If you work at Google in this area (and I bet some of you will), then please, escalate this and please, fix your systems - as this is clearly something which destroys peoples lifes.
Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”
41–50 of 501 posts
Re: Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”
#42We need legislation forcing companies to manually review algorithmic decisions that impact people's lives - there has to be a proper appeals process. It's simply not economical for many companies to deal with the long tail of false positives, so they don't. Google has billions of users, and if their algorithms are 99.999% right about bans, their metrics look great but that's still tens of thousands users wrongfully b…
I believe the GDPR already has that. The problem is that the GDPR is not enforced enough and not enough resources/willingness are allocated to enforce it.
The problem in account termination cases would also be that:
1) they can claim they've reviewed the ban, that it's legitimate and they're refusing to disclose the reasons behind it to avoid helping people circumvent the ban, while in reality they didn't do any investigation at all. Proper enforcement should be able to pierce through this veil (by forcing them to disclose the reasons and data behind the bank to the regulator, a neutral third-party), but it's missing and nothing suggests it's going to get any better.
2) given that businesses are still allowed to essentially "fire" customers at will, and changing that is impossible due to wide-ranging repercussions, nothing prevents them from "firing" you anyway. Proper antitrust enforcement is needed here (so that you're not allowed to "fire" customers this way) but that's missing as well.
Re: Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”
#43We need legislation forcing companies to manually review algorithmic decisions that impact people's lives - there has to be a proper appeals process. It's simply not economical for many companies to deal with the long tail of false positives, so they don't. Google has billions of users, and if their algorithms are 99.999% right about bans, their metrics look great but that's still tens of thousands users wrongfully b…
> We need legislation forcing companies to manually review algorithmic decisions that impact people's lives, and have a proper appeals process. I don't think this is enforceable nor I think it's even possible to have such legislature. At the end of the day Google has every right to decide what they put and what they don't put on their store, with whom they do business and with whom they don't. > With how much our mod…
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Re: Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We need legislation forcing companies to manually review algorithmic decisions that impact people's lives, and have a proper appeals process. I don't think this is enforceable nor I think it's even possible to have such legislature. At the end of the day Google has every right to decide what they put and what they don't put on their store, with whom they do business and with whom they don't. > With how much our mod…
You are right, just don't do business with this evil company. Simple as that.
Except they are so big it's hard to avoid.
So perhaps the real solution is to split up these giants..?
Re: Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”
#45We need legislation forcing companies to manually review algorithmic decisions that impact people's lives - there has to be a proper appeals process. It's simply not economical for many companies to deal with the long tail of false positives, so they don't. Google has billions of users, and if their algorithms are 99.999% right about bans, their metrics look great but that's still tens of thousands users wrongfully b…
GDPR Art. 22: https://gdpr-info.eu/art-22-gdpr/ But that's only part of it. A business account might not fall within these rules, and Google can enforce them anyway (after human review) with very little recourse available. Breaking the App store duopoly is the solution.
> Breaking the App store duopoly is the solution.
Not really. We a comparable situation in a lot of different industries; if a large companies serves tens of thousands of customers and get hundreds of thousands of malicious requests, they're going to do some filtering and it will lead to some people getting stuck in the cracks, even if it's just 0.01%. More app stores won't solve this; if enough developers would be burned, the problem would solve itself on its own.
That's not to say that I like the current situation, but from what I see it's likely that the actual number of incidents is low (compared to the number of Google's customers) and a third or fourth store won't change this.
Re: Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”
#46We need legislation forcing companies to manually review algorithmic decisions that impact people's lives - there has to be a proper appeals process. It's simply not economical for many companies to deal with the long tail of false positives, so they don't. Google has billions of users, and if their algorithms are 99.999% right about bans, their metrics look great but that's still tens of thousands users wrongfully b…
Call your congressional rep [1]. That's what it takes; to get policymakers to write and pass the law. I imagine there's bipartisan support at the moment for reining in Big Tech [2]. Google is never going to improve the situation out of the goodness of their corporate heart (if such a thing were even to exist). [1] https://www.commoncause.org/find-your-representative/ [2] https://nypost.com/2022/03/29/biden-doj-backs-…
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Re: Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”
#47We need legislation forcing companies to manually review algorithmic decisions that impact people's lives - there has to be a proper appeals process. It's simply not economical for many companies to deal with the long tail of false positives, so they don't. Google has billions of users, and if their algorithms are 99.999% right about bans, their metrics look great but that's still tens of thousands users wrongfully b…
Google doesn't have billions of developers publishing Android apps, not even close. They shouldn't need to make these irreversible, algorithmic decisions on the Play Store. They choose to, and there are engineers and product managers and etc that individually choose to support those efforts.
Re: Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”
#48In the discussion of the last article, there was a discussion about weaponizing "associated accounts" when Google shuts things down. Looks like it's 100% a valid tactic. Looks like you need to make sure your employees all leave on good terms, and stay on good terms in the coming years. Otherwise, you too might find your Google accounts terminated with no recourse.
This also suggests a need for app development companies to ban developers from using personal accounts to associate with a project. I realize this just sends more money in the direction of Google but if every app developer was set up with a G-Suite (or whatever it's called this week) account for developer access then there could be no question of actions a developer does on their own accounts coming back to bite the…
Wouldn't Google associate personal and work accounts by IP address?
Re: Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”
#49Always use different accounts for every Google Service.
One "bad" Youtube comment can ban your Gmail account.
Re: Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”
#50Share the "previous emails" they sent you, you either ignored them, or you know what you did wrong and are trying to play the innocent actor Hard to judge without having all the data in hand
Google: Always blame the victim, never take responsibility, no support, the algorithm is the the law