201–210 of 279 posts
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.
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?
Because there are no legal grounds for such a suit. Google is providing a service (Google Play developer accounts), and its terms of service clearly state that it can terminate any account whenever it wants. However nasty you might find this behavior in a moral sense, legally Google is perfectly within its rights to operate this way.
The only real response any developer can make to this is to not use Google Play to distribute apps. And certainly not to build a business on whose income you and your family will depend on it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 b…
Was that a complete ban, or was it an attempt to get your phone number and other personal details? Instagram has always banned my accounts for suspicious behaviour on whatever page is first used after the account is created - the only way they offer to progress is to give them a phone number. It's a pretty transparent grab for more info to sell.
Funny enough, when I checked after posting my previous comment I could log in and it was all good. I didn't do anything, and now I got an email saying "Your Facebook account has been disabled. This is because your account, or activity on it, doesn't follow our Community Standards". All I did was log in, view the home page, and close the tab.
I requested another review :-/
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 "rea…
Why not? I understand that a lot of people don't like this behavior, but why should it be illegal? The law is a very blunt instrument, and government is already far too intrusive into every aspect of people's lives. The fact that you see a problem does not mean the law/government can fix it.
Consider the law/government version of the old programmer's joke about regular expressions:
Some people, whenever they have a problem with behavior they don't like, think: Let's get the law/government to solve it! Now they have two problems.
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…
You can sue them over it, but a company of that scale handles literally hundreds of lawsuits a day. Almost all of them are frivolous, and will be dismissed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd guess that Google's support for their ad services are good enough? The problem here is that Play publishers are not really Google's customers.
Play Store publishers pay Google $25 for access to the Play Store, and then pay them 15% to 30% of all revenue collected via the apps.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right I will build for iOS.... ohh wait.... Ok that is out... so what is the other platform?
Web. Your app almost certainly doesn't actually need to be an app anyway.