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

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

#451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two of the admins in our new WoW-guild got banned by Discord for inviting guild applicants (who had submitted forms asking to be invited) to our server. After a few messages there is phone verification and then after continuing to send out the accounts were banned. Contacting support was just a big 'we confirm the terms of service breach and we so not reinstate accounts'. Those accounts were in some cases the sole ad…

exactly. people are noticing it with google but its all tech companies where your only point of contact is an email address. paypal, uber, facebook, steam, etc etc -- they all deny service to innocent people on a regular basis with no recourse for them. it reminds me of pre social justice movement. isnt it the business' right to deny service to anyone they want to? like all black people? actually, no.

I got banned from a default sub in reddit for the reason "I didn't see that in the article". I replied to the mods with an explanation and a direct quote from teh article, and... nothing. They perma-banned me, and then blocked my account from messaging.

My comment was correct,

but even if it wasn't, it wasn't against the rules,

and even it if was against the rules, their own guidelines say you get a warning first,

and even then, the sitewide rules say that mods should hear appeals. But nah, forget all that. I'm just gone.

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

#452

Hey Google! Want to know why your cloud service is trailing behind AWS & Azure? This is why ... When you erode trust in your consumer and developer services, don't expect us to sign up for your enterprise services.

Well, I did try to fix my Amazon packages being delivered to wrong address. There's simply no way to give that feedback, yet alone receive a response.

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

#453

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…

I also developed a website young (mid teens), which was essentially a "beautiful/unique website ranking" based on visitor submissions and upvote/downvote system. I had the essential pieces done and launched the website, super excited as my first real project. I decided to toss on Google AdSense to see if I could potentially monetize the website by putting a single picture advertisement on the right side of the websit…

How is this system immune to me clicking on an enemy website's ads 100's of times to get them banned from AdWords?

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

#455
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you call dark patterns are ways to ensure users don't accidentally load malware onto their device. They can definitely do better though - I think a good first step would a dialog to choose trusted alternative app stores such that installing apps does not require a separate confirmation step (as is currently the case.) The Google Play Services moves are unfortunate, but required. Most device manufacturers do not…

> What you call dark patterns are ways to ensure users don't accidentally load malware onto their device. They are still dark patterns, that they also have found excuses for those dark patterns does not make them any better. In fact most of the stuff (not just Google's) we see nowadays that take control away from the users - very often in ways that entrench monopolies and the status quo - use "but security" as their…

And it's a pretty good defense. Say those dark patterns are removed - and loading a .apk from the web on a completely new pixel 3 shows the "do you want to install this app?" dialog. What's stopping any of those apps from masquerading as official Google/banking apps and stealing user credentials? Or what if the app is named "get any app free app store" and, along with providing cracked apps from Google Play, it enrolled your android in a botnet?

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

#456

Hey Google! Want to know why your cloud service is trailing behind AWS & Azure? This is why ... When you erode trust in your consumer and developer services, don't expect us to sign up for your enterprise services.

Well, I did try to fix my Amazon packages being delivered to wrong address. There's simply no way to give that feedback, yet alone receive a response.

You can call customer service and talk to a person at Amazon

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

#457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I‘m not so sure about this. Is there any indication or prior example from business history for that claim? The Apple App Store seems good enough for most normal people. They will even defend having no alternative means of installing software on their iPhones with „Security“.

I'm highly technical -- 30 years in dev -- and I prefer the curated, controlled environment of iOS for my phone because I have zero interest in sysadmining my telephone. You put scare quotes around security, but Apple's approach really does result in a more stable and secure platform.

You are cherry picking. It might be more secure from drive by hackers but if any of Apples partners (NSA etc) want in you are carrying a big backdoor that by definition is devoid of security.

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

#458
post #81
post #78

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Not this again. (pardon my sarcasm, no intent to offend.) There was a point in time when Microsoft was deeply embedding its really shitty and uber insecure Internet Explorer into Windows and causing all sorts of very severe problems problems. If that had continued, the world would have switched to free software. It was inevitable. But the government stepped in and forced Microsoft to make a just marginally better pro…

It's true that Google, Apple, and Facebook are now getting the treatment that Microsoft got a long time ago. But I'm not sure I agree that everyone would go free software if it didn't happen. If anything, I think another company would just come along and build something slightly less crappy but no more open. These days you don't even own the software anymore, it's just a subscription or SaaS. > Software companies mak…

> These days you don't even own the software anymore, it's just a subscription or SaaS.

Only if you choose to use that type of "software". Literally none of the software I use is subscription or SaaS, because I make it a point to avoid those things.

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

#459
These "Google suspended my account" stories are all similar in that Google always refuses to provide any details about the supposed violation. Is there a good reason for this reticence, or are they intentionally vague just so you have no way to defend yourself?

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

#460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scary thing is that these companies aren't simply being disingenuous - they earnestly believe this. A company takes for granted that they are good actors, and that their customers' interests are perfectly aligned with their own. With those assertions, increasing their control can only mean a better ability to make things good/safe/simple for their customers. But that is an authoritarian delusion. Because real dif…

Well put! Bad intentions are not necessary to build an authoritarian system. All it takes is enough good-intentioned people being unaware of the system they are building and their role in it.

Being aware of the system itself doesn't even capture it. People need to be aware of the system's effects, from the marginalized perspective.
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