Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My app just got removed with no prior warning

javierantonsblog.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 129 posts

Re: My app just got removed with no prior warning

#31

Post by kenniskrag »

malwarebytess wrote: post #11

> 1) Unexpectedly pulling an app with no warning and then imposing a 7-day review period is not reasonable. OK, my app only has tens of thousands of downloads. No, no. Don't apologize. Would you expect Google to remove twitter's app with no prior notice? How about a U.S. government app? Why should you expect different treatment from Google than Twitter et al.? Google has to provide a consistent and responsive experie…

> That they don't in all cases should concern even regulators.

only if the gov defines it as a monopol.

> Google has to provide a consistent and responsive experience for any company who is using their rather monopolistic marketplace to distribute their app.

If you assume it is not monopolistic, they can do whatever they want and for example prefer bigger clients.

Re: My app just got removed with no prior warning

#32

Post by ashtonkem »

My general take on Google is not that their policies are bad, but that they’re arbitrarily applied with very little recourse for redress. It is incredibly common for people to have issues with Google products that are only resolved by getting ahold of someone on Twitter. CPGGrey getting banned by YT for impersonating himself comes to mind.

Re: My app just got removed with no prior warning

#33

Post by fasteddie »

rkachowski wrote: post #13
jrochkind1 wrote: post #5

> App stores should review apps at set frequencies. Developers should know the expected date for their next review so that they can prepare for unexpected consequences that require direct action. I guarantee bad actors would remove unpermitted functionality right before the review, and put it back after. There's a reason even restaurant food safety inspectors don't tell the restaurant when they're coming. But on the…

> I guarantee bad actors would remove unpermitted functionality right before the review, and put it back after. Outside of a dynamic feature flag setup, this would be trivial to detect as Google and Apple completely control the submission process.

I once used a very dumb feature flag set up to get around a rule an Apple reviewer told us were breaking, just for review period. The supposed rule violation was around for a year and no one had flagged it except for this one reviewer, and they were clearly interpreting the policy wrong. Easier to make a flag to appease then try and work up the management review chain.

This wasn't malware or anything like that, but goes to show limits of automated review.

Re: My app just got removed with no prior warning

#34

Post by izacus »

KMnO4 wrote: post #10

I don’t see this as too much an issue. Sure, you have a privacy policy accessible in your app, but A) Google doesn’t know that B) People in the Play store can’t read it before downloading. All Google is asking is that you put the privacy policy in the store page. Seems reasonable.

Not quite - people could see it on the Play Store and in the app BEFORE login.

After data siphoning has started however, the Privacy Policy wasn't available to the users anymore. Which is... funny.

Re: My app just got removed with no prior warning

#35

Post by totalZero »

collaborative wrote: post #29
px43 wrote: post #20

Are we expected to sympathize with an app that's siphoning off sensitive user data from phones without informing the user? Seems shady. Your main website says: * Data is never kept online * No ads, no affiliate marketers, and no creepy tracking * No phone number is required; No need to share your phone book. Only need an email address (can be masked) But your privacy policy says: * For a better experience while using…

You are not required :) *Data is never kept online -》 this is written next to the E2EE chat, not user accounts. E2EE msg data is not kept online I don't employ any 3rd parties, but included that just in case. It is a word-for-word copy of a sentence in ProtonMail's privacy policy The email address can be masked and the name and surname can be made up or left blank

If you don't employ third parties then presumably you could have chosen not to copy that part of protonmail's privacy policy.

Re: My app just got removed with no prior warning

#37

Post by nixpulvis »

pinkybanana wrote: post #25
malwarebytess wrote: post #11

> 1) Unexpectedly pulling an app with no warning and then imposing a 7-day review period is not reasonable. OK, my app only has tens of thousands of downloads. No, no. Don't apologize. Would you expect Google to remove twitter's app with no prior notice? How about a U.S. government app? Why should you expect different treatment from Google than Twitter et al.? Google has to provide a consistent and responsive experie…

> Why should you expect different treatment from Google than Twitter et al.? Well, because you aren't twitter. Expecting google to treat indie dev the same as multibillion dollar corporations would be stupid. World isn't fair place and crying after fairness is often waste of time. This kind of blog post might affect the situation and I think it makes sense to make it in polite way. However my default assumption would…

Please sir can I have some more?

Demanding some level of fairness in specific well thought out regulation is exactly the solution to a lot of these problems. It's a tried and true method of reeling in bad actors and imposing some checks and balances.

Realistically, no you can't expect to get the attention of Twitter, but officially it must be the case that they have to at least give real effort to maintaining some measurable level of equality amongst customers.

The actual question is why Google or Apple's App Store is special? Why can a bank pick and choose who they give loans to but the app walled gardens are in the wrong. I think we probably have the same general idea about this question, but I don't have a really solid answer.

Anyway, I feel compelled to rebel a bit, so just remember kids. Fuck the system, don't be polite, and fight for what you know deep down is right.

MOOORE!?

Re: My app just got removed with no prior warning

#38

Post by foobarbecue »

ashtonkem wrote: post #32

My general take on Google is not that their policies are bad, but that they’re arbitrarily applied with very little recourse for redress. It is incredibly common for people to have issues with Google products that are only resolved by getting ahold of someone on Twitter. CPGGrey getting banned by YT for impersonating himself comes to mind.

CGP Grey

Re: My app just got removed with no prior warning

#39

Post by atatatat »

candiodari wrote: post #16
rkachowski wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guarantee bad actors would remove unpermitted functionality right before the review, and put it back after. Outside of a dynamic feature flag setup, this would be trivial to detect as Google and Apple completely control the submission process.

No it wouldn't. Have the bad functionality behind a DNS lookup. It fails, app behaves. Developer can change flag and there's little Google/Apple/Amazon can do about it.

Apple and Google only review the code that runs.......?!

Re: My app just got removed with no prior warning

#40

Post by collaborative »

totalZero wrote: post #35
collaborative wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not required :) *Data is never kept online -》 this is written next to the E2EE chat, not user accounts. E2EE msg data is not kept online I don't employ any 3rd parties, but included that just in case. It is a word-for-word copy of a sentence in ProtonMail's privacy policy The email address can be masked and the name and surname can be made up or left blank

If you don't employ third parties then presumably you could have chosen not to copy that part of protonmail's privacy policy.

I am not a lawyer and don't know how wide "3rd parties" can refer to. Is my cloud provider a 3rd party? If there is a lawyer here who can advise that it is safe to do I will remove it
Post reply on HN