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Google have declared Droidscript is malware

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Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#511

Post by inopinatus »

pushrax wrote: post #419
sequoia wrote: post #301

> ...after taking into consideration the information that you have provided, we have confirmed that we are unable to reinstate your publisher account. I hate when using euphemism slides into flat out lying like this. They are not "unable" to reinstate the account, in fact they are the only party able to reinstate the account, that's why the account holder was contacting them instead of someone else. They are "unwilli…

Seems like an extremely minor gripe (as you mention, it’s all just bullshit) to be the top comment. Though FWIW I’m unable to disagree.

For a startup community, where founders will often be in a customer support role, the wording and tone of user communications (especially those with an unwelcome message) is often top-of-mind, so a language discussion can be relevant.

I’ve sometimes spent hours crafting a single reply to politely decline a request. It’s not even proportional to the prospective importance of the customer, it’s a matter of respect for all potential users.

Also, sometimes, investigating the issue to determine the right words has revealed hitherto unknown problems, uncovered new possibilities, highlighted alternative solutions that may be palatable, or even changed the outcome entirely.

Discussing the language used is actually thereby more productive & constructive than simply piling on Google for being careless, callous and pompous yet again.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#512

Post by randallsquared »

orangeoxidation wrote: post #497
mike_d wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work detecting ad fraud. Publishers would do bad things, call in, and try to get their account rep to get details. Obviously I can't say "of the last 2500 ad clicks zero of them had any mouse movement over the ad before the click event" because then the publisher obviously just fixes their fraud software. This isn't specific to Google or even advertising. Every company has figured out when dealing with abus…

A valid explanation, but not one I believe applies here. This ban is not only not explaining how it detected unwanted activity, it is not explaining what activity it detected. "We detected you faking ad impressions, though we won't tell you how we (believe we) know" is very different to "We detected you (or your app) doing something wrong, stop doing it and you will be fine. We won't tell you what you did wrong".

"Our ML system registered a hit on your account, which is almost always associated with policy violations, but we don't know what the trigger was, or why that set of data about your account is almost always associated with policy violations... it just is."

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#513

Post by shadowgovt »

cwkoss wrote: post #507
shadowgovt wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure, but I'm going to note that click-fraud already exists and Google (as well as other ad networks) have countermeasures to determine whether your raspi is likely "clicking for fun" and chargeback the advertisers for the non-human clicks. Whether those countermeasures can be reliably defeated is left as an exercise for the raspi owner. ;)

Instead of enriching particular sites, I wonder if adding a bunch of click fraud could punish others. Does 10,000 clicks being detected as fraud only invalidate those 10k clicks or does google use heuristics so that those 10k get extrapolated and punishes the valid traffic as well? Can you send enough bathwater that they'll automatically throw out the baby?

You're welcome to try.

Google has well-compensated software engineers who's full-time job is to figure out shenanigans like that.

I hear some of them even read Hacker News. ;)

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#514

Post by antasvara »

Mistri wrote: post #506

Setting aside all of the other absurdities that Google has been throwing out here, the one thing that really gets to me is the concept that "ad fraud" is even a type of punishment for Google. I run an site with Google Ads, and users of my site have, in the past, realized this and purposefully ran autoclickers on my ads in order to get me banned from AdSense. I don't understand how they can blame the publisher for thi…

I think you then run into the issue of companies trying to sneak fraudulent clicks past Google. If I knew there was little to no chance of repercussions, I would absolutely try a bunch of programs to try and sneak fraudulent clicks past.

It's like if you told a student that there was no punishment for cheating, the questions they cheated on just wouldn't count. This doesn't hurt that bad, because if you were cheating on a question you (most likely) didn't know the answer.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#515

Post by Mistri »

antasvara wrote: post #514
Mistri wrote: post #506

Setting aside all of the other absurdities that Google has been throwing out here, the one thing that really gets to me is the concept that "ad fraud" is even a type of punishment for Google. I run an site with Google Ads, and users of my site have, in the past, realized this and purposefully ran autoclickers on my ads in order to get me banned from AdSense. I don't understand how they can blame the publisher for thi…

I think you then run into the issue of companies trying to sneak fraudulent clicks past Google. If I knew there was little to no chance of repercussions, I would absolutely try a bunch of programs to try and sneak fraudulent clicks past. It's like if you told a student that there was no punishment for cheating, the questions they cheated on just wouldn't count. This doesn't hurt that bad, because if you were cheating…

Sure, but in this analogy, if other students cheat off your test, you're punished for it.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#516

Post by 22c »

Meph504 wrote: post #505
blacklight wrote: post #472

This is the same story that HN readers have read hundreds of times over the past couple of years, just with different subjects. Independent developer/small organization gets their app/YouTube channel/Google account shut down overnight because of false positives triggered by their system. It takes weeks and insistence with bots to just get to speak to a human. When you get to speak to a human, they usually respond wit…

The idea that there are alternatives for anyone but a fringe market without Google is pretty short sited, for example my phone warned me 4 times before it would let me install and use f-droid, each message made it sound like proceeding was compromising my phone. It's a synthetic but effective barrier to prevent the majority of people from setting it up. The mobile environment is as bad as chit, and company stores. Th…

DroidScript users already sound like a fringe market. Seems like the perfect candidate for F-Droid, however I don't know what the F-Droid policy is on showing ads (which sounds like they are not too concerned about keeping in the app, anyway).

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#517

Post by tshaddox »

saurik wrote: post #504
tshaddox wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet no one, including people in this thread who are claiming that the intent of Google's wording is to deceive, are actually the slightest bit unclear about what Google means.

It isn't about wanting to deceive, it is about their seemingly unwillingness to admit; these are related, but not at all the same. It is the same kind of semantic difference people think is really important when discussing scenarios like "you didn't misplace my item on accident, you discarded it on purpose and we both know that: I want to hear you say it out loud".

But, as others have mentioned, it's extremely standard to use phrasing like "can't do that" and "unable to do that" like this. It's simply not reasonable to interpret this messaging as intended to claim that it's physically impossible to do the thing. I totally understand being upset with Google's policy and decision here, but this particular criticism about the wording they used is simply disingenuous.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#518

Post by beprogrammed »

sequoia wrote: post #301

> ...after taking into consideration the information that you have provided, we have confirmed that we are unable to reinstate your publisher account. I hate when using euphemism slides into flat out lying like this. They are not "unable" to reinstate the account, in fact they are the only party able to reinstate the account, that's why the account holder was contacting them instead of someone else. They are "unwilli…

Thanks for pointing that out, I'll be sure to think about my wordings on this in the future.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#519

Post by busymom0 »

danudey wrote: post #427
coffeecat wrote: post #368

> In your case, we have detected invalid traffic or activity on your account (Publisher Code: pub-********) and as a result it has been disabled. Because of this, the ability to serve and monetise through all products which depend on AdSense will also be disabled (for example, AdMob and YouTube). > We understand that you may want to know more about the issues that we’ve detected. Because this information could be use…

"We've noticed that you're violating our policies." "Which policies?" "That's none of your business." "How are we violating them?" "I'm not going to tell you." "What can we do?" "Fix the issues, and then appeal." "Which issues?" "I've said too much already."

There are several similar examples on android development subreddit. The best one which comes to my mind if when a developer got their account suspended because they were using a trademarked name in their metadata. The trademark name was "Windows". The developer was referring to house windows, not the Microsoft Windows....

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#520

Post by busymom0 »

mike_d wrote: post #488
danudey wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We've noticed that you're violating our policies." "Which policies?" "That's none of your business." "How are we violating them?" "I'm not going to tell you." "What can we do?" "Fix the issues, and then appeal." "Which issues?" "I've said too much already."

I used to work detecting ad fraud. Publishers would do bad things, call in, and try to get their account rep to get details. Obviously I can't say "of the last 2500 ad clicks zero of them had any mouse movement over the ad before the click event" because then the publisher obviously just fixes their fraud software. This isn't specific to Google or even advertising. Every company has figured out when dealing with abus…

If the justice system started acting this way too where they don't tell you what crime you committed, what proof they have and how others can not commit such crimes, then I don't think that would mean "minimum amount of information is beneficial to the health of the society as a whole". This is basically letting get away with arbitrary rules without any accountability.
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