraged their advantages to steal eyeballs away from an open web and lock them in…

Well, at the same time users had to deal with adware, viruses, etc.

Your needs as a developer don’t trump users needs.

They could have spent money making the open web work better on mobile. Or designing a portable app framework and runtime for all devices. But we know why they didn't and what the outcome has been.

And write once run everywhere worked so well with Java applets.

Re: Google removed my ads-free app for “deceptive ads”

#25

Post by Spoom »

hug wrote: post #22
echelon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think in fact a lot of people do want them to do this. I, the engineer, do not want them to do this. Before Google and Apple, I didn't have this problem. I didn't have to pay their tax or march to their beat. You might argue that it's their platform and that's the cost for us to pay. But it wasn't always this way! These companies leveraged their advantages to steal eyeballs away from an open web and lock them in…

> Before Google and Apple, I didn't have this problem. I didn't have to pay their tax or march to their beat. You still don't! You don't have the play by their rules, and you can still target everyone who has a non-Google or non-Apple phone, which as a target market is appreciably no one, much as it was before Google and Apple entered the phone market. You can target them if they have phones produced by your hated ma…

FWIW you can target Google phones outside Google Play too. You just need to tell the user to enable some settings and download an APK.

Re: Google removed my ads-free app for “deceptive ads”

#26

Post by joshmn »

echelon wrote: post #8

Can we sue Google when they do things like this? No single entity should wield this much power. And we should rewrite the laws to make this so. Google and Apple wanted to be in the role of gatekeeper, so they should be beholden to the apps on their platform. We had a web where developers were in control of their own deployment. Everything was decentralized and required responsibility and diligence. Now the power is o…

Not a lawyer, but anti-trust could apply.

Re: Google removed my ads-free app for “deceptive ads”

#27

Post by echelon »

ucaetano wrote: post #15
echelon wrote: post #8

Can we sue Google when they do things like this? No single entity should wield this much power. And we should rewrite the laws to make this so. Google and Apple wanted to be in the role of gatekeeper, so they should be beholden to the apps on their platform. We had a web where developers were in control of their own deployment. Everything was decentralized and required responsibility and diligence. Now the power is o…

> We need similar laws to protect startups, small businesses, and sole proprietors Yeah, because laws protecting inefficient business are great for society and consumers. No business "deserves" protection. Consumers do, but not business.

App stores are monopolies, and their governance leaves much to be desired (as is the subject of this article).

I'm fine paying the AWS tax. It's a generic utility more or less and I can just as easily use Azure or Google (assuming you're not baked into certain offerings, but that's out of scope and honestly is a choice.)

If you want on Android there's no choice. You play by Google's rules and pay their tax.

People get up in arms when ISPs try to pull this (net neutrality). This is the same pattern. Phones, OSes, etc. should be "dumb" pipes. (The analogy isn't elegant here, but you get it.)

Re: Google removed my ads-free app for “deceptive ads”

#28

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

KirinDave wrote: post #11
echelon wrote: post #8

Can we sue Google when they do things like this? No single entity should wield this much power. And we should rewrite the laws to make this so. Google and Apple wanted to be in the role of gatekeeper, so they should be beholden to the apps on their platform. We had a web where developers were in control of their own deployment. Everything was decentralized and required responsibility and diligence. Now the power is o…

> No single entity should wield this much power. And we should rewrite the laws to make this so. I think in fact a lot of people do want them to do this. Folks complain the Play store is full of malware and spam, and that there are data leaks and deceptive ads. Then Google or Apple goes and removes them, and then folks are mad if that process has errors. It seems like a business where you make everyone mad no matter…

> Folks complain the Play store is full of malware and spam, and that there are data leaks and deceptive ads.

They have trouble with false positive and false negatives. This does not make me want to give them more power.

Re: Google removed my ads-free app for “deceptive ads”

#29

Post by yegle »

echelon wrote: post #16
KirinDave wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No single entity should wield this much power. And we should rewrite the laws to make this so. I think in fact a lot of people do want them to do this. Folks complain the Play store is full of malware and spam, and that there are data leaks and deceptive ads. Then Google or Apple goes and removes them, and then folks are mad if that process has errors. It seems like a business where you make everyone mad no matter…

> I think in fact a lot of people do want them to do this. I, the engineer, do not want them to do this. Before Google and Apple, I didn't have this problem. I didn't have to pay their tax or march to their beat. You might argue that it's their platform and that's the cost for us to pay. But it wasn't always this way! These companies leveraged their advantages to steal eyeballs away from an open web and lock them in…

AFAIKT, Google indeed pushes Progressive Web Apps pretty hard.

Re: Google removed my ads-free app for “deceptive ads”

#30

Post by dahfizz »

echelon wrote: post #8

Can we sue Google when they do things like this? No single entity should wield this much power. And we should rewrite the laws to make this so. Google and Apple wanted to be in the role of gatekeeper, so they should be beholden to the apps on their platform. We had a web where developers were in control of their own deployment. Everything was decentralized and required responsibility and diligence. Now the power is o…

When there are free and open source alternatives like fdroid, I don't see how the law could force Google to host an app that they don't want to. Google only gatekeeps what they host, not what exists on the platform.

I do think there is a case here against apple because they do gatekeep what the user has access to, but people love to fine Google way more than they do apple, even tough apple is infinitely more anticompetitive and anticonsumer IMO.

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