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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”

#241

Post by pastage »

natch wrote: post #192
napoleoncomplex wrote: post #2

Upvoting just because Google's (and Apple's) app store processes are so horrible, and this is probably the best way the case gets noticed by someone human in a normal timeframe (according to the post, they've been going through it for 2 months already).

Please don’t lump Apple with Google on this. Apple has humans that answer the phone and help.

Who can not help you. Appstore policies are rife with catch-22, personally I have never had problems with Google but Apple has been a pain every time. I am unable to update a ten year old app because Apple think they know the 10k daily users better.

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

#243

Post by cortesoft »

frankfrankfrank wrote: post #219
cortesoft wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What aspect of the Constitution would apply to this situation?

Freedom of speech and assembly, security in one’s person and affects, freedom of movement/transportation, even prohibition against slavery (even though that will be a bit too abstract for most), etc.

I really can’t see how any of those would apply to Google shutting down an account.

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

#244

Post by TuringNYC »

dotancohen wrote: post #238
TuringNYC wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes, they do have customer service and I did get on the phone with someone. I'm not sure if this is universal, or because I had a paid tier Google account.

That said, the rep failed to provide any definitive guidance on issue or resolution.

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

#245

Post by ajross »

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…

> he's being banned for having hired someone else who later broke those rules

FWIW: there's some reason to suspect that the "later" bit is being spun here. Per the timeline in the article, there were only 5-6 weeks between the employee being fired and Google taking action against the employer[1].

That's pretty tight, and from an enforcement perspective is going to make it extremely difficult to distinguish which entity is doing the bad things. And, frankly, given the spin elsewhere in the story, I'm inclined to suspect more ambiguity here and not less.

What's the ask here, that Google (which correctly detected the association between the accounts) audit the IT permissions logs of accounts that commit bannable offenses before taking action? That just doesn't seem feasible.

[1] They further spin this by trying to claim that the employee left in 2019, but have to admit that he was still present as a consultant.

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

#246

Post by im3w1l »

We used to live in a magical world, where your fate was governmened by fire spirits, by demons and by thunder gods. We tamed nature and learned a scientific worldview. What these algorithms are doing is turning back the clock. Undoing the science. It's bringing us a new world of superstitution, where you better don't anger the machine elves.

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

#247

Post by Aeolun »

freedomben wrote: post #156
yunohn wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you comparing banking regulations to tech support? The former is crucial to trust in money, governance, and societal functioning. Tech support is easily overrun and exploited by bad actors, and the upside for the company is very minimal.

The upside of good support for the company wouldn't be minimal anymore if giant and/or frequent mistakes could get them kicked out of the market, either temporarily or permanently. What I worry about most is that human support requirements will apply to smaller companies and essentially guarantee supremacy of big tech since no startup would ever be able to disrupt them.

Smaller companies could be exempted under the rules. Start it from 20 employees or so.

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

#248

Post by natch »

pastage wrote: post #241
natch wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don’t lump Apple with Google on this. Apple has humans that answer the phone and help.

Who can not help you. Appstore policies are rife with catch-22, personally I have never had problems with Google but Apple has been a pain every time. I am unable to update a ten year old app because Apple think they know the 10k daily users better.

If they can’t help you frankly the problem is probably with you or your app.

But who knows… what aspect of your users do you know about that Apple refuses to understand?

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

#249

Post by Aeolun »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #74
yunohn wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's simply not economical for many companies to deal with the long tail of false positives, so they don't. This happens everywhere, not just Big Tech. Even as humans, we try to handle the 99% and ignore the 1%. I still don’t understand what anyone is proposing - force companies to provide support against their will?

> I still don’t understand what anyone is proposing - force companies to provide support against their will? That's what laws are: forcing people to do things they would otherwise not do.

And kind of the point of laws. If people did them without the law then there wouldn’t be a need for the law in the first place.

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

#250

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]
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