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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”

#301

Post by spookthesunset »

falcolas wrote: post #4

In 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.

> Looks like it's 100% a valid tactic.

It is valid and I’m sure quite effective but it isn’t perfect. You need to provide escape hatches for real people in all anti-fraud systems you create. Even if those escape hatches sometimes let fraudsters through as well.

I’m not Google and I don’t know the kinds of fraud they attract (note: probably all kinds of fraud imaginable) nor do I know the level of effort those fraudsters are willing to put in (note: probably unimaginable amounts of effort)… but I do know that all anti-fraud work needs to allow ways for real people to escape. Your job in this space is to protect real users… and sometimes those real users inadvertently behave like fraudsters and get flagged. There has to be ways out.

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

#302

Post by [deleted] »

KarlKemp wrote: post #284
miohtama wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

GDPR Art. 4: „ personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’)“. This is a business, not a natural person.

[deleted]

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

#303

Post by barneygale »

lkxijlewlf wrote: post #275
dandare wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Google is worth 1.8 TRILLION dollars. How much would you have to sue them for before they start to give a shit? 1.8T is an unimaginable amount of money.

Their wealth and power rivals many states, yet they act with a level of impunity that most dictatorships will never attain. We can and should break Google and others up into many smaller companies. They'll be less efficient that way, but efficiency is not in itself a goal.

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

#304

Post by lmkg »

KarlKemp wrote: post #284
miohtama wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

GDPR Art. 4: „ personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’)“. This is a business, not a natural person.

Data can be both, in which case GDPR right still apply. Several GDPR fines have been handed down for processing business data about a person. Especially (but not only) data about sole proprietors/solo traders.

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

#305

Post by ArnoVW »

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?

They have in house council coming out their ears, that know the relevant contracts, regulation and precedents by heart, and whose day job it is to manage these issues. They have the budget to delay / protract things indefinitely.

You are paying hundreds of dollars per hour to someone who is discovering your issue.

It's possible,sure. But how do you think that's going to play out?

Unless you lost kin, or a 5 million dollar inheritence due to your issue with Google, you're going to find a way to live with it.

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

#306

Post by incrudible »

ultim8k wrote: post #271

We gave these mofos an ecosytem because they were hiding behind the label of "free and open source software". Now they can screw anyone and not even answer to emails. They are nothing but crooks. All software giants hold too much power in their hands and nobody can touch them. What can you do? They have at least 50% of the market.

For one, Apple has the better 50% of the market. You could do without Android. Secondly, being subservient to any app storefront policy is not a position you want to navigate into in the first place.

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

#307

Post by geophertz »

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…

> At Google's scale, I don't think there are enough humans on Earth to deal with the abuse.

I disagree.

Some time ago, a person (on HN, although it may have been somewhere else) did an estimate of what it would take for Google to review all 500 hrs of video uploaded to YouTube every minute.

The result was that Google could more than afford it.

Based on that I don't see any reason Google couldn't add more humans to deal with these ban appeals.

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

#308

Post by kmeisthax »

whoknew1122 wrote: post #261
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…

I get what you're saying, but if 'H.' did something bad, Google should be telling companies that hired him to check their source code for malware. They shouldn't be accusing his former employer of being a shell company for 'H.' to continue doing bad things.

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

#309

Post by e40 »

gigel82 wrote: post #290
skrtskrt wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the editor for Google Docs is the one really good thing I can't get elsewhere, but I don't do that much important stuff in it - just like planning vacations, etc. Once I'm done editing something, if I want to back it up I can just export it elsewhere

Microsoft has a very usable online version that's free (with a bit of upsell here and there). Arguably more capable than Google Docs.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Of course, I'm being a little flippant, but the MS ecosystem is not without its problems. A colleague has 3 MS accounts for dealing with 3 different things (a government contract, a 3rd party company contract, our company account). Because of this, he was in hell for days because of some fubar on the MS side. I have (seemingly!) different MS accounts, for Azure development and Office 365 and I am regularly confused by the various MS websites.

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

#310

Post by spookthesunset »

anaccountexists wrote: post #126
buscoquadnary wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like the same problem we have hear just now you get the headache of the courts on top of the decision, how many people avoid court now for much more impactful and legitimate situations simply because they can't afford the time and money? What we want isn't review of automated decisions, what we want is openness, transperancy and clarity in the process. The problem people have isn't so much the appeals proc…

There are problems with how transparent you make things though (i.e., giving away the underlying signals). There’s a moving target between fraudsters and risk teams at companies where the fraudsters will try to run just up to the edge of alerting systems without passing over, then scale and repeat it. If the signals used are made public, fraudsters will win every time. It’s the same with search engines- if they publi…

I came here to say this too. A lot of the anti-fraud stuff is a closely guarded secret that changes all the time. I don’t even think that legal would let us disclose it even if we wanted to!

That isn’t to say there shouldn’t be some kind of way to escalate an appeal to a real human.

Of course keeping the fraudsters from DDOSing the crap out the appeals process will be a challenge! Because I could see them doing that…

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