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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

#51

Post by ocdtrekkie »

cft wrote: post #18

As a small (or even medium) developer, relying on a Google Play app is very dangerous. Our app with user generated content was pulled from Google Play store, because they found one profile out of 36 million (!) that had a suggestive photo. They used our profile search functionality to find it, you could not get it just by scrolling profiles. We have a neural net that rejects anything resembling porn and extensive wor…

The irony here is Google hides behind Section 230 immunity to avoid any responsibility for bad actors on its platforms (claiming it's even vital that they are so immune), but it doesn't extend that idea to entities under it.

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

#52

Post by criddell »

someotherperson wrote: post #17
karmakurtisaani wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to really defend Google here, but how else would you do it? The amount of data on these platforms is enormous and having people review the videos/apps/whatever would be simply prohibitively expensive. I think they need to balance how strict their abuse detection is. Making it too strict will kick out legitimate users without mercy. Making it less strict will allow potentially harmful (for business) content to spr…

> The amount of data on these platforms is enormous and having people review the videos/apps/whatever would be simply prohibitively expensive Let people pay for a manual review (say $300) with Google refunding the amount if it's found to be erroneous.

That’s how Microsoft support worked, at least for a while. A support call was $99 and then if it was a problem on their end, they wouldn’t charge you.

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

#53

Post by tablespoon »

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.

> Did their accounts end up permanently banned or could they recover them?

How could they recover them? The only support Google offers for situations like this is write a sob story on social media, and hope it gets enough traction that a Google employee intervenes.

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

#54

Post by VPenkov »

noneeeed wrote: post #20
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Lots of other reasonable explanations that match the available evidence and involve Google caring about this issue. For example, their hands could be tied by legal forces beyond their control. Or they could care a great deal, but perhaps they have been unable to resolv…

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 think it's not strictly legal issues but one of two things.

The first is what I've heard being called "a healthy dose of obscurity". With a large enough pool of users, there is a finite number of behaviors that would trigger a certain ban rule. To avoid having their triggers reverse-engineered, they say as little as possible.

The second is is reasons being subject to interpretation. The risk there comes in a variety of flavors from PR risks to lawsuit risks when a developer are banned for X but there's an important nuance to X that the developer ignores by choice or otherwise.

I don't mean to defend anyone here, I'm just hoping that someone smarter than me will tackle this somehow.

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

#55

Post by throwaquestion5 »

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…

> 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 find this behavior terrifying. Destroying people's accounts just for having the same blood as someone deemed ban-able.

Guilt by association taken to the extreme

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

#56

Post by throwaway684936 »

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?

Illegal to ban users? So a neo-nazi account spams, harasses, doxxes hundreds of users and spreads gore all over your platform, and you aren't allowed to shut them down unless you go through the court system first? This is one of the most absurd ideas I've ever heard.

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

#58

Post by winrid »

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…

The problem is they make everything powered by machine learning. Can you imagine getting such a thing to even 99% accuracy? Even if it was 99% accurate, that's still hundreds of thousands if not millions of mistakes.

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

#59

Post by Beltalowda »

cft wrote: post #18

As a small (or even medium) developer, relying on a Google Play app is very dangerous. Our app with user generated content was pulled from Google Play store, because they found one profile out of 36 million (!) that had a suggestive photo. They used our profile search functionality to find it, you could not get it just by scrolling profiles. We have a neural net that rejects anything resembling porn and extensive wor…

Never mind the tons of porn on Reddit. They did ban the OnlyFans app though.

How many people use their mobile phone as their only internet device? So we now have two companies with essentially identical policies deciding what is or isn't too sexy for us with essentially zero accountability...

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

#60

Post by LinAGKar »

davidg109 wrote: post #9

Unfortunately, anytime you depend on a third party whether it be Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc., this is the exact risk you take. Don’t feed the dragon.

What's the alternative? Google essentially has a monopoly on distributing Android apps.
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