111–120 of 191 posts
Is there not an open APK repository anyone can submit to? It could be a community run endeavor and research project even. We could develop software to detect APKs which exhibit possible malicious behavior and give them scores.
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no.... we put a limit into what private companies can discriminate against. Private taxis would routinely refuse you service because of your ethnic background it still can happen, but it is illegal for good reasons
There's a constitutional amendment for that specific carve-out, though. The constitution permits that limit, it doesn't what many in this thread are proposing.
You have 2 choices:
1) Decline to recognize thst Google is in any way a special case, and so treat Google like any other private business, like your brother-in-laws little one-man coffee shop.
2) Recognize that Google is in any way special and different from some other random small private business.
Let's say you subscribe to 1) :
On the surface level, being denied service in the app store because your app caters to people who are poly, is like being denied service in the general store because you're black, or Chinese, Or Jewish.
Your freedom as a business operator is that you are free not to operate a business if you can't stomach the thought of having to sell flour to black people.
So, if you think Google is just a private business like any other and with the same rights as any other, then they must offer flour to the black people too. They can't mysteriously be out of flour just for some people based on race, religion, sex, etc.
But of course, whether anyone subscribes to it or not, 2) is in effect. Google is not just a private business like a motorcycle repair shop or a hair salon.
A marketplace owner doesn't just own a business that must service everyone equally, they actually own the street that all possible businesses and all possible customers must use. That makes the marketplace owner an order of magnitude more liable for their actions, in the way that the state is for the ordinary phyical street.
Now their decisions not only abuse an individual customer (an app developer) but exert control over entire populations.
It is ENTIRELY reasonable and rational and fair to have strict limits, high standards, and onerous even draconian oversight on anyone in any such position.
The state weilds that same sort of control over ordinary streets and businesses and customers, and because of that, the state is actually very limited in what it can do, and must always be able to justify why it does anything. (in theory anyway, on paper anyway). If the state wants to say that some business can't operate, it has to be prepared to defend that decision legally.
Google and other large operations have set up environments where they have state-level control over state-level populations with corner coffee shop-level autonomy.
There are no solutions for suspensions from app stores. The solution is to not use app stores -- build better webapps, use the open web. We could be living in a world where no open web ever existed, where everything would be filtered through app stores and closed environments like Facebook (AOL). We need to preserve the open web, it is our most precious ressource.
I dont agree, personally. I believe that putting everything online is not sustainable. It might be very difficult to believe for people who earn so much that they can afford 24/7 stable and fast internet anywhere they go, but there are places where even good old broadband dsl is unstable, in the west. The reasoning of "appstore bad -> lets not use any appstores" is flawed. There are "appstores" like the ones on FOSS…
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I dont agree, personally. I believe that putting everything online is not sustainable. It might be very difficult to believe for people who earn so much that they can afford 24/7 stable and fast internet anywhere they go, but there are places where even good old broadband dsl is unstable, in the west. The reasoning of "appstore bad -> lets not use any appstores" is flawed. There are "appstores" like the ones on FOSS…
It's app stores as the single gatekeeper to a platform that's bad. I think it's actually fine if there's an app store where you can get vetted apps that have some official stamp of approval from the store owner, but it's also important that that store doesn't have the monopoly to that platform. It should be possible for users to choose a different app store.
Visit site. Click download app. Click install.
This pattern has worked for 20 years. What changed?
Nothing. Google and apple just decided it wanted a walled garden and ya'll said ooo shiny.
The "private company can do whatever it wants" crowd will not show up for this one because it doesn't suit their politics
I understand that the media coverage of Parler's ban in particular was huge and that's why so many people suddenly give a damn, but it's honestly more than a little frustrating to see people talk and act as though it's the first thing that's ever been cracked down on for moral reasons.
>Google's developer guidelines prohibit apps "that contain or promote ... any content or services intended to be sexually gratifying." Very reminiscent of the language of the US Comstock Laws which started 148 years ago. One hundred and two years ago, a judge called those laws "haphazard and capricious". Those words seem to fit in this case. And this is not the Victorian Era. I imagine Google would rather not be call…
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Or Andy Rubin to reinforce it... :)
Andy Rubin sexually harassed people. That's not the same thing.
"...allegation that Andy supported a string of mistresses, who would often be loaned to other men in what he described as “an ownership relationship.” The complaint alleges Andy had at least five such mistresses, including one (dubbed “M”) who was “complicit with Rubin in running what appeared to be a sex ring.”
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It's app stores as the single gatekeeper to a platform that's bad. I think it's actually fine if there's an app store where you can get vetted apps that have some official stamp of approval from the store owner, but it's also important that that store doesn't have the monopoly to that platform. It should be possible for users to choose a different app store.
Ugh. Why do we even need an app store exactly? Visit site. Click download app. Click install. This pattern has worked for 20 years. What changed? Nothing. Google and apple just decided it wanted a walled garden and ya'll said ooo shiny.
That would be a problem if we would have no choice, but that is not the case.
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It's app stores as the single gatekeeper to a platform that's bad. I think it's actually fine if there's an app store where you can get vetted apps that have some official stamp of approval from the store owner, but it's also important that that store doesn't have the monopoly to that platform. It should be possible for users to choose a different app store.
Ugh. Why do we even need an app store exactly? Visit site. Click download app. Click install. This pattern has worked for 20 years. What changed? Nothing. Google and apple just decided it wanted a walled garden and ya'll said ooo shiny.
Then again, app stores haven't solved the malware problem, and neither have solutions like trusted publishers / signing executables / etc. I look forward to seeing a solution that isn't worst-of-both-worlds.
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Andy Rubin sexually harassed people. That's not the same thing.
Definitely not traditional though, to say the least: https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/2/20680145/android-andy-rubi... "...allegation that Andy supported a string of mistresses, who would often be loaned to other men in what he described as “an ownership relationship.” The complaint alleges Andy had at least five such mistresses, including one (dubbed “M”) who was “complicit with Rubin in running what appeared to be a…
Really the only point I want to make is that we shouldn't lump consensual "non-mainstream" relationships with abusive ones and call it "those freaks over there".