It's these kinds of stories that remind me that governments are not the only bodies of control that laboring people must contend with -- corporations have just as much, if not more in some cases, power.
Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income
171–180 of 279 posts
Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems reasonable to make Google liable for your damages. They've incentivizing people to use their store, and then pulling the rug out from under them. Similar logic has already been applied in the US for e.g. rapes that occur on a business' property. If they're incentivizing you to come their, they are liable for bad thing that happen to you.
I don’t want to be the one to pay for figuring out how to neutralize spammers on a global, free service with billions of users.
Well, Google is trying to get you to pay for it by putting you at risk of account suspension via poor policies.
If Google wants to neutralize spammers that's their business. The law doesn't have to stop them. But causing severe financial harm to your business partners with no recourse is something the law should care about and stop.
Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income
#173I still think some congress person needs to pass a consumer rights bill that forces companies like this to disclose the exact reason and data relating the account termination. The excuse of security practices should not come before consumer rights. Frankly, we would ALL also be safer if the decision had to be made based on conduct on that specific service and could not include anything outside that service. There is…
problems: 1. How exactly do propose a bill to limit a company in how they use their property and enforce use of that property by an end user? 2. Bad actors out number good actors with honest accidents at over 1 million to one and obviously disclosing gives unequal advantage to the bad actors and harms the one accident good actor.
> 2. Bad actors out number good actors with honest accidents at over 1 million to one and obviously disclosing gives unequal advantage to the bad actors and harms the one accident good actor.
I don't even care if this is hyperbole, an outrageous claim like this needs a source. You're telling me that over 99.9999% of these issues are caused by bad actors?
Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income
#174Have your lawyer write a letter. As in, a real legal demand with a complaint attached that is addressed to their counsel and includes estimates of monetary damages and alludes (not threatens) to the specific jurisdiction and court it would be submitted to for adjudication. Send copies of this letter, by registered/certified mail, to several contacts. They will have to respond to this and these responses will be expen…
> They will have to respond to this Why? If they think they have the right to terminate your account, and you have no standing, why would you expect them not to ignore your lawyer in the very same way they ignore you? Taking this to court might get their attention, but you also have to show grounds for why you get to override their decision. IANAL, but I don't see why Google isn't allowed to just say "nope, you're ou…
> > They will have to respond to this
> Why?
They don't have to respond to the demand letter, but they do have to respond if a lawsuit if one is filed. If they don't, it's a default judgement for the plaintiff. (This is one of the things that is broken in the American legal system. You can force someone to spend a lot of money by suing them even if your complaint has no merit.)
So while they don't have to respond to a credible threat of a lawsuit, it would be prudent for them to do so because otherwise there is a real risk for them of having it cost a lot more.
Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
> curiously omits the details of why they were banned That's a difficult thing to accomplish when Google has not provided them the details of why they were banned.
Maybe not, but it stretches credulity that they have absolutely no idea, not even a guess, as to the cause. The ban letter says they previously received other notices. Where are they? And what steps, if any, did they take to resolve then? They don't even describe their app, which ordinarily would seen like the first thing to do to establish the injustice of the affair. "My app just makes generative cat photos. What's…
> Maybe not, but it stretches credulity that they have absolutely no idea, not even a guess, as to the cause.
It doesn't, actually. Everything I've read about Google indicates they're extremely opaque and will ban for bizarre reasons.
Google itself might not even know. After all, machine learning isn't known for being able to explain itself.
> The ban letter says they previously received other notices. Where are they?
IIRC, I understand that someones those notices come all at once at the same time as the ban, if they come at all. It's also quite possible that the ban message from Google is in fact inaccurate.
> And what steps, if any, did they take to resolve then?
What steps could they take? My understanding is that Google offers no recourse to a human, and their automated appeals process might as well be a "reject all" rule (if it isn't literally that).
You seem to be operating under the assumption that Google has implemented a fair and reasonable process, so the onus is on the person who runs afoul of it. However, everything I've read has led me to believe Google doesn't have a fair and reasonable process, because they rely too-heavily on algorithms and automation.
Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income
#176Have your lawyer write a letter. As in, a real legal demand with a complaint attached that is addressed to their counsel and includes estimates of monetary damages and alludes (not threatens) to the specific jurisdiction and court it would be submitted to for adjudication. Send copies of this letter, by registered/certified mail, to several contacts. They will have to respond to this and these responses will be expen…
> They will have to respond to this Why? If they think they have the right to terminate your account, and you have no standing, why would you expect them not to ignore your lawyer in the very same way they ignore you? Taking this to court might get their attention, but you also have to show grounds for why you get to override their decision. IANAL, but I don't see why Google isn't allowed to just say "nope, you're ou…
[deleted]
Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
> curiously omits the details of why they were banned That's a difficult thing to accomplish when Google has not provided them the details of why they were banned.
Maybe not, but it stretches credulity that they have absolutely no idea, not even a guess, as to the cause. The ban letter says they previously received other notices. Where are they? And what steps, if any, did they take to resolve then? They don't even describe their app, which ordinarily would seen like the first thing to do to establish the injustice of the affair. "My app just makes generative cat photos. What's…
Does it though...
Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income
#178Not saying Google is in the right here by any means, but I'm a bit suspicious of these complaints where the party curiously omits the details of why they were banned, the nature of their previous earnings, etc.
> curiously omits the details of why they were banned That's a difficult thing to accomplish when Google has not provided them the details of why they were banned.
The very email he posts clearly say "Prior violations ... as outlined in previous emails sent"
It sounds like he has violated something multiple times and was told what was in violation but he is choosing not to share this part of the story
Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They will have to respond to this Why? If they think they have the right to terminate your account, and you have no standing, why would you expect them not to ignore your lawyer in the very same way they ignore you? Taking this to court might get their attention, but you also have to show grounds for why you get to override their decision. IANAL, but I don't see why Google isn't allowed to just say "nope, you're ou…
> > They will have to respond to this > Why? They don't have to respond to the demand letter, but they do have to respond if a lawsuit if one is filed. If they don't, it's a default judgement for the plaintiff. (This is one of the things that is broken in the American legal system. You can force someone to spend a lot of money by suing them even if your complaint has no merit.) So while they don't have to respond to…
How is it broken to require a defendant to respond to a lawsuit?
Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income
#180The lack of due process and any real transparency is troubling. It's clearly a mistake to bet your livelihood on a platform that can act in an arbitrary and capricious manner.
We don't know the background, and the content of the previous mails Google has sent this developer prior to the alleged account disabling. OP conveniently left that information out. Without that, it's hard to draw any conclusions. Some infractions are also difficult to convey back to the developer. For instance, I believe a business might not be allowed to communicate details, if account is under police investigation…
I agree we don't know all of the facts, but one fact not in dispute is that there is no recourse if Google Play has acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner. When startups choose platforms and partners, they can pick ones who are small and friendly but more likely to go out of business, or larger ones who will persist but may harm them without recourse. There may be some middle ground where the platform or partner is large enough that near term viability seems reasonably certain and they remain reasonable to deal with, offering transparency and due process.
The OP did single out Google Play, saying they were substantially more transparent and helpful:
"There are other Google services such as Admob and Google Ads and for example if I have a problem with Google Ads I can contact them and they quickly offer me support. To try to improve advertising campaigns, you don’t even have to be the one to contact them, but they themselves send you an email saying that they are at your disposal. In fact, on one occasion I had a conversation with a very nice woman on Google Meet. On the other hand, if I have a problem as a developer on Google Play, things change, I only get a text form and always answers from templates, so I can never get “Human” support when I have a problem with my developer account."
Which gives him points for honesty in my book. It's possible he has left damaging information about himself out of his story that would materially affect our perception of his situation. Bt to me it's more likely that he is telling the truth and for whatever reason Google Play is unwilling to explain their actions, much less justify them.