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Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

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Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#591

Post by throw14082020 »

Ansil849 wrote: post #548

Here's the thing people need to realize: your email address, phone number, and any other digital identifier can be stripped and taken from you by whoever owns the service at any time. It doesn't matter if you host your own domain/mailer daemon, the host and/or registrar can choose to suspend your account as well. So really, there is no solution. Other than the realization that our communications channels are not ours…

This is academic/ theoretical. Having control over your email and preventing total loss of email like Terraria's author is not "difficult". Own your email domain, but pay a hosting provider for emails. Then, if that hosting provider doesn't want to host you anymore, you can switch to another provider instantly or host your own mail server (bad idea). You can argue the domain registrar can take it away from you, but that doesn't happen unless you do something illegal with that domain or don't pay the annual fee. The case with Google is neither of these serious issues.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#592

Post by cactus2093 »

blunte wrote: post #477

Google uses non-human automation to make some decisions, including banning accounts. As others have mentioned, this is not unreasonable as long as there is a reasonable (in terms of time and effort) path to disputing a ban - i.e., speaking to a human about the issue. But Google (and Facebook, and probably some other companies) don't have reasonable processes for disputing or resolving these situations. Some have said…

I mostly agree with you, but I think you might be overestimating the benefit of simply having humans on the other end. There is a lot more to building "reasonable" processes than just adding humans to the mix, those people have to be given some power to make exceptions but not too much or it defeats the point of the original rules, and you will still have honest mistakes and a few bad actors on the dispute resolution teams. Doing that at scale is always going to be hard.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#593

Post by rochak »

mschuster91 wrote: post #105
rochak wrote: post #2

Is there really no way for a user to get in touch with a human agent? I read that Google automates the flagging and disabling of accounts but given how many people have their livelihood linked to these accounts, Google must have done something. It makes me scared how deep I have dived into the Google ecosystem. Time and time again I think about transitioning to someplace else but don’t know how to. It seems too daunt…

> Is there really no way for a user to get in touch with a human agent? File for a C&D and then, if that does not help, a court-issued injunction order ("Abmahnung" followed by "Antrag auf Erlass einer einstweiligen Verfügung"), if you're German. This works somewhat reasonable for Twitter, Facebook and Google.

I’m an Indian staying in US, but probably not for long. Given how many of us are there, I don’t think Google India would have the capacity or care to hear our pleas. The only way to force them to build something useful is through government interference but I hardly feel that Indian government would do so.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#594

Post by g_p »

From a European perspective, EU regulation 2019/1150 covers protections for business users of online intermediation platforms [1].

Article 4 sets out a range of protections for business users, including a requirement to provide "a reference to the specific facts or circumstances, including contents of third party notifications, that led to the decision of the provider of online intermediation services, as well as a reference to the applicable grounds for that decision"

This would seem to point towards a gradual start of the change in this way, although it will be interesting to see if anyone from Europe is ever able to use this against Google and others successfully. On the whole, the legislation seems to be sufficient, and it will come down to the usual issues of national regulators and their willingness to aid in enforcement action.

[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#595

Post by seankimdesign »

I found My old gmail account placed under a flagged status one day. It would not allow me to purchase anything on the play store. Turns out, it was because I used an old Google service called Google Checkout(?) or something more than a decade ago to purchase a few hundred dollars worth of clothes overseas. The clothes were purchased from an H&M equivalent, legally operating stores of course, and no payments were deferred or anything - they just simply said something about my account being associated with possible fraud and disabled all Google Wallet features suddenly many years after, citing my purchase history. Wanting to purchase a $2 game on my phone, I inquired about removing the restrictions placed on my account, but the response I received were quite haphazard and they finally stated that they would not accept anything short of physical copies of my IDs before removing any restrictions. No, fuck off.

I guess it's easier to throw out blocks and bans, placing the burden of proof on their customers rather than to have people looking into why completely innocent accounts were getting flagged in the first place. I've made my peace with it and I'm happy not spending a cent on your damn play store for the rest of my life.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#596

Post by _ink_ »

When Stadia was announced I wanted to buy one. I pre ordered it in the Google Store. A couple of weeks later I received an email that they were not able to process my credit card. That never happened anywhere else. They also said that pre ordering would not be possible anymore and therefore I would not be able to purchase the limited pre ordering offer. They would be sorry, but stated that I could buy Stadia as soon as it gets released.

This is why I have no Stadia.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#597

Post by arrosenberg »

_qulr wrote: post #572
arrosenberg wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's painfully clear at this point that we need a consumer "bill of rights" to protect us from these giant tech companies. Nope. That gives players like Google a platform to negotiate from now and in the future, and it won't curb abuses long term. These abuses are a symptom of economic concentration and a lack of competitive markets. The only resolution guaranteed to work is to break up these companies down to smal…

> The only resolution guaranteed to work is to break up these companies down to smaller parts until they no longer act like quasi-governments. Why not both? A consumer bill of rights and breaking up Google are not mutually exclusive. Consumer protection laws protect consumers from all companies big and small, present and future. Breaking up Google won't do anything about the "next Google". It's a bit strange to think…

It's a bit strange to think a nebulous "consumer bill of rights" is going to protect you when the actual Bill of Rights is routinely violated. We have utility designations for instances where it makes sense, and even then you see customer abuses. Forcing companies to focus on competition and survival is the best way to make sure they treat their customers well. Abuses pop up when customers don't have the choice to take their business elsewhere.

> Breaking up Google won't do anything about the "next Google".

The same regulator that has the power to break them up also has the power to prevent the next Google. Good pricing regulations have the power to prevent the next Google. These are solved problems, we just don't enforce the laws on the books or modernize them appropriately.

> It's a bit strange to think that antitrust is a long-term solution when the successful antitrust case against Microsoft didn't prevent Google, Facebook, and Apple from arising.

That's probably because it wasn't successful in the classical sense. Geroge Bush won the 2000 election and settled the case before it went to judgment. If it had, and Microsoft had been forced to break up, we may not be in the current situation.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#598

Post by peeters »

__soter__ wrote: post #582
searchableguy wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checkout Google one: https://one.google.com/about which is more of a personal plan but come with support.

There are many features that Google blocks if you have a GSuite accounts. You cannot use Stadia, post reviews in the google play store, use any of there family subscriptions as the paying account or as a family member and note application integration with google assistance. Those are just the few I can think of off the top of my head.

You also cannot join non-GSuite meetings, or at least for the educational version of GSuite.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#599

Post by Lammy »

umvi wrote: post #562
thekyle wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, in practice you always have to rely on someone. Even before the internet you'd have to rely on the USPS to carry your letters. Unless you are physically speaking to someone in person, then there is always a middleman.

Well you can always just create your own courier. If you want true free speech these days you need to build your own stack from the ground up anyway.

We Await Silent Tristero's Empire

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#600

Post by im3w1l »

zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #50
rochak wrote: post #2

Is there really no way for a user to get in touch with a human agent? I read that Google automates the flagging and disabling of accounts but given how many people have their livelihood linked to these accounts, Google must have done something. It makes me scared how deep I have dived into the Google ecosystem. Time and time again I think about transitioning to someplace else but don’t know how to. It seems too daunt…

Google only takes calls for ad sales and gsuite support as far as I know. Beyond that shaming them on social media is the only way to get their attention. I used to work for a top five web site and even we couldn’t get ahold of anyone - one day Google decided to start crawling us at a rate of 120k rps and it was killing the site by pulling ancient content that was 100% cache miss. No way for us to get in touch with G…

I think returning http status code 429 (=too many requests) or 5xx should work. Google claims to respect it. And it's not like they have choice really: the server is refusing to provide the content. Additionally, serving such an error should be as cheap or cheaper than a cache hit.
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