Google terminated our Developer Account, says it is “associated” • Hacker News Board

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

#361

Post by onemoresoop » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 5:34 PM UTC

koonsolo wrote: post #355

throwuxiytayq wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So how do you know those services don't pull the same stunt? I use various google services, and do a monthly backup of everything. I guess that's a sane thing to do with any service, even self hosted ones.

When they start growing close to the size of Google you could start worrying about this type of problem. With smaller players you could reach them easier if something happens, especially if they care about their customers. Ultimately nothing is guaranteed so backing up the data regularly is a good idea but that's not the only problem though, a lot of people's identity is tied to some services that if they stop functioning for them they're in a bit of a nightmare situation.

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

#362

Post by peeters » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 5:36 PM UTC

Is anything stopping app developers from forming a (non-workers) union to collectively bargain and advocate for its members? This seems like something where if every app developer paid dues to a central body, with the insurance that each dispute had the resources and leverage of that body, then maybe they would take more care in the first place.

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

#363

Post by tasubotadas » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 5:37 PM UTC

Could we stop sharing old reddit links? It works horribly on mobile.

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

#364

Post by AniseAbyss » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 5:38 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #267

Closi wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

And even if they have a human customer department that you are able to track down it's just some student at a callcenter.

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

#365

Post by techaddict009 » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 5:39 PM UTC

Same happened with me once. And till date couldnt find out the association and what wrong we did or the association who they say we are associated with!

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

#366

Post by Forgeties79 » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 5:41 PM UTC

duped wrote: post #314

Forgeties79 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Just sue Twitter” is one of the more head-scratching comments I’ve read lately.

People sue big companies over bullshit all the time, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I called a lawyer and they threatened my bank with litigation a year ago, and the bank remedied their mistake (this is a company on par with Twitter). It's more head scratching to me that people think it's going to be easier to pass legislation than to go through the existing legal channels when a company's policies are…

I can't imagine committing bandwidth to sue a major tech company. We didn't have a lawyer on retainer or something at my old company, we were a very small operation. I'm not saying it isn't an option at all, but it's not like going down the street to pick up some milk. It also just strikes me as silly we should have to sue a company to correct a relatively simple error they could fix if they'd just pay a modicum of attention/responded to us.

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

#367

Post by joemi » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 5:42 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #260

throwuxiytayq wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In my case, I moved to Fastmail... and yeah, the hilarious thing is people remember moving from AOL to Gmail over a decade ago, and think Gmail is still so much better than everything else. Gmail is worst-in-class at this point. It's slow, it's bloated, it's bad at spam filtering compared to the alternatives. They've been riding on people remembering email before Gmail, but not really actually stayed competitive with…

I tried switching to Fastmail (from Gmail) 7-ish yrs ago, and I ended up switching back to Gmail specifically because the spam filtering was far worse with Fastmail. Is it Fastmail's spam filtering actually better now, or does it just seem that way when you start a new account because you're not getting much spam in general?

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

#368

Post by heleninboodler » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 5:45 PM UTC

3np wrote: post #268

Reason077 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mi…

> just don't link personal and company accounts

Easier said than done, in my experience. Years ago I had to log into my Company's Play account on my computer for some specific reason, one time, and more than a year after that, my daughter purchased a game on my android phone and the CEO sent me a message saying "FYI, we just paid $3 for a princess coloring book app, please enjoy it with our compliments but please delete the Play Store login info from your devices." I still have zero idea how that could possibly have happened. That company will be shutting down and now I'm worried that my google account is somehow "linked" to it.

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

#369

Post by 8note » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 5:49 PM UTC

TuringNYC wrote: post #253

tempnow987 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is dealing with a very real problem. There are bad actors, particularly internationally, who systematically and at scale try to subvert / cheat. This includes multiple accounts, and businesses that hire folks who try to cheat the system. Google almost certainly has statistics supporting the increased risk of working with developers / businesses that hire folks who break various rules. Certainly there are false…

>> Google is dealing with a very real problem. There are bad actors, particularly internationally, who systematically and at scale try to subvert / cheat. I really dislike this explanation because there are so many obvious things they can do. Example: 1. Force uploads of Passport/ID for identity confirmation. If you have 100 accounts with the same passport...ok...issue, but if not, is it worth human review at least?…

Those are still secondary sanctions.

Op wants to be able to hire somebody with a history of abuse without google enforcing them

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

#370

Post by 8note » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 5:52 PM UTC

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…

Google has freedom of association. If they don't want to work with you based on your employees, that's their prerogative. That's not controlling who you can hire.

Really, it's a monopoly problem. You shouldn't be affected by whether google wants to work with you or not