Google removed my ads-free app for “deceptive ads” • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by nightfly » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 9:11 AM UTC

thinkingemote wrote: post #145

Looking at this from another lense, think the reason why so much moderation is automated is that these companies do Human Ops (might be the wrong term) where essentially it's important to employees mental health not to be working on menial moderation duties. So to improve the quality of employees working life they use bots to do the same job. Now moderation seems to be automateable but could a bot do customer service…

It's to save money. Don't kid yourself into thinking they're trying to look out for people by doing this in an automated manner.

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

#152

Post by pmx » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 9:15 AM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #146

I hear a lot of people complain they got falsely banned by some automated process. But automatic processes are easy to game, so just do what the spammers likely do, slightly edit the app, re-upload using another account and IP, etc, repeat. I'm sad every time I install an Android app, thinking how much crap/spyware it will install on my device ... Android should allow other "app stores", just like you can have differ…

There is nothing stopping you from using other app stores on android. Amazon has their own (amazon underground) and samsung have their own (galaxy store). There are others out there, too!

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

#153

Post by lucb1e » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 9:18 AM UTC

voldacar wrote: post #13

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. No single entity, except the laws of course ;)

Small difference between a big for-profit and an elected government...

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

#154

Post by rswail » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 9:19 AM UTC

hayd wrote: post #107

Simple_Guy wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine you started a really cool walled garden, invited everybody over, and they all enjoy it. Then you kick out a few trolls, and one of them thinks that the government should come in and forcibly allow the trolls back in. It's my garden, my choice. You are still allowed to publish your app on the web.

If you kicked out African Americans would you say it's your garden, your choice?

Comparing discrimination against a protected class of person (in this case, race) to commercial discrimination which is subject to the laws of fair competition and monopoly is irrelevant to the discussion.

Monopolies are subject to restrictions on their operation specifically to protect competition. Unfortunately, around the world over the past 30 years, monopoly regulation has been sadly lacking, except in the EU.

Google could be judged as a monopoly provider of operating system and application services to mobile phone manufacturers. Apple supplies iOS only to its own hardware.

As such, google could be restrained but only in terms of how it deals with the phone manufacturers, not their customers.

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

#155

Post by cf141q5325 » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 9:19 AM UTC

em500 wrote: post #135

fouc wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The desktop distribution model was awful. I wasted many many hours in the past cleaning crapware from family PCs.

To be fair, complain about your family, not the desktop model. Its like babyproofing, the equivalent of no one beeing allowed to buy a steakknife because some people are not grown up enough to handle one carefully.

edit: Its ofcourse a difficult subject, like with your parents getting too old to drive and not recognizing it, but after all not a technical but a societal problem.

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

#156

Post by rswail » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 9:22 AM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #30

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 anticomp…

How is Apple anti-competitive in terms of iOS? They onbly supply iOS to themselves and the App Store is only available to Apple products.

You could argue that they take advantage of the desire of app developers to access their market, but that's not "anticompetitive". It's unfair, but life wasn't meant to be fair.

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

#157

Post by thatoneuser » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 9:26 AM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #119

From the blog comments: > Good luck man. I had an app removed because someone did a review of it and their review had screenshots of my app and Google banned the app for copyright infringement siting them as the source. No appeal, one strike, never got through to a human. If true that’s laughablly insane.

Had similar experience. Several years ago app with 6+ digit installs in the first six months. Got some generic excuse and our app was down. We could contest but then they threatened to take even more away.

I don't like these platforms...

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

#158

Post by onli » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 9:28 AM UTC

pmx wrote: post #152

z3t4 wrote: post #146

I hear a lot of people complain they got falsely banned by some automated process. But automatic processes are easy to game, so just do what the spammers likely do, slightly edit the app, re-upload using another account and IP, etc, repeat. I'm sad every time I install an Android app, thinking how much crap/spyware it will install on my device ... Android should allow other "app stores", just like you can have differ…

There is nothing stopping you from using other app stores on android. Amazon has their own (amazon underground) and samsung have their own (galaxy store). There are others out there, too!

There is F-Droid (https://f-droid.org/) especially. Horribly broken UI, but still a great app to get other (free!) apps.

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

#159

Post by xyN10 » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 9:29 AM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #143

antocv wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You, still using google for anything, is insane. OK, harsh word, but really, your behaviour is modified by the search results/ads/suggestions you see. Every search you do, leans you to continue using Google in the future, and looking at the web through their eyes.

How is that any different than literally any other way of discovering information?

I no longer find interesting things in the top results like 10 years ago. Some search terms only return about 100 results when there should be many more.

Academic websites seem to have nearly vanished from the results.

Perhaps the results get better if you pay Google by allowing them cookies, but I think that wasn't necessary 10 years ago either.

So the difference is that in a non-biased library you find many more and interesting sources.

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

#160

Post by Svoka » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 9:32 AM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #119

From the blog comments: > Good luck man. I had an app removed because someone did a review of it and their review had screenshots of my app and Google banned the app for copyright infringement siting them as the source. No appeal, one strike, never got through to a human. If true that’s laughablly insane.

I had similar issue, but, I was able to re-upload the app. App contained logo of my company, which was flagged as copyrighted material (with copyrights belonging to my company, but when Google cared).