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

purpleleafsoftware.com

171–180 of 336 posts

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

#171
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…

This comment also illustrates a big problem with Google's automated processes: The people willing to put in the work to comply with them / get around them are more often the spammers. You see it in search too. Who researches and does tests on page ranking and SEO? The spammers.

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

#172

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.

Seems this will be our future. A lot of systems will be massive, automated and do mostly the right thing. But to cut cost there will be no way to fix errors so if you get caught up in such a situation you are just sorry, out of luck.

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

#173
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.

If you're a mobile app developer, what choice do you have?

I've been using DuckDuckGo for about a year now and I've not noticed the difference. Stack Overflow, MDN are common search results while the occasional blog post also find its way into the result..

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

#174
The exact same thing happened to me last week

My ads-free really simple React Native app was removed from the play store for “deceptive ads”

I don't care too much as this was just a way to learn React Native for me, but it's still really weird

To be honest every interaction I have with Google products nowadays are bad:

- This app kicked from the Play store

- A bug with the new Adsense Auto-ads where you couldn't disable the giant ads that were added on your content without removing completely Google Adsense script, which I did

I'm now moving away from anything Google

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

#175
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a mobile app developer, what choice do you have?

I've been using DuckDuckGo for about a year now and I've not noticed the difference. Stack Overflow, MDN are common search results while the occasional blog post also find its way into the result..

Does DuckDuckGo operate an app store that reaches most of mobile users worldwide? Why are you talking about the search engine?

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

#177
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

Or when the first result says

> "missing {keyword}, require {keyword}?"

Great job big G, I'm definitely the one who made the mistake with my query and didn't want to include that word.

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

#178

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.

Since so little thought seems to have been put in the approval process, can't you just re-submit the same app under a different name or using a different account?

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

#179
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

From talks with colleagues I concluded that these issues were widespread enough to conclude that problem was not my family but the desktop distribution model.

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

#180
post #158
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

try G-Droid for better UI
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