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Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”

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Re: Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”

#231

Post by miohtama »

kmeisthax wrote: post #59

Everyone here is commenting about overautomation, but this isn't an overautomation problem. It's a secondary sanctions problem. The developer isn't being banned for breaking Google's rules, he's being banned for having hired someone else who later broke those rules; and then that ban was transitively applied to their personal account as well. This is beyond the pale. Google should not have the power to decide who you…

GDPR Article 22

> The data subject shall have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning him or her or similarly significantly affects him or her.

> In the cases referred to in points (a) and (c) of paragraph 2, the data controller shall implement suitable measures to safeguard the data subject’s rights and freedoms and legitimate interests, at least the right to obtain human intervention on the part of the controller, to express his or her point of view and to contest the decision.

https://gdpr-info.eu/art-22-gdpr/

Re: Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”

#232

Post by ElFitz »

nightpool wrote: post #199
hbn wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you had a bank account shared between your developers, and someone who left the company started using it for money laundering, the entire account would be shut down and you would not be getting that money back. In fact, you might even be investigated by authorities for money laundering since it ran through your account. I don't see how that analogy applies here. It would be more like if someone who had access to…

Yes, but if you read closely, you'll find that OP never actually said that employee "H" was removed from their Google Play account. Instead, they say that "H [had] all permissions removed except on one game which we were still using H.'s consultation on - The app was unpublished later on". So H was still associated with the company's developer account as part of the unpublished game.

And so what? Did H violate any rules on that specific game?

If you have an employee doing stupid things on their own personal account on their own personal time, should your company’s Google Play developer account also be terminated?

This is one of the many reasons I personally stay as far as possible from anything to do with Google.

What’s next? Loosing access to all our company’s emails and personal photos because someone former employee’s twice-removed cousin decided to try their hands at phishing?

Sounds like a joke, but if even Google employees' families can permanently lose access to their Google account without any recourse[^1], who’s safe?

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24965432

Re: Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”

#233

Post by Semaphor »

anaccountexists wrote: post #136
nerdawson wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may have misinterpreted the explanation given in the post. It sounded to me like a developer they'd employed violated the TOS on their personal Google dev account. Google then recognised a connection between the dev and another Google account belonging to a company and opted to suspend that as well. To use your example, that would be like an employee getting their bank account frozen for something they'd done in th…

I’d liken the latter to having a company credit card account. Regardless, in the bank case there’s a high chance adjacent / connected accounts would be frozen (at least for a time) because money laundering tends to happen in rings. I see your point, though.

> I’d liken the latter to having a company credit card account.

No, having had a company credit card account 3 years ago. Unless I’m misunderstanding something, the employee had no more relationship to the company for some time.

Re: Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”

#234

Post by throwuxiytayq »

TuringNYC wrote: post #214
kmeisthax wrote: post #59

Everyone here is commenting about overautomation, but this isn't an overautomation problem. It's a secondary sanctions problem. The developer isn't being banned for breaking Google's rules, he's being banned for having hired someone else who later broke those rules; and then that ban was transitively applied to their personal account as well. This is beyond the pale. Google should not have the power to decide who you…

I had a scare last year where Google supposedly gave me 30 days before they would shut off my Google account of 20yrs. Family photos, youtube videos, 20yrs of email, not to mention the treasure trove of personal documents on GDrive. It took two weeks to duplicate the content and back it up elsewhere. This is a paid tier Google account and I've yet to get an explanation on why this happened. It appears to be because o…

After reading so many posts like this, I decided to bite the bullet and start moving off-Google. Funny thing is, ProtonMail and Obsidian are much better than Gmail and Keep anyway.

I'm still forced to use Google stuff here and there but I'm no longer dependant on them, and coincidentally I've been sleeping much better recently.

Re: Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”

#235

Post by TuringNYC »

Gareth321 wrote: post #194
kuschku wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you need to have separate WiFi networks, separate corporate devices that are so locked down that developers can never use their personal accounts from your devices or your corporate IP range (and ensure the same applies in reverse). To absolutely prevent any and all association.

This sounds virtually unenforceable. Gated and protected phones and computers are the domain of highly secretive projects, and cost an arm and leg to enforce. It means searching personnel as they enter the protected zone for watches, phones, computers, tablets, etc. Since phones geolocate and Google has this data, the protected zone needs to be enormous. Like, an entire city block to prevent the algorithm from detect…

>> This sounds virtually unenforceable.

The simple way to "enforce" it is to literally just use AWS/Azure instead. I agree with you, totally unenforceable.

Re: Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”

#236

Post by tempnow987 »

mikece wrote: post #28

Cases like this make me wish Google could be sued for $100,000,000 because it's clear that are they not following their own rules when it comes to banning accounts. This has REAL business impact, not to mention the implication of libel that the holder of the account did something to deserve to be banned. Yeah, I know: the business entered into an agreement with Google to abide by their rules and terms of service but…

Um, they are following their rules. They make this very clear when you sign up. If you have a scammer working for you / linked to your account, your account is VERY VERY much at risk.

Lesson is, don't hire scam artists, ask your employees not to scam while they work for you or are linked to your account.

Re: Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”

#237

Post by ghoward »

testplzignore wrote: post #29
fsflover wrote: post #11

See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30771057 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30811297 .

Maybe we need a "Businesses/Lives Ruined by Google" site like the "Killed by Google" site.

Not exactly what you want, but I run the Programmers Against Humanity account on Twitter (@software_crimes), and I collect stories like this.

I'm going to be tweeting this story out as soon as I get to my computer.

Re: Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”

#238

Post by dotancohen »

TuringNYC wrote: post #214
kmeisthax wrote: post #59

Everyone here is commenting about overautomation, but this isn't an overautomation problem. It's a secondary sanctions problem. The developer isn't being banned for breaking Google's rules, he's being banned for having hired someone else who later broke those rules; and then that ban was transitively applied to their personal account as well. This is beyond the pale. Google should not have the power to decide who you…

I had a scare last year where Google supposedly gave me 30 days before they would shut off my Google account of 20yrs. Family photos, youtube videos, 20yrs of email, not to mention the treasure trove of personal documents on GDrive. It took two weeks to duplicate the content and back it up elsewhere. This is a paid tier Google account and I've yet to get an explanation on why this happened. It appears to be because o…

Customer service? For a Google account?

Re: Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”

#239

Post by cptskippy »

anaccountexists wrote: post #104

Before saying anything else: I’m sorry OP. This is miserable to deal with and I know you’re probably very upset right now. On the other hand- at every company I’ve worked at, this is why there’s clear onboarding and off boarding policies. Yes- if you have someone on your developer account violating terms of service, they’ll shut down the account. No, it doesn’t matter that it wasn’t you personally. To put this differ…

But would each employee working at a company found to be money laundering have their personal accounts shut down?

Google goes out of their way to associate people's accounts and identities. Even if you have work and personal Google Accounts, you should assume that Google knows they're the same person. For example, Google wants you to login to their Youtube App on Roku. If you choose not to but have it open at the same time someone opens Youtube on their phone, the two communicate and you'll get prompted to login. Even if you choose not to login, the two apps share information and cross pollinate watch histories and suggestions.

Google also makes it difficult/costly to properly lock down their development tools. You can't for example lock down your developer console or cloud account to accounts with specific domains. You also can't take ownership of your domain outside of a Workplaces Subscription in the same way you can with Apple's ABM tool.

At the same time Google requires you to consolidate all of your company assets into one basket. You can't have different developer consoles so an employee or contractor working on Project X might have access to aspects of Project Y because the console permissions aren't granular enough. So there's no plausible deniability for Project Y when a Bad Actor working on Project X is identified.

You can't even insulate projects on Google's tools as there is a 1:1 relationship between their Play Console, Cloud Console, and a singular Cloud Project. So again absolutely no plausible deniability.

What you end up with is a situation where if a user does something Google doesn't like, Google decides how large of a net to cast over that user's network graph when bringing down the ban hammer.

Re: Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated”

#240

Post by Reason077 »

kmeisthax wrote: post #59

Everyone here is commenting about overautomation, but this isn't an overautomation problem. It's a secondary sanctions problem. The developer isn't being banned for breaking Google's rules, he's being banned for having hired someone else who later broke those rules; and then that ban was transitively applied to their personal account as well. This is beyond the pale. Google should not have the power to decide who you…

I suppose the best practice solution to this is to try to keep company Google Play accounts as "sterile" as possible?

Give access to as few employees as possible, and have all access to Google Play go through a designated, trusted release manager or "play account manager"? And don't log in to Google Play from random browsers and IP addresses which could create an association with other Google accounts?

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