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Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

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Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#51

Post by sandGorgon »

My developer account has been getting mails about "apps that are not compliant with permission requirements". The problem is that these are 3 year old, UNPUBLISHED apps. Turns out, you cannot delete old apps . You can only unpublish them. Google will still keep the app up if even one phone has the app installed.

I wrote back saying that this is a years-old app that I no longer even have the source code to. The reply was "we can't do anything. You need to figure it out. Or else".

After days of constant emailing, NOTHING HAPPENED. Finally I got a a notice my apps were deleted with a warning email.

Here's my fear. I have two more apps like this. I'm pretty sure they are going to go through the same procedure. Is my main developer account going to be banned ?

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#52

Post by brokenmachine »

OJFord wrote: post #28
brokenmachine wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can have a catch-all at the end to cover those situations. They make the rules, so the rules can include, "you can be removed at the discretion of google" at the end.

If it makes you feel better, you could view the current rules as consisting solely of that line?

Lol, true. I was just suggesting an option if they care about portraying a facade of fairness. Probably unnecessary though.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#53

Post by cameronbrown »

sandGorgon wrote: post #51

My developer account has been getting mails about "apps that are not compliant with permission requirements". The problem is that these are 3 year old, UNPUBLISHED apps. Turns out, you cannot delete old apps . You can only unpublish them. Google will still keep the app up if even one phone has the app installed. I wrote back saying that this is a years-old app that I no longer even have the source code to. The reply…

Can you just publish an empty APK (after creating the project) up to all of them? Or is that not how this works?

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#54

Post by megaremote »

Apple have also gotten rejection happy. But the good thing with Apple, is that they have a team of people, who will tell you why, and help you fix your issues. I have had those guys help me track down bugs, and suggest UI fixes.

Apple have gotten better, and it seems Google have gotten worse.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#55

Post by chx »

aikah wrote: post #45
tylermenezes wrote: post #30

Guidebook, a 70+ person company, also appears to have just had their account banned as of yesterday morning. It's an app that tells you what's happening at conventions. Hard to see the bad faith there, but I bet the conventions they've signed contracts with this week will be very unhappy. The co-founder has taken to tweeting at his network to try to find a contact. Crazy to think a rogue algorithm might put 70 people…

It's the danger of building your entire business on someone else's platform. Now Android is a bit more open than Apple's App store since on can install third party apps outside Google Play, but I personally always got an answer from Apple, even if it took 3/4 weeks, every-time there was an issue with a deployed application. Google? Unless you know somebody there or you are a big shot it's impossible to contact them,…

> It's the danger of building your entire business on someone else's platform.

This is so often repeated but by this logic noone should write mobile apps.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#56

Post by redwall_hp »

chx wrote: post #55
aikah wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the danger of building your entire business on someone else's platform. Now Android is a bit more open than Apple's App store since on can install third party apps outside Google Play, but I personally always got an answer from Apple, even if it took 3/4 weeks, every-time there was an issue with a deployed application. Google? Unless you know somebody there or you are a big shot it's impossible to contact them,…

> It's the danger of building your entire business on someone else's platform. This is so often repeated but by this logic noone should write mobile apps.

It's pretty ludicrous that this is an accepted notion. App stores are anticompetitve practices at their finest. (Especially Apple's situation, where they're competing with offerings from companies like Amazon, and slapping them with 30% cuts that price them out.)

We have two smartphone platforms that have basically full control over third party software. A company or individual that produces application layer software can hardly just come out with their own OS (and expect any amount of mass adoption). It's preposterous.

This goes even deeper than the issues with the Microsoft investigations of the 90s, but the only difference is a lack of monopoly-level marketshare. Which is hardly a sufficient excuse to permit this kind of behavior.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#57

Post by redwall_hp »

pdonis wrote: post #27
_nickwhite wrote: post #20

Google is what, a 3/4 TRILLION dollar company, based on market cap! It's absolutely unfathomable that they have such a prolific reputation of non-customer service and inability to contact them. Any other company would suffer massive consequences with customer service that poor. What will it take for them to turn this around? Maybe they believe they are too big for this to matter?

> they have such a prolific reputation of non-customer service No, they don't, because Android developers and users are not Google's customers. Google gets no direct revenue from them so it has no incentive to provide the kind of customer service that would be expected for a paying customer. The only incentive they have is to provide whatever services will get them more revenue from their actual customers: ad purchas…

If you pay for an app, you are a Google Play customer. They are acting as a retailer, purchasing software from a vendor and distributing it to you as a markup. The developer of the software is the "third party" in the transaction.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#60

Post by jbarham »

_nickwhite wrote: post #20

Google is what, a 3/4 TRILLION dollar company, based on market cap! It's absolutely unfathomable that they have such a prolific reputation of non-customer service and inability to contact them. Any other company would suffer massive consequences with customer service that poor. What will it take for them to turn this around? Maybe they believe they are too big for this to matter?

If you're a Google Ads buyer, Google is easy to contact. If you're a mere Google products user, good luck getting help via their crowdsourced message boards...
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