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Google have declared Droidscript is malware

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Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#11

Post by teamspirit »

thereddaikon wrote: post #4

Google is pretty infamous for the over reliance on automation for customer service. But ultimately the reason why they persist is because they can afford get away with it.

I think one day there will eventually be a class action lawsuit filed against one of these companies for their opaque customer response process.

How did it get this way? How did we allow it and for so long? I really don't know. Here we are, the community involved yet somehow this method of customer [non]interaction grew out from underneath us.

*spelling edit: fire -> for

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#12

Post by croes »

vntok wrote: post #3

Well, is it? The linked post is obviously biased, so I'd rather wait for more information instead of getting my pitchfork out immediately.

"The Register asked Google to explain why DroidScript was removed and whether it's possible the policy violation allegations might have been made in error. We've not heard back."

https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/27/droidscript_google_ba...

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#14

Post by ajross »

blakesterz wrote: post #2

I had to go look to see what this was: "DroidScript is an easy to use, portable coding tool which simplifies mobile App development. It dramatically improves productivity by speeding up development by as much as 10x compared with using the standard development tools. It’s also an ideal tool for learning JavaScript, you can literally code anywhere with DroidScript, it’s not cloud based and doesn’t require an internet…

Time for one of these again.

So... having read through their marketing material, this is an on-device tool that opens up what appears to be most of the Android application API to at least the user of the device, and potentially to any Droidscript applications they grab from other sources, and... maybe to other apps on the device? It's not clear from a quick read how extensive the runtime control is.

So just right out of the gate this is defeating basically the entirety of the Play Store vetting process. Droidscript itself may not be engaged in advertising fraud, but it makes advertising fraud trivial to deploy. (And it needs to be said: this is the kind of app that would never have been legal at all on any version of iOS.)

Add to that that it's a closed source IDE for an open platform, and my intuition sides with Google here. My guess is that when details come out it will turn out that at-least-plausibly harmful Droidscript garbage was being pushed to users and Google decided to kill it.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#15

Post by ivoras »

Jaygles wrote: post #6
vntok wrote: post #3

Well, is it? The linked post is obviously biased, so I'd rather wait for more information instead of getting my pitchfork out immediately.

It seems to me that the nature of the app is whats causing the issue. From one of the emails they got from Google: > We don't allow apps with any code that could put a user, a user’s data, or a device at risk. Maybe they think the ability to execute arbitrary code is too powerful of a feature?

Historically, that has been a major reason for banning apps for both Apple and Google.

IIRC Apple even went to extremes and banned browsers which do not use their own JavaScript interpreter.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#16

Post by ericol »

TL;DR: They are being accused of ad fraud, without any evidence provided, and they are asked to reply with an analysis of why they think their traffic ?? is legit (when they have no idea what is it that Google considered "not legitimate").

The biggest issue here I don't think is the malware tag, but the ad fraud accusation.

Even thought as somebody pointed out the page linked can be biased, based only on what they state and the emails from Google, this is another case of David Against (automated) Goliath.

From my point of view this is just another drop in the pound of what is already being built as a case against Google (and also Apple) for monopoly.

P.S.: I've used Droidscript in the past, and I do think it's too powerful an app that can be abused. But that happens to a lot of things in life, right?

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#17

Post by narwally »

kbelder wrote: post #9
blakesterz wrote: post #2

I had to go look to see what this was: "DroidScript is an easy to use, portable coding tool which simplifies mobile App development. It dramatically improves productivity by speeding up development by as much as 10x compared with using the standard development tools. It’s also an ideal tool for learning JavaScript, you can literally code anywhere with DroidScript, it’s not cloud based and doesn’t require an internet…

This is my primary hacking tool for throwing little scripts together on Android. You can bring up an IDE in chrome on your PC and interactively execute it on your phone. I hope this gets fixed. I wouldn't really be surprised if EVERY scripting/programming app in the play store technically violates some play store rules, though.

Well damn, now I want to download it. I've never gotten into mobile development because getting started always seemed like a chore, but this sounds like it would be fun to play around with.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#18

Post by CogitoCogito »

Jaygles wrote: post #6
vntok wrote: post #3

Well, is it? The linked post is obviously biased, so I'd rather wait for more information instead of getting my pitchfork out immediately.

It seems to me that the nature of the app is whats causing the issue. From one of the emails they got from Google: > We don't allow apps with any code that could put a user, a user’s data, or a device at risk. Maybe they think the ability to execute arbitrary code is too powerful of a feature?

That could be the issue. It could also be something else entirely. It's a bit unfortunate that they are left guessing as to what the problem is.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#19

Post by ben509 »

The writing style of the piece looks like a political mailer.

> The Google Play system has declared DroidScript is Malware and accused us of committing Ad Fraud! Needless to say, we are extremely upset and totally flabbergasted at this shocking allegation!

That kind of hyperbole sets off all my BS detectors.

As I go through the back and forth, DroidScript speculates this:

> Our main guess was that one of our users was experimenting with our AdMob ID after extracting it from our APK...

What I don't see is that they ever went back to the policies to check if that was legit. If it wasn't and you tell Google, "right, that was totally a feature but we've removed it," then, you just indicated that you deliberately implemented a feature that violated the terms of your agreement.

> How can they expect people to build organisations or businesses supported by advertising revenue, when they might be subject to this type of summary execution at any moment!

I agree that Google's communication with their customers is awful, but this is not a new problem: _you have to read your contract_. And that means get a lawyer to go over it and explain to you what it really means and not what you'd like it to mean.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#20

Post by seanhunter »

thereddaikon wrote: post #4

Google is pretty infamous for the over reliance on automation for customer service. But ultimately the reason why they persist is because they can afford get away with it.

It's sort of interesting how long this has worked, and as well as automated customer service the same or similar case can be made for automated moderation.

You can often hear people on here excusing this by saying "if they didn't do this, their business model wouldn't scale". Well yes. If you can do the automation and it works then you have a business at scale. If not, perhaps your business shouldn't be a scale business. As is, the negative externalities of this imperfect automation are significant.

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