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Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income

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Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income

#41

Post by misterbwong »

noneeeed wrote: post #4

Based on the frequency with which this sort of post gets significant traction it's pretty clear that no one at Google gives a crap about this issue. I find it hard to imagine that people in Google are unaware of this problem. I often wonder if this has happened to people with more clout who have managed to pull strings to get it sorted, or if Google have just got lucky and managed to avoid hitting someone who might a…

We should probably reserve judgement until the author reveals more details about the things they were doing on the app store. The article is suspiciously light on details on what exactly they were doing that could have justified it, citing only "teach[ing] people to create their own applications and create their own app business".

To be clear, I'm not defending Google here. The "ban-you-and-everyone-that-has-ever-had-contact-with-you-without-telling-you-why" system is obviously nuts-o and has caught a bunch of innocent bystanders off-guard.

Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income

#42

Post by notreallyserio »

WinterMount223 wrote: post #12
ShivShankaran wrote: post #2

It is well known that if Google bans your account it will ban any "related" account and that includes your immediate family including your spouse, parents, children and your official job/startup. I never understood this bizarre behaviour from Google. My colleagues got a taste of it when they shared their laptop and one of them had a banned account. It was a defence project and the work computers were not allowed to h…

Did their accounts end up permanently banned or could they recover them? Seems like something that could actually be abused if not. A weaponized banned Google account on a laptop. A laptop with cooties. The seven generations punishment.

I'm no longer doing android development, thankfully (never again!) -- I don't relish the thought of having to ask house guests if they or anyone they know have ever been banned from Google. I don't understand how Google can staff up their Play store with engineers given this keeps happening.

Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income

#43

Post by Beltalowda »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #30
noneeeed wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sort of legal issues would prevent Google actually providing some information on the reason for the ban, of prevent it actually engaging in any kind of useful communication? My issue with these bans is not the bans themselves, but the Kafkaesc process in which you are supposed to argue why you think their decision is wrong without knowing what they based the decision on.

I'm not in a position to comment about what sorts of legal issues there might be. But Google is hardly the only company that hands down bans with scant explanation. It's endemic. I've actually not heard of a large company that gives detailed explanations in these sorts of situations. That leads me to believe there is a good reason for avoiding such explanations, since I would expect some variation in company behavior…

I suspect it's because a lot of these automated bans are done without any clear actual reason beyond "our machine learning model found something, but we can't really get a coherent picture of why".

Last week I created a brand new Facebook account as I recently moved to a new city and am somewhat desperate to meet people, and Facebook events can be useful for this (as much as I loathe Facebook, my mental health is a bit more important right now). I got banned after about 2 minutes. I didn't actually do anything on the platform. I managed to click to about 2 or 3 pages.

What set this off? Who knows. Maybe some browser settings? Previous user(s) of my IP address? Those pages I clicked on? Something else? It surely wasn't anything I actually did as I didn't really interact with the platform at all.

I suspect that if I asked some high-up Facebook engineer to look in to it they wouldn't be able to actually give me an answer either beyond "The Algorithm determined there were risk factors".

Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income

#44

Post by ocdtrekkie »

WinterMount223 wrote: post #12
ShivShankaran wrote: post #2

It is well known that if Google bans your account it will ban any "related" account and that includes your immediate family including your spouse, parents, children and your official job/startup. I never understood this bizarre behaviour from Google. My colleagues got a taste of it when they shared their laptop and one of them had a banned account. It was a defence project and the work computers were not allowed to h…

Did their accounts end up permanently banned or could they recover them? Seems like something that could actually be abused if not. A weaponized banned Google account on a laptop. A laptop with cooties. The seven generations punishment.

Maybe this is the key to actually getting Google to fix this. Weaponize Google bans to the point it's unsustainable for their business.

Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income

#45

Post by zackees »

kevingadd wrote: post #24
noneeeed wrote: post #4

Based on the frequency with which this sort of post gets significant traction it's pretty clear that no one at Google gives a crap about this issue. I find it hard to imagine that people in Google are unaware of this problem. I often wonder if this has happened to people with more clout who have managed to pull strings to get it sorted, or if Google have just got lucky and managed to avoid hitting someone who might a…

I remember at least one case where a Google employee's spouse got banned by the company and he never was able to find out why. Your spouse got depersoned, get over it

No post body was provided.

Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income

#47

Post by ocdtrekkie »

misterbwong wrote: post #41
noneeeed wrote: post #4

Based on the frequency with which this sort of post gets significant traction it's pretty clear that no one at Google gives a crap about this issue. I find it hard to imagine that people in Google are unaware of this problem. I often wonder if this has happened to people with more clout who have managed to pull strings to get it sorted, or if Google have just got lucky and managed to avoid hitting someone who might a…

We should probably reserve judgement until the author reveals more details about the things they were doing on the app store. The article is suspiciously light on details on what exactly they were doing that could have justified it, citing only "teach[ing] people to create their own applications and create their own app business". To be clear, I'm not defending Google here. The "ban-you-and-everyone-that-has-ever-had…

We can absolutely judge Google regardless, because even if their reasons for a ban could hypothetically be justified, their behavior in communication and appeal handling will never be.

Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income

#48

Post by izacus »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #5

What is the answer to this in a world of scammers, bad actors, etc? Perhaps it should be illegal to ban a user and if a user is truly abusive then sue them in court for damages. Speaking of suing, why has nobody sued Google or others for this behavior?

The same answer that existed in all other industries which do consumer services: proper customer services with humans and strong consumer protection law that stomps on the neck of corporations that abuse people without recourse.

Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income

#49

Post by zackees »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #5

What is the answer to this in a world of scammers, bad actors, etc? Perhaps it should be illegal to ban a user and if a user is truly abusive then sue them in court for damages. Speaking of suing, why has nobody sued Google or others for this behavior?

No post body was provided.

Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income

#50

Post by caseysoftware »

It's a private company.

If you don't like it, just build your own app store, phone, account management, email provider, search engine, web browser, ISP, payment processor, banking system, currency, DNS provider, registrar, colo facility, machines, chip fab, silicon wafers, electrons, and universe. Geez, don't be lazy.

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