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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”

#261

Post by whoknew1122 »

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 can feel the downvotes coming deep in my bones.

But Google has its own reputation (and users) to protect. It's taking a risk whenever it allows a developer on its platform. If a developer with low name recognition uploads malicious software, it's not the developer's name that makes the headline.

Crucially, there's no information on what the employee (and later contractor) 'H.' did to get themselves banned. Or fired. From the OP's own timeline, the ban came less than two months after they severed their relationship with 'H.' Google isn't swinging around the ban hammer years after the OP separated with 'H.'

The OP's games could still include code contributed by 'H.' And 'H.' is apparently untrustworthy. Is that a risk Google should be forced to take as the curator of the Google Play store? I don't think so.

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

#262

Post by _jal »

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…

The old rules still apply: if you don't control the computer, you don't control the data on it.

In a way, this is sort of a digital-era generalization of "freedom of the press belongs to those who own one."

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

#263

Post by EricE »

Aeolun wrote: post #203
bogwog wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Figuring out a fair and effective set of laws/regulations to control how these companies run their app stores seems way too hard and unrealistic. The easier and more effective solution is to simply force them to allow alternative app stores (without suppressing competition, like Google currently does). A free market tends to correct itself in the long term, so that should solve the majority of problems plaguing the m…

> Figuring out a fair and effective set of laws/regulations to control how these companies run their app stores seems way too hard and unrealistic Anything has to be better than what we have today…

Yes, competition is better. Force them to allow other app stores on the same footing with Google's and Apple's. See how fast both suddenly find resources to deal with issues like these.

Sunlight (and competition) is the best disinfectant!

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

#264

Post by matsemann »

jrockway wrote: post #159
matsemann wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the devs behind these kind of automations ever stop and think about the ethical sides of it.

I've spent an inordinate amount of time banning fraudsters from my own cloud platform. The bots that companies write to do this are designed to fight off other bots. If you have an appeals process, the humans that control the malicious bots will show up to abuse the appeals process. One of my favorite cases was a user that signed up with hundreds of stolen credit card numbers (all from the same IP address, as they ar…

While I see your point, when it's accounts with years of history, millions of downloads, thousands of dollars paid in sales etc., it should be easy to discern those from spammers creating thousands of new accounts with no standing.

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

#265

Post by dotancohen »

TuringNYC wrote: post #244
dotancohen wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Good to know, thanks.

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

#266

Post by bogantech »

dandare wrote: post #252
whymauri wrote: post #208

Once again, the resolution of this problem will come down to either the OP knowing a Google employee or a Google employee happening to see this and feeling pity. For the vast majority of people who deal with Google support and don't have access to Google employees how many of us on HN do, when the hammer strikes: they are completely out of options. I have such little trust in Google's automation for banning accounts…

I don't understand why the fear of being sued is not preventing Google (and other big players) from misusing their position like this. Is it impossible to sue Google?

It's possible to sue them but how deep are your pockets?

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

#267

Post by ocdtrekkie »

Closi wrote: post #207
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…

> Everyone here is commenting about overautomation, but this isn't an overautomation problem. It's a secondary sanctions problem. It's both. When you work with tech companies this kind of overautomation is rife. When you work with any other type of business they give you an account manager and you manage these issues openly together with a relationship. If there was a human at Google who picked up the phone and worke…

Google is much more profitable than your bank, and this is why. The reason tech companies sit all at the top of most valuable companies is essentially because they've automated away a ton of tasks which normally require hiring a lot of employees.

The only way to fix this is to legally require it, because nobody's going to stop the profit train by themselves.

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

#268

Post by 3np »

Reason077 wrote: post #240
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?

Or just don't link personal and company accounts. Even these issues aside , there are so many reasons to keep them separate and unrelated. That's not unique to Google but goes for GitHub, AWS, and whatever else.

Use company e-mail addresses to register for everything. Enforce it for your employees. This is in the interest of both the company and the employee. Yes, the summer intern gets a corp email too, which at minimum gets access to internal resources beyond the OT chatroom revoked when they are out.

(Your advise is not bad though: grant granular access as it's needed)

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

#269

Post by whoknew1122 »

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.

Google isn't the government, so the first amendment doesn't apply. Security in one's person and affects? The OP still has possession of their apps. Google is just deciding it won't sell them for the user.

And prohibition against slavery? It's both laughable and deeply offensive to consider this situation even remotely similar to chattel slavery.

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

#270

Post by _fat_santa »

dandare wrote: post #252
whymauri wrote: post #208

Once again, the resolution of this problem will come down to either the OP knowing a Google employee or a Google employee happening to see this and feeling pity. For the vast majority of people who deal with Google support and don't have access to Google employees how many of us on HN do, when the hammer strikes: they are completely out of options. I have such little trust in Google's automation for banning accounts…

I don't understand why the fear of being sued is not preventing Google (and other big players) from misusing their position like this. Is it impossible to sue Google?

> Is it impossible to sue Google?

Theoretically no but practically yes. Even if they know they are in the wrong and would loose a court case, they still "win" by just dragging it out and making you go broke on legal fees.

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