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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

#251

Post by someotherperson »

laurent92 wrote: post #99
someotherperson wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 would incentivize Google not to find it erroneous.

Why? I appreciate the "always assume bad faith" approach for corporations (hell, I'm the biggest advocate) but what's the benefit for Google here?

1. The support cost is totally offset -- at $50/hour, it would give someone four hours to investigate and two hours to prepare a report.

2. Bad actors won't pay, and neither will people who haven't really made money on the store

3. Google develops an actual framework for resolution

4. Some level of trust is developed again

5. It helps provide better training data for Google's automated process -- the engineers behind it probably cost $300/day each.

I really can't see a situation where this would incentivise Google to steal money. It would land them in much hotter water than anything else they've been involved in before. We're talking international lawsuits if just one single support staff decides to be a whistleblower. It's too involved of a conspiracy.

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

#252

Post by Beltalowda »

vhold wrote: post #182
alsetmusic wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm a bit suspicious of these complaints where the party curiously omits the details of why they were banned I read it as the dev had no warning or explanation.

The image of the email he did post says he received previous emails with the reason.

Other people have gotten similar worded emails, but never received any previous emails.

For example when the account of simple-keyboard's dev got banned: https://github.com/rkkr/simple-keyboard/issues/333

Maybe there were previous emails, maybe not. I wouldn't put too much stock in that sentence.

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

#253

Post by Beltalowda »

kingcharles wrote: post #220
germinalphrase wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind sharing why you choose Fastmail over alternatives?

Been using them for, I think, 16+ years at this point. Their support is great. Their product is great. The price is great. For a techie like me, it's perfect. I don't know if I would put Grandma on it, though, but perhaps I would.

> I don't know if I would put Grandma on it, though, but perhaps I would.

I don't see why not; I think that overall FastMail is easier to use than gmail for example. It's not like you need to use a custom domain and all these things.

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

#254

Post by janto »

jgod wrote: post #236
janto wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a lot from Google's perspective? If apps follow some power law distribution it might only be worth providing human support to a very limited number of them.

Customer support is provided for sub $20 items from e commerce sites who don't have Google's market cap. Not to mention that a customer support agent's time isn't exactly worth hundreds of dollars an hour.

It depends on how narrowly focused Google's strategy and commitment to reliable income is.

Linearly scaling up on human support agents doesn't look aligned with an AI driven strategy to enable income that is only coming from their advertising services.

From https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/020515/busin...

  Google Services generated $69.4 billion, or about 92% of total revenue, in Q4 FY 2021. Advertising revenue, at $61.2 billion, comprised 88% of the segment's revenue. The segment's revenue is up 31.3% compared to Q4 FY 2020. Google Services posted operating income of $26.0 billion, up 36.3% from the year-ago quarter.

  This figure surpassed Alphabet's total consolidated operating income of $21.9 billion due to operating losses in the other two segments as well as unallocated corporate costs. Google Services is thus the only segment that currently makes positive contributions to Alphabet's overall operating income
So Google Play can only exist in ways where it supports advertising. Sales are trivial in comparison. "Delighting" every app publisher is simply distracting.

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

#255

Post by TomSwirly »

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.

"No due process is necessary, because these guys are clearly wrong and suspicious. What's the point of giving obviously guilty people any due process at all?"

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

#256

Post by TomSwirly »

oliwarner wrote: post #167
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…

> 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…

> and you have no standing,

How - how! - can you justify the statement that you have "no standing" when your income stream was arbitrarily cut off with no explanation?

> IANAL, but I don't see why Google isn't allowed to just say "nope, you're outta here" to anyone it damned well wants.

Because it's wildly unfair and morally abhorrent?

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

#257

Post by TomSwirly »

pdonis wrote: post #193
andrew_ wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Pl…

> The only really correct answer to the root problem here is for developers to stop using Google Play as a distribution channel.

But Google has deliberately made it essentially impossible to do this.

1. The user needs to discover that other app ecosystems even exist. 2. They will then need to jailbreak their phone. 3. This voids their warranty.

That eliminates 99+% of your customer base off the top.

And of course Google could and likely would refuse advertisements for these alternative app ecosystems.

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

#258

Post by TomSwirly »

chrisan wrote: post #178
whatshisface wrote: post #150

Earlier 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.

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

> The very email he posts clearly say "Prior violations ... as outlined in previous emails sent"

I helped someone out with a similar issue, a friend of mine who was doing something very very uncontroversial.

The "previous messages" had no extra information at all except, "You might have broken our terms of service with this page" - a link to their main page, with no additional information.

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

#259

Post by code_duck »

cube00 wrote: post #153
code_duck wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My concern is the hundreds of GB of photos I have saved with Google and Apple. I assume one day I will wake up and find I've lost access to them with no recourse, which means backing them up on a large hard drive is my only real option, exactly like 2010.

Nothing 2010 about it, 3-2-1 backup, you shouldn't be relying on any cloud provider holding your only copy.

This is true, but in any event I feel it's more likely I'll lose access to my Google account than that Google will suffer a storage failure and lose my photos. I didn't have a laptop or desktop for a few years, which makes having my own backups a lot more difficult, but at this point I should probably take care of it.

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

#260

Post by remram »

maccolgan wrote: post #247
remram wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do the same in a public space, a cop will stop you immediately without waiting for a court order. Or even a security guard. Judges are definitely not the starting point of all security actions.

Cops aren't allowed to stop you from saying neo-Nazi things on a government-owned public space unless you live in a country where free speech doesn't exist.

So you claim, random Internet user. The rest of the world sees things differently. Even in the USA, plenty of things are explicitly illegal to say out loud in public, such as calling out "fire" or anything pornographic. You also still have a political prison in Guantanamo where people are detained indefinitely without trial, but sure, tell us what freedom means.
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