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

purpleleafsoftware.com

241–250 of 336 posts

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

#241
Why is it that software repositories work so much better than these app stores? Every app store on every platform is a wasteland of adware and malware, but I have never found such a program in, say, the Debian repos.

App stores manage to be simultaneously more restrictive than a repository and less trustworthy than downloading executables through a web browser.

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

#242
post #20

When you receive that email from Google you can only fill a generic form given at the bottom of the email. You can't contact a human being to understand why it is rejected/removed. Problem is not written clearly and it doesn't include a screenshot as apple does. Google is terrible at support on Play Store (and some more of its services).

I understand that Google wants to handle as much as possible with a support.py script, but they really should start having people to contact. Maybe there should be a fee for a support request and if the Google rep finds that Google's automated system messed up they report the problem internally and refund the fee to the app developer.

If there's going to be a fee it should come out of Google's $100+ billion in savings that they are accruing in part by evading expenses like customer support. This person, and all Play store developers, are customers that paid Google to publish on their app store. They shouldn't have to additionally pay Google to provide the same support that is standard everywhere else even at scale, such as AT&T, Comcast, Amazon etc.

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

#243

Why is it that software repositories work so much better than these app stores? Every app store on every platform is a wasteland of adware and malware, but I have never found such a program in, say, the Debian repos. App stores manage to be simultaneously more restrictive than a repository and less trustworthy than downloading executables through a web browser.

Scale. The average user has never heard about software repositories.

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

#244

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.

That's something you should be able to sue over (false representation)

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

#245
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 revi…

I think what Google and Apple should do is to add support for a "premium" upload feature. Leave the standard process as it is, but add a "premium tier". For a fee of 100 EUR, you get to upload an app, and you get a competent review from a real human within a certain time frame, with a list of all things that you must change to make it compliant. The problem is that right now a spammer who creates hundreds of low effo…

It already costs $100 to be able to upload an app to Apple's App Store - I feel like that sort of support should be included in that price.

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

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And after paying those $25 they are free to spam the review team with hundreds of submissions? Doesn't sound sustainable to me. If App Stores charged a fee per submission, that would drastically cut down on spam submissions, and free up resources for those of us who actually put a lot of effort into our apps.

Once you set a fee I know apps will be updated less often, it'd be sad for open-source apps - which I'd say are the most useful of all apps on Google Play.

So a fee on initial submission... updates not charged. Will still put a crimp in the spam-app floods.

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

#247

Why is it that software repositories work so much better than these app stores? Every app store on every platform is a wasteland of adware and malware, but I have never found such a program in, say, the Debian repos. App stores manage to be simultaneously more restrictive than a repository and less trustworthy than downloading executables through a web browser.

This is due to the audience of a Debian repo versus the audience of an app store.

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

#248
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like there ought to be a google competitor now that google is so crappy. I switched to DDG on my phone and it’s good. Recommend it.

DDG isn't a competitor, it's a meta search engine, that just uses Google and Bing under the hood.

The history of search engines is more complicated than most people realize. There's nothing weird about a search site using a different engine than you expect. Someday it could use different ones, or someday it may deploy its own.

I think other than Google that pretty much every site has had engines change over the years. IIRC Microsoft had a search site before Bing, for instance, and IIRC AltaVista changed search engine quite often as it struggled to retain relevance. In general, it's not really the engines that people are upset about, it's the parasitic stuff attached to it at the gate entrance.

Also I'm pretty sure it doesn't use Google. Last I knew Bing is used.

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

#249

Why is it that software repositories work so much better than these app stores? Every app store on every platform is a wasteland of adware and malware, but I have never found such a program in, say, the Debian repos. App stores manage to be simultaneously more restrictive than a repository and less trustworthy than downloading executables through a web browser.

People using Debian repo probably check the check sum as advised unlike Google Playstore users :)

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

#250

Why is it that software repositories work so much better than these app stores? Every app store on every platform is a wasteland of adware and malware, but I have never found such a program in, say, the Debian repos. App stores manage to be simultaneously more restrictive than a repository and less trustworthy than downloading executables through a web browser.

In addition to what other had said, I think that, since there aren't any money to be made of debian repos, unlike the app store, shady actors won't be likely to bother.
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