Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app • Hacker News Board

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#391

Post by cube00 » Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 3:49 PM UTC

smt88 wrote: post #332

aurbano wrote: post #304

I ran a website that I first coded when I was 14-15, then kept improving over the years. It was for amateur electronic music producers to upload their tracks and after a few years there were several thousand active users, generating ~$400/month in AdSense. One day a relatively famous DJ tweeted a link to a song on the website, and that day alone generated close to $300, so 19 year old me thought he was about to earn…

Honestly my big problems with Google as a user are the same as yours: they try to automate their customer service, and the software just isn't even close to being a human equivalent. It's an absolute nightmare.

I understand trying to automate customer service but when you have an alleged human reply with the following after an email chain with nothing more then RTFM, something is broken. Phrases such as "I made sure to include all the information available to me" just make you feel even more worthless.

> Wed, Aug 28, 9:28 AM EDT: Google Play team > I’m not able to provide any more information or a better answer to your question. In our previous email, I made sure to include all the information available to me.

Update: It looks like they didn't actually include all the information available to them, there's another level of escalation, apparently only accessible after public attention https://twitter.com/GooglePlayDev/status/1166999937156100096

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#392

Post by HillaryBriss » Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 3:52 PM UTC

dollar wrote: post #3

The easiest way to identify a monopoly is to look at how badly a company can treat its customers and still get away with it. My company has a half dozen stories like this about Google in the last year alone. Know what Google is doing to its AdSense partners on a massive scale? They wait until your site has just under the earnings when they have to write you a check, then they terminate your AdSense account for “polic…

> The easiest way to identify a monopoly is to look at how badly a company can treat its customers and still get away with it.

+100 This has been my feeling ever since I first started using the android SDK. Google put the developer very low on the priority list, but, at the same time, the end user is also very low on the list.

The only people high on the list appear to be Google shareholders and the Google employees who work on android.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#393

Post by fulafel » Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 3:53 PM UTC

cameronbrown wrote: post #312

fulafel wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just an optimization/convenience to use Google services for push notifications, no?

Basically: Back in the day a ton of apps used their own notification servers, with each one clashing, waking the device up, etc.. Google Cloud Messaging was then set to be the only service that could wake the device up when it was sleeping. Supposedly it batches messages and sends them at optimal times to save battery.

I'm not convinced that other network io is blocked. There seem to even be commercial competition for GCM: https://pushy.me/

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#394

Post by eightysixfour » Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 3:54 PM UTC

eganist wrote: post #366

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's what I got out of it too. As soon as I hit "FDA approved" I had to pause and consider that maybe Google isn't the bad guy here.

"FDA Approved" isn't a boogeyman term. It means the supplement was in fact reviewed/approved by the FDA, whereas dubious substances come with statements that their claims have not been FDA approved. Why the aversion to "FDA Approved"?

The FDA approves that ingredients are “safe” to consume but the label is often used to imply the FDA has approved the ingredient for whatever health claim the manufacturer has attached to the supplement.

It is a boogeyman term not because of what it actually means but how it is leveraged to say something it doesn’t mean.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#395

Post by HillaryBriss » Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 3:55 PM UTC

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #228

cbanek wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This also makes me feel even more strongly that the FTC should really clamp down on these very strict app stores. https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/amicus_briefs/app... Both the App Store and Google Play stores I think are basically illegal monopolies. I should be able to install whatever app I want, without having to jailbreak my phone and deal with warranty nonsense from the manufacturer. Just like my comp…

> Both the App Store and Google Play stores I think are basically illegal monopolies. I should be able to install whatever app I want, without having to jailbreak my phone and deal with warranty nonsense from the manufacturer. Just like my computer, which I can also install whatever software I want on it. Is Google Play doing that now? It used to be that you just had to change an option in settings to "allow third-pa…

A developer can install any apk using the adb tool from a command line. Jailbreaking the phone is not required.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#396

Post by zifnab06 » Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 3:55 PM UTC

IggleSniggle wrote: post #268

philpem wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience with bug bounties, if it's not on the OWASP TOP10, they'll kick, stamp, scream and fight -- even if you say "I don't want the bounty, I just want this bug fixed". (backstory: found a bug in Twitter which disclosed DMs. Reported it, Twitter engineer had a raging tantrum on Hackerone, H1 (I assume) mistook his messages for mine and banned me from the site. Found out a mutual was a Twitter engineer, s…

Please don’t abbreviate as H1. It messes up my pronunciation of the Hackerone program. Hackerone rhymes with macaroni.

Much like CoreOS rhymes with Oreos.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#397

Post by stonogo » Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 3:55 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #367

mirimir wrote: post #210

The Google and Apple app stores and support services ought to be regulated as public utilities. Because they effectively constitute a duopoly regarding apps for mobile devices. That would prevent them from arbitrarily refusing to provide services and list apps in their stores. They could refuse, but only for permitted reasons, and with a clear appeal process. The Public Utility Commission of Texas has a pretty clear…

The Google and Apple App Stores generate ~$100 billion in annual revenue combined, and growing at about 25% per year. The App Stores are the greatest software distribution and monetization platforms ever created, second perhaps only to “The Internet” as a whole. Regulating the App Stores as some sort of utility sounds like the perfect way to stifle growth and make it more difficult and expensive to publish on the App…

Most of humanity would appreciate the lowest-effort 5% chopped off the app stores. There's an stratum of trash there, and if it were even slightly more difficult to publish on the app store, I'd be happy.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#398

Post by throwaway_law » Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 3:56 PM UTC

jimmydddd wrote: post #360

throwaway_law wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What you're saying is I don't want to wear a seatbelt when driving my car. As others have said there may be more apt analogies...sticking with the car theme, it may be closer to a market where you buy a Ford and then you can only fill your Ford up with Ford gas from a Ford gas station. That market doesn't exist for clear cut reasons, but if it did you can bet Ford and other car manufacturers would claim the same thi…

I worked in the computer printer industry a ways back. The printer companies tried to make this argument with respect to blocking generic ink cartridges from being used on their printers. They argued that they needed to limit to the manufactuerer's cartridges to guarantee a good user experience.

I know I read articles about that (much like the right to repair articles with respect to CAT heavy machinery), was there any legal action against any of the printer companies you know about? If I recall the outcome correctly I believe the printer companies lost the fight, but I don't know/remember if that was voluntary or court ordered.

As it relates to printers/cartridges unlike my car manufacture/gas hypothetical or the app store, I could potentially see certain IP (from patents to trade dress) rights that may actually help the printer companies argument (but again I think they backed down anyway).

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#399

Post by OnlyRepliesToBS » Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

fouric wrote: post #271

I propose a new heuristic called "The HN PR Law" or something to that effect: no response from a company on a negative PR incident should be taken seriously after an article on said incident hits the front page of HN. Given Google's track record and the ranking of this post, they'll probably reinstate the app within a few hours, and I propose that we act as if they had not - only acting on issues after they have been…

lol

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#400

Post by cube00 » Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #239

gonmad wrote: post #141

Only 12 hours between an email and the account termination, with no real interaction and no way to change what seems not to be a serious problem. That would change the time gap during responsible disclosure, Alphabet/Google is changing its metrics. I mean why only small developers would have to be mistreated. If they play it that way, Android developers community can also report platform bugs to them - and go full di…

12:34 - I have found a security vulnerability 12:47 - I noticed you haven’t fixed it yet, if you don’t do it soon I’ll go public 14:13 - I noticed you still haven’t fixed it, please hurry, if you don’t do it soon I’ll go public 14:15 - I noticed you haven’t fixed the bug yet, if you don’t do it soon I’ll go public 16:55 - Since you still haven’t fixed this. I’ve made this public on my blog. Enjoy the consequences!

Based on the article even if Google replied you'd still be in line to disclose regardless, this poor developer's appeals were rejected, I'm not convinced a human ever read them on the way down.