This article suggests a weird anti-synnergy between Google products. If android app makers knew that an adsense/admob ban led to a play store ban, they would use some other advertising platform on Android, which would lose Google money.
Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads
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Re: Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads
#62If there's a good alternative never use Google anything. The sole fact that there is no appeal system to account shutdowns and the way they just kill services at random should be enough reason for anyone.
Stories like this always scare me because they remind me that all of my domain names are on Google domains, including the one I use for my work email address. I gotta migrate out one of these days.
Separating your DNS provider from your domain registry is always a good idea.
Re: Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads
#63If there's a good alternative never use Google anything. The sole fact that there is no appeal system to account shutdowns and the way they just kill services at random should be enough reason for anyone.
> If there's a good alternative never use Google anything. Brave instead of Chrome. Duck Duck Go instead of Google. Proton Mail instead of Gmail. The only thing I haven't been able to replace is YouTube. That's a tricky one because it's the content creators that keep me locked into it.
Many content creators are starting to move to a Patreon+Twitch model, in addition to YouTube.
Re: Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads
#64Imagine this would be the case for physical stores and only 2 companies in the world could decide what products you are allowed to sell. You start a coffee shop and 1 day later a representative of company X walks in and shuts down your entire store because you "violated our conditions but we won't tell you which one. You can beg us to reopen your store but first you have to tell us why you didn't violate our policies".
This sounds like a dystopia. And yet it's already reality in the app world.
Re: Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads
#65I'd extend this even further: never use a single account for more than one purpose. Create a separate account at the same company for the other purpose. Some examples: - Every product/project you manage should be on a separate account on Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. - Nothing tied to your consumer accounts should be used for anything business related. - Your Amazon shopping account and your AWS account should defin…
Then you will get flagged for creating too many accounts...
Re: Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads
#66I'd extend this even further: never use a single account for more than one purpose. Create a separate account at the same company for the other purpose. Some examples: - Every product/project you manage should be on a separate account on Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. - Nothing tied to your consumer accounts should be used for anything business related. - Your Amazon shopping account and your AWS account should defin…
Can confirm this solid advice.
Even at a mega-scale social games publisher like Zynga, we had to deal with automated bans all the time. That's why at one point we used an avatar for each game that was separately managed and was basically a separate identity with a separate bank account with a holding company etc.
- Invent an avatar that has their own profile, residence, birth date, gender etc.
- Use separate email addresses, not on your company's domain (to avoid domain bans).
- Use a separate mobile phone number, if possible.
- Use a separate smartphone device. There's Android devices for less than 100 bucks now, so that shouldn't be an issue.
- Make sure the geolocation of the Android device doesn't change too often. Paypal and others block you immediately because they're too stupid to realize people can actually travel and work from multiple locations; even with 2FA and SS7 enabled.
- Use a password manager, use 2FA, and make sure to backup account data and every security question. (and all the other standard practice advice)
- Treat your app's / game's avatar as a separate identity, which means don't have the same friends that your private accounts do. Don't link to other accounts of your ownership. Don't mention other projects of your company, otherwise they'll likely ban both accounts for click fraud.
Re: Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
porkbun is cheap/good too (but some may throw the China boogeyman at them)
Chinese authoritarian state intervention isn't a bogeyman, it's a real threat first and foremost to its own people, and secondarily to those who do (especially tech) business there. Just because a real threat is widely acknowledged doesn't make it a bogeyman. Bogeymen, after all, are mythical. Chinese tyranny isn't.
Sure, that is why all big gorillas are there. Go talk to them and see how receptive they are. Or try to convince you government to cut all ties.
Re: Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads
#68I'd say - use any platform for what it's good at. Extract value from platform. Benefit from it, monetise it, let it help you to gather users or following. But NEVER rely on any propriately platform for your business. You're NOT in control. Make sure you have a contingency plan. Have backup (whatever it is for your business). Make sure you have direct, alternative contacts with your users if platform goes nuts.
If your product is literally an Android app I don't see how you take this advice even if it is good.
Re: Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads
#69I'd extend this even further: never use a single account for more than one purpose. Create a separate account at the same company for the other purpose. Some examples: - Every product/project you manage should be on a separate account on Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. - Nothing tied to your consumer accounts should be used for anything business related. - Your Amazon shopping account and your AWS account should defin…
This in general is sound advice however most large cos will have the ability to detect cluster of ids that are owned by same person.
- Beware of impersonation. It is a felony offense. When you create accounts give the same first name and last name. There are many forms where you have to answer questions like "Have you ever used any other alias?". While 99% of times it is fine, there are rare cases where you might get into trouble. I know some people who did.
Re: Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
(Author here.) This is excellent advice for consumer apps/products, (it's especially important to keep enterprise accounts fully separate from your individual consumer accounts), but it wouldn't have helped DroidScript in this case. DroidScript is a non-profit organization; when they signed up for Google AdMob and Google Play Store, they provided the same tax ID (their EIN) in both cases. Creating separate Google acc…
> Creating a subsidiary business for every type of Google account you have would be quite expensive Costs roughly $1000/yr to run a properly sheltered LLC. Just saying, that’s a low barrier to overcome for any company turning modest revenue.
We have done this in past. At one point we had 4 LLCs with 4 adsense accounts each making $30K per day. There was nothing fishy here it was perfectly legal and 100% legitimate traffic. Over time we even split our large website into multiple domains under these 4 accounts to make them profitable. Google eventually banned all 4 over time without ever telling us why. We shut down out company eventually.