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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”

#71

Post by godelski »

adjagu wrote: post #17
godelski wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am still experiencing an error in FF65 (Secure connection failed)

I am running Firefox Developer Edition 67.0b4 and did not have this issue. I noticed that you are using Firefox 65. Maybe updating to Firefox 66.0.1 (current version) would resolve this?

I'm guessing it is actually a https thing. Do you have that on? Because I am currently on a FF66 (different computer) and having the same error. But given the error it looks more to be because there is no https version of the site.

Which I'm fine with. If you don't have https I don't need to go to your site.

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

#72

Post by nl »

rjf72 wrote: post #49
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…

The problem and solution are one and the same. Google is trying to automate tasks that are nowhere near ready for automation. This doesn't even really make any sense either. You might argue its because they're huge, but the numbers don't add up. Google netted about $31 billion in 2018. It's hard to tell exactly how many apps are published on Google Play per year, but it seems to be in the ballpark of 200,000 [1]. Let…

This just isn't solvable with "low wage employees".

If their task devolves to "run this security tool" then (a) that can be automated and (b) can be reverse engineered by the people putting this out.

If it is a proper security audit then it's not an hour of work and it's not a $10/h employee, even in India.

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

#73

Post by echelon »

ucaetano wrote: post #60
hrayr wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't entirely disagree with you, but what do we call the web if not distribution?

The web didn't disappear, quite the opposite. Now you have the web AND the in-device app stores. Even more choice.

But they're not equal citizens on mobile devices. Web often feels sluggish on mobile, and it doesn't have the same access to device and hardware APIs, nor does it allow low-level control of concurrency and allocation. (I don't want to get off topic about HTML/JS. It does a lot of jobs well.)

There could have been an open, cross-platform native app stack if Apple and Google and a consortium of other companies had joined forces and made it so. There's no technical reason preventing this. The economic incentives got us to where we are.

Devices should be easy to target. There should be the option to use multiple app stores right off the bat, and you shouldn't have to bundle to get access to Gmail. Or even better - point your browser at gmail.com and get the native app installed on your mobile device. Distributed updates from gmail.com sans app store. The OS would still control permissions and guard against malicious apps.

The world wide web era was truly unique and special, and it's a shame the same principles didn't carry into the mobile world.

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

#74

Post by Jach »

ucaetano wrote: post #14
voldacar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No single entity should wield this much power. And we should rewrite the laws to make this so. No single entity, except the laws of course ;)

OP doesn't like single entities having so much power, so OP increases the power of a single entity.

Google et al. might want to take heed anyway. This all reminds me of a quote I love from the Dark Knight movie: "You squeezed them, you hammered them to the point of desperation. And in their desperation, they turned to a man they didn't fully understand."

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

#75

Post by est31 »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #23
joeframbach wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yes, they've bought Pocket and the recommendation system is built in a way that your data isn't sent to Mozilla but processed on the device. Quite a cool idea IMO and what we should be doing.

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

#76

Post by UncleMeat »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #19
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…

The problem is the process is largely automated, both for approval and removal. If trash wasn't let into the Play Store in the first place, there wouldn't be so many issues with pulling content back out of it. Consumers and developers alike would be far better off dealing with a properly human-curated store with actual customer service, even if it meant there were less apps in it.

> If trash wasn't let into the Play Store in the first place

How exactly do you plan on enforcing this without automation? There are millions of apps on the Play Store. Many are updated dozens of times a year. How many thousands of reverse engineers do you plan on hiring to prevent bad behavior without error?

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

#77

Post by UncleMeat »

rjf72 wrote: post #49
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…

The problem and solution are one and the same. Google is trying to automate tasks that are nowhere near ready for automation. This doesn't even really make any sense either. You might argue its because they're huge, but the numbers don't add up. Google netted about $31 billion in 2018. It's hard to tell exactly how many apps are published on Google Play per year, but it seems to be in the ballpark of 200,000 [1]. Let…

> It's hard to tell exactly how many apps are published on Google Play per year, but it seems to be in the ballpark of 200,000 [1]

You'd have to audit literally every version update.

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

#78

Post by ocdtrekkie »

UncleMeat wrote: post #76
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the process is largely automated, both for approval and removal. If trash wasn't let into the Play Store in the first place, there wouldn't be so many issues with pulling content back out of it. Consumers and developers alike would be far better off dealing with a properly human-curated store with actual customer service, even if it meant there were less apps in it.

> If trash wasn't let into the Play Store in the first place How exactly do you plan on enforcing this without automation? There are millions of apps on the Play Store. Many are updated dozens of times a year. How many thousands of reverse engineers do you plan on hiring to prevent bad behavior without error?

There's no reason for there to be "millions on apps on the Play Store". Literally no reason. It's likely 99% of users would entirely be served by the top 50,000 to 100,000 apps. For the other 1%, there is sideloading.

As far as how many app reviewers to hire? Well, Apple manages their store pretty well. Google has about eleventy billion dollars in cash, so I'm sure they could afford to hire a few people to do the job.

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

#79

Post by fouc »

_jgvg wrote: post #36
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…

> I, the engineer, do not want them to do this. You don't matter, consumers matter. > Before Google and Apple, I didn't have this problem. And you didn't have distribution either. > But it wasn't always this way! Indeed, there wasn't even distribution. Do you actually remember what was shipping mobile software back in 2005? > I want them to pay back the negative externalities they've leveraged onto us. Again, you as…

Why can't mobile follow the same model as desktop?

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

#80

Post by hombre_fatal »

drdaeman wrote: post #66
ddingus wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, you engineer, do your best to make the app usable from a browser. I dislike apps. Sometimes they make sense. Fine. Often, they do not, or offer less functionality than PC or web does. If you need payment, make that easy, same. Cancel easy too. Just because that is nice, and we all could use nice. You like nice, I like nice. Let us be nice. If you need profanity, whatever, I get it. Let's be adults. I don't li…

I happen to prefer the exactly opposite - I don't want to run the browser (or a browser-wrapper), I want app to be native. Websites lack solid, consistent and platform-native look-and-feel. They are always limited, they aren't integrated with the operating system (i.e. task switcher), they are slow on almost anything (because modern web browsers are ugly giant behemoths. I've recently built myself a very beefy machin…

Perhaps the best features about the web, though, are the share-centric nature of being able to pass around a link, the control we have over the client, and the distribution of apps and info that's least encumbered by gatekeepers.

For example, let's go all the way to the other end of the spectrum where the web as we know it didn't take off and everything was siloed into native apps that you had to download from the App Store before trying something new.

That seems pretty grim to me. I think we're in a sweet spot and lucky to have both.

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