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Google have declared Droidscript is malware

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Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#591

Post by anoncake »

vaer-k wrote: post #399
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…

As a cashier, I am certainly "able to" just hand you the goods and let you leave without paying, but in reality due to laws, regulations and good morals I am unable to do that.

It would be correct correct for the Google employee to say "I am unable to..." because that is against their employer's policies. But they say "We are unable to...". "We" meaning Google, and Google is certainly not unable to reinstate the dev's account because they are unwilling to do so, which is what "against Google's policy" means.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#592

Post by anoncake »

dalbasal wrote: post #414
joemi wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not lying because there is some implicit information in the "we are unable" statement. What is implied in statements like this is that they're unable due to their policies. If not for implications like this, almost every single use of "unable" (or "can't", for that matter) ever in a sentence would be "lying" unless something is against the laws of physics.

You're right, but I think you're not doing justice to the OP's complaint. You're right that this isn't solely a faceless corporate thing. People say "I can't" when "I won't" for the same reasons Google did. We even ask " can you watch my kids?" Again, the same reasons drive the language. It lets a false but face-saving implication stand: You will pick up my kids if you can and if you won't than I'll assume you couldn…

Is "can you watch my kids?" really the same as "are you able to watch my kids?" or an idiom in which "can" does not have precisely its stand-alone meaning?

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#593

Post by mschuster91 »

sellyme wrote: post #549
mschuster91 wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how are their ads supposed to be worth a single dollar? Hard truth: a lot of internet ads is fraud. With paper, radio and TV, any ad buyer can cheaply verify that their ad spending ends up where it should by buying a paper at a random train station or listening to the airwaves. On the Internet, it's worse than the Wild West, with fraud and deception on every part of the chain.

> With paper, radio and TV, any ad buyer can cheaply verify that their ad spending ends up where it should by buying a paper at a random train station or listening to the airwaves. Good luck verifying that the FM radio station you bought as spots on really averages 150,000 concurrent listeners. Sure, you know your ad was there, but that doesn't help you.

At least for TV and radio stations there are a lot of market research companies determining listener counts, and it's (relatively) easy to do a verification study yourself if you don't trust the numbers the station reports. Grab a phone book or buy an address list and contact people, that's it.

On the internet, it's next to impossible to do any sort of verification yourself.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#594

Post by anoncake »

arp242 wrote: post #82
eplanit wrote: post #25

It's seriously time to re-embrace the idea of ownership and control of our devices, and reject Android and iOS altogether. Developing for those platforms has become worse and more restrictive over the years, and this kind of crap is now just everyday news. How good are Pinephones[1]? Are there better alternatives? [1] https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/

The biggest problem with "alternative" platforms is just the lack of app support. I used to have a Nokia N9; great phone. But it didn't support WhatsApp and I was out on the loop on the WhatsApp chat all my other coworkers were in. Then there's things like banking apps, flight check-in apps, food ordering apps, dating apps, etc. etc. Can you do without those? Sure, of course. But if I want to order food where I live…

Because of this issue, open APIs should IMO be mandatory for all commercial services.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#595

Post by mschuster91 »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #478
mschuster91 wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how are their ads supposed to be worth a single dollar? Hard truth: a lot of internet ads is fraud. With paper, radio and TV, any ad buyer can cheaply verify that their ad spending ends up where it should by buying a paper at a random train station or listening to the airwaves. On the Internet, it's worse than the Wild West, with fraud and deception on every part of the chain.

Which is ironic because in the 1990s web-advertising was sold to marketeers' as the best form of advertising because every view is logged and tracked: unlike a magazine ad you can know exactly how many people saw it and interacted with it (...right before middle-school kids realized they could make free money by clicking ads they put up on their geocities webpages) When Facebook launched their ad platform people were…

For Facebook ads, I have an interesting story... way back years when some neo-Nazis chartered a ship (the "C Star", for those who want to look it up), cruised in the Mediterranean and ended up in distress, I set up a couple ads for troll posts of mine and targeted them to followers of the German alt-right party... and lo and behold, the people flocked in with angry replies.

Best 50$ I ever spent on entertainment, and it was highly effective.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#596

Post by mackrevinack »

Igelau wrote: post #212
e3bc54b2 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't use YouTube, I bow to you good netizen. But in all honesty, it is very very hard to avoid Google. Android, Gamil, YouTube and Search are big four left on my list.

I'm using YouTube less and less. The ads have become intolerable, and I had my own bad experience with their copyright violation detection. That's the easiest one for me to abandon.

ublock origin helps with the ad problem but yea ive been using it much less recently as well. there used to be a point where i would get good recommendations on the homepage but all that shows up is trash these days.

i think i must have clicked on 1 short trashy video once and now google thinks thats what im really into. its similar to how annoying it is to use spotify these days and having to be really careful what you play otherwise the suggestions get messed up.

or maybe it's that nudging people to watch more short videos make youtube more ad money. i would rather they just went back to showing you videos from your most popular subscriptions and then a few good recommendations

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#597

Post by javajosh »

lelanthran wrote: post #589
judge2020 wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original email is context for the review rejection email by saying > In your case, we have detected invalid traffic or activity on your account The rejection email isn't isolated, so when it says "unable" it's conveying the implied message "unable to reinstate your publisher account ".

You all make good points in favour of both sides of the argument, so I upvoted every post in this thread. The only takeaway is that there is no obviously correct wording for google to make when wielding the banhammer.

>The only takeaway...

Well, that is, strictly speaking, a false statement. I agree the discussion has been civil; but consider that the support to Google's position requires adding phrases to their statement which fundamentally change the statements meaning.

I'm not sure what it's called, something like the opposite of a strawman attack. It is indeed simple to defend a statement when you give yourself permission to rewrite it in a post hoc fashion. It's an argument I find uncompelling, no matter how civilly it's presented.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#598

Post by swiley »

ribosometronome wrote: post #328
Vrondi wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use Watshapp multiple ways on Linux, including the web browser version [ https://itsfoss.com/whatsapp-linux-desktop/ ]. Although, if you're using Whatsapp at all you're either massively ignorant or stupid. I mean, giving Facebook your phone number is just not wise.

I think many would argue that thinking Facebook doesn't have your phone number is either massively ignorant or stupid. After all, it only takes one person you know signing up and allowing access to contacts. That said, I am considerably less concerned about Facebook having my phone number versus Facebook being able to mine all my conversations to create a pretty complete profile of who I am and what I do.

I have never uploaded my phonebook to WhatsApp durring the short period I used it nor did I give my number to Facebook (either by entering it into my profile or by answering the nags to enable 2FA when I used to use the site.) It was not included in the recent leak (which doesn't mean they don't have it.)

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#599

Post by MrDresden »

After 10 years working as a mobile developer predominantly on Android and having had a had in publishing roughly 17x fully fledged commercial applications (under the employ of others) I have yet to take the plunge and try to create a viable business through one personally.

I simply don't trust Google to be fair in anyway, and not crush the little guy without reason.

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