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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

#191

Post by ajdude »

tiahura wrote: post #179
lisper wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > 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?

IANAL but my guess is that it costs money for the defendant to respond to a lawsuit, so if company A wants person B to stop doing something, even if person B is within their legal right to do so, company A can still force person B to stop, because either person B goes bankrupt fighting it or person B ignores it and company A has the judgement in their favor.

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

#192

Post by Schroedingersat »

perrohunter wrote: post #186

I was that “let’s use google cloud” guy, but more recently after so many horror stories like this I’m more of a “let’s not use google cloud” guy. I rarely see people complaining about AWS or Azure on HN

Actual service providers and federated software, not fiefdoms.

If you can't transfer to a competitor over the weekend you're not a customer, you're livestock.

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

#193

Post by pdonis »

andrew_ wrote: post #162
rsync wrote: post #156

Have 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…

This is the correct answer to the situation.

It might seem like a "correct" answer, but it's not, because it won't accomplish anything. Google has orders of magnitude more money and resources to fight a lawsuit than any individual plaintiff does. This particular plaintiff is not the first, or even the thousandth, to have this problem and find that it's not fixable.

The only really correct answer to the root problem here is for developers to stop using Google Play as a distribution channel. There is more than enough data out there by now to make it crystal clear that everyone who does that is doing so at the mercy of Google's whim. No sane person should be trying to build an actual business that will provide income they and their families depend on on such a shaky foundation.

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

#194

Post by TylerE »

brudgers wrote: post #141

With rare exceptions, I read my-account-was-canceled stories and there’s something sketchy. Here it’s: I became part of a company where we teach people to create their own applications and create their own app business. Logically there’s nothing wrong with that. Empirically, in 2022 the reliable ways for random developers to make money by publishing apps involve gray areas at best. I mean, what are the generically ap…

Sounds kind of like the old "marketing training" scam, where once you pay for $5000 or whatever what they teach you is... "spam a bunch of websites about how to start your own marketing business for $5000"

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

#195

Post by Hizonner »

fredgrott wrote: post #64
protomyth wrote: post #11

I 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. Citation needed. "1 million to one" does not even pass the laugh test, not if it's measured in any meaningful way. And the actual numbers would matter... if they were available... which they are not...

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

#196

Post by BeetleB »

adamparsons wrote: post #170
cube00 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never going to happen for the same reason companies don't tell you why your job application was rejected because it opens them up to unnecessary liability.

Crazy thing about a bill is that if it passes, then it will happen, just like the parent is suggesting should happen.

If a bill like that passes, expect all kinds of clauses in the contract that make it easier to get banned.

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

#197

Post by rndgermandude »

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?

I would be in favor of legislation which allows for bans, but makes it harder to (not impossible) do so for the large companies. The EU's DMA (Digital Markets Act) defines "Gatekeepers", which is an OK definition of what could count as "large" in this context.

Large companies shouldn't be able to get away with banning people without good reason, documenting and stating that good reason, and have a reasonable and "real" appeals process, with courts being the last step of the process if needed.

Want to ban that person harassing others? Sure thing, document the harassment, clearly spell out in your account termination email that harassment was the reason (and what even constitutes harassment), offer that appeals process. Document the decision and evidence, in case an independent mediator (like a court) asks for it. Don't just vaguely point to some 70-page "Community Standards" document, and have bots auto-respond with "Denied" emails to appeals.

As the German constitution law (Grundgesetz) spells out: "Eigentum verpflichtet. Sein Gebrauch soll zugleich dem Wohle der Allgemeinheit dienen." ("Property obliges. Its use should also serve the public good."). I think that's a good approach to property.

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

#198

Post by Rexxar »

tiahura wrote: post #179
lisper wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > 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?

Because (if I understand correctly) the judge side with the plaintiff without looking at the case : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_judgment.

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

#199

Post by Someone1234 »

josephg wrote: post #115
adhesive_wombat wrote: post #107

Man, I really need to get off Gmail to reduce exposure to something like this, but there are sooooo many accounts to update.

The first step is moving to a custom domain. You can stay on gmail if you want; but set up a custom domain, and set up email on it and tell everyone to use your new email address. Once you have a custom domain, it becomes way easier to change to another email service without losing any messages.

I've had Google Workspaces/Gsuite like that, but how do you accomplish the same thing with just gmail? Do you have a separate email service forward to it, or is there some way to set gmail as your DNS MX mail server and have it direct a custom domain into (and out of?) your gmail address?

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

#200

Post by Method-X »

paxys wrote: post #181

The fact that this guy didn't even say the name of his apps or what they do makes me pretty suspicious of the whole thing. There are enough developers who don't add any value but instead rely on spam, malware or piracy/copyright infringement to get big. I have zero sympathy in those cases, and support Google and Apple taking action against them.

Agree. If this was legit, he would have mentioned some of his apps. He was probably banned for spam / garbage apps.
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