Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

821–830 of 1001 posts

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

#821

Post by andylynch »

sethammons wrote: post #725
shakezula wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, we need better laws around customer service and data handling, absolutely. For (as far as I could ever tell) no reason, Facebook marked my account as a bot in roughly 2015 and refused to let me access any of my account data until I proof of identity. They wanted a picture of my driver's license and a picture of me to confirm. I never sent it in, instead emailing and asking if there was any other way to get v…

Why is it "intense verification?" What is a good alternative? I lost access to my blizzard account once and I had to send in my driver's license.

This seems fair. I need to do the same when picking up a parcel from the shop. Just an easy way of seeing your Alice or Bob and not Chuck.

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

#822

Post by jlmb »

anthony_r wrote: post #301
_qulr wrote: post #285

It's painfully clear at this point that we need a consumer "bill of rights" to protect us from these giant tech companies. At the very least, companies must be legally required to present you in writing with the so-called violation of terms they're accusing you of, evidence of the violation, and a phone # or other immediate contact so that you can dispute the accusations. It's insane that these basic legal rights don…

You're not seeing the other side of the coin - the huge amount of spam and abuse that such systems correctly identify and remove. If every abuser requests those explanations (which they will) there will be far more spam going around the Internet. Just think about the army of "Facebook content moderators" who were a popular topic on HN recently due to the concerns over their mental health. (I am offering no solutions…

But surely it’s possible to use methods other than what currently seems to be the first and only solution: “your account has been banned, bye”.

For example, if an automated system thinks an account is sending spam, enforcing a (very low) outgoing email rate limit would be a much more reasonable first step.

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

#823

Post by jsmith45 »

_qulr wrote: post #285

It's painfully clear at this point that we need a consumer "bill of rights" to protect us from these giant tech companies. At the very least, companies must be legally required to present you in writing with the so-called violation of terms they're accusing you of, evidence of the violation, and a phone # or other immediate contact so that you can dispute the accusations. It's insane that these basic legal rights don…

The EU recently proposed The Digital Services Act, which is a DCMA like legislation (with both copyright infringement and other illegal content like CP as targets).

Part of that draft law pretty clearly states that companies must have a proper appeal process for banned accounts. This would apply to "decisions taken by the online platform on the ground that the information provided by the recipients is illegal content or incompatible with its terms and conditions", which in practice covers basically all bans except for Age restriction or non-payment based bans.

They must provide details of what part of the Terms of Service they claim you violated: "where the decision is based on the alleged incompatibility of the information with the terms and conditions of the provider, a reference to the contractual ground relied on and explanations as to why the information is considered to be incompatible with that ground".

If the internal appeals process fails, the consumer can take the company to online binding arbitration (with the consumer's choice of accredited arbitrators certified by the member state). The company always pays its own costs in the process, and must reimburse the user's costs if the company loses.

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

#824

Post by sargun »

ceejayoz wrote: post #296
sargun wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay $25/mo for GSuite enterprise if your email matters to you.

Those can get shut down in exactly the same manner.

Not exactly. Their user agreement gives you a number of outs, and ways to get a live human.

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

#825

Post by Emendo »

newswasboring wrote: post #748
nvahalik wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but Google and Facebook are not public utilities, nor should they be.

Why not? The qualification being for public utility should be "is this basic infrastructure humans need to live now?". And the answer is yes. Facebook controls most of the big public speaking forums and google controls so much and in so many spaces that it would be foolish for me to even try listing. I hope in america public utilities are not only controlled by the government. Because where I am from public utilities…

In reality, there is no impediment to designating Google as a public utility other than the elected representatives making it so.

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

#826

Post by [deleted] »

jennyyang wrote: post #658

We need regulations to enforce adequate customer service and SLAs in these huge companies. Google is getting away with this behavior because of their monopolistic behavior. If they had competition, they would be spending billions on customer support, but because they have a monopoly, they can get away with having virtually none. This is their way of saving money and taking advantage of their monopoly. It's a shadow v…

[deleted]

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

#827

Post by pkulak »

grishka wrote: post #811
Nacdor wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always afraid this will happen when I use a VPN or TOR. The internet in general is pretty hostile to any sort of privacy protecting measures, which they justify by saying your activity looks "suspicious". I've already been locked out of my Facebook account once because I forgot to turn my VPN off. The last time I used TOR it was almost impossible to do anything on the internet. Every Google search was met with "W…

My ISP has literally a single public IP address they use for all subscribers. And, I have third-party cookies disabled in my browsers because they are almost never used for something legitimately good. Because of these two things, I'm constantly being punished with captchas, and sometimes downright bans ("your IP isn't good enough to post on this forum"), in places where I least expect. Yes, looking at you, Google an…

Oh wow, the dreaded carrier-grade NAT. I still can't believe that's a thing.

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

#828

Post by blunte »

cactus2093 wrote: post #592
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…

At least with a human you have a way to make your case or ask to speak to a manager. Of course they could deny you, but in my experience it is rare to be denied if you persist in politely asking.

Without a human to contact, you have no recourse. The email that you received denying your request for re-evaluation is no-reply@big.co, so you're stuck. It is a surprisingly awful feeling of helplessness. In fact, if a human on the other end of the phone were to say, "I'm sorry, it doesn't say why, but our system won't let you back in.", you would probably feel a little better because some soul heard you.

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

#829

Post by ramraj07 »

ztjio wrote: post #224
ramraj07 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has pretty good support _today_. Who knows what will change with Google tomorrow given its track record? Amazon otoh has been exactly consistent in its customer support starting from amazon.com till AWS.

This is a bizarrely biased view. There are no shortage of nightmare testimonials out there for Amazon customer service, unfairly banned accounts, and all of that. Amazon might be slightly better than Google with regards to finding a person to speak with, but, not any better with finding a person who can do anything when you've been wronged. That said, it seems that "Amazon" and "AWS" have entirely separately run cust…

Personal experience has been the absolute opposite, and so has been what I've read. Please check hn history for no of times AWS customer service was said to be bad vs google

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

#830

Post by II2II »

sethammons wrote: post #725
shakezula wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, we need better laws around customer service and data handling, absolutely. For (as far as I could ever tell) no reason, Facebook marked my account as a bot in roughly 2015 and refused to let me access any of my account data until I proof of identity. They wanted a picture of my driver's license and a picture of me to confirm. I never sent it in, instead emailing and asking if there was any other way to get v…

Why is it "intense verification?" What is a good alternative? I lost access to my blizzard account once and I had to send in my driver's license.

There comes a point when the demands of the business outweigh the value of the services they provide. For some of us that will include providing identification, particularly in cases where the handling of the identification is opaque. These cases are far removed from letting front line staff glance at a card to compare your face to a photo or verify the details that you voluntarily submitted on a form. The only times I have let anyone actually handle my identification for services directed towards consumers were for financial services and with my employer. The latter case was only because I knew how the identification would be handled in the transaction.

In the case of Blizzard I would say no and accept my losses. (Well, let's say Steam since I have actually dealt with them.) In the case of Facebook or Google, I would say no simply because I don't trust their motivations.

Post reply on HN