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

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

#451

Post by Calamitous » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 9:54 PM UTC

rexreed wrote: post #411

Calamitous wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Google docs I switched to using a Synology server. Very nearly as good (better, in some ways) and I don’t have to worry about what Google is up to. The up-front cost and setup time is a stiff investment, but I’m much easier in mind now. The other side of the coin is my wife’s gmail, which is going to be deleted come May. So... we gotta figure that out.

What sort of collaborative editing does Synology allow? Is there a Nextcloud / Owncloud alternative to Docs / Sheets for collaborative editing?

Same as Google, afaict. It has a slightly better permissions model, imo (I can create a doc with a password and share the link freely, or I can give specific permissions per user, like Google). Same editing/commenting/viewing interface.

My collab needs are pretty light, I only work with a few family and friends, but I haven’t run into anything I wanted to do in Synology that I couldn’t.

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

#452

Post by duped » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 9:57 PM UTC

Forgeties79 wrote: post #366

duped wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Lawyers are how you get them to pay attention and respond to you when companies do shitty things and you don't have recourse. It's really not that expensive or difficult to send a letter to their counsel and get a reply.

Every business needs some kind of legal advice, they don't have to be on retainer. You probably did have one or more lawyers that your leadership was in contact with for particulars. Every business I've worked at has dealt with legal bullshit at some point (even the 3-4 person startups!).

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

#453

Post by tempnow987 » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 10:15 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #440

RexM wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there should be a pathway to a $5,000 fee where you get a higher level of human interaction That sounds like extortion... "We're going to ban your account because we want to, unless of course you pay us $5,000 so you can talk to a human to resolve this issue."

Google love the extortion business model. "Bid more than your competitor on AdWords for the literal name of your business or else they'll get the customers who intended to do business with you."

Some users like being made aware of competitors to businesses. In new SAAS app areas, I'm sure the top 3 results will all be competitions to the business I'm looking for. Works reasonably well.

You would think something like this would increase competition between businesses (competitors surfaced immediately for users). Instead I guess this is seen by a bad thing - though it's not been clear to me recently that the FTC is looking out for users, they seem to have gone BIG into protecting businesses for some reason.

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

#454

Post by natch » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 10:32 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #353

natch wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can ask Apple people to escalate to second tier support and beyond that if warranted they will even pull in engineering (not to talk to you directly but to resolve the issues behind the scenes). And with Apple you are talking to humans who also happen to be good communicators in my experience. If you’re having trouble with Apple, it’s probably you.

That escalation only happens with a chosen few companies (which I've been part of as well, but please understand, this is not the usual experience for most). This experience is also available with Google - "you just need to know someone" or be a company they care about right now.

That escalation has happened with me as an individual developer so it’s not at all only for a few chosen companies.

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

#455

Post by Macha » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 10:36 PM UTC

iamacyborg wrote: post #450

Macha wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've really pared down my Google usage with the end of grandfathered GAFYD accounts as the last straw, so down to Sheets, YouTube, and Android as my last google usage. YouTube has no alternative, Android has too much sunk cost, Sheets I'm probably going to go back to Syncthing + Libreoffice I guess. Office 365 is the equivalent alternative, but not sure I feel much better about MS's consumer products than I do about…

What’s the sunk cost with Android? Apps? It’s very easy to switch to iPhone, I did it a year ago.

Apps and well the alternative to Android for me would be Plasma Mobile or something anyway. Many apps I use (Syncthing, Firefox, file manager, emulators) are forbidden or crippled by Apple policy.

While I have a work iPhone 12 so I use both iOS and Android daily, I do actually prefer the Android ecosystem, plus iOS being locked down in terms of installing third party apps is a disqualifier for my personal device. Also bugbears like the headphone jack, though I might be out of luck there in Android in another device rotation.

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

#456

Post by xnx » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 10:46 PM UTC

tempnow987 wrote: post #224

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 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…

Exactly. I don't think people appreciate how actively all of Google's policies are being attacked and attempted to be circumvented. I'm very suspicious of any developer that claims total innocence.

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

#457

Post by skrtskrt » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 10:58 PM UTC

e40 wrote: post #309

gigel82 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

my friends that have one MS/Outlook account at their jobs, which have enterprise support reps for their big enterprise accounts sometimes have multi-day lockout for unknown reason, 2FA failure for days, absurd issues with timezones being inconsistent across MS services, etc.

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

#458

Post by LorenPechtel » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 11:16 PM UTC

stonemetal12 wrote: post #393

nekopa wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are referring to this section: Mar 2019 - H. Left the company, all permissions removed except on one game which we were still using H.'s consultation on - The app was unpublished later on 04 Dec 2021 - Termination of H. (Former Employee) account because of multiple policy violations 26 Jan 2022 - Termination of our company account (Raya Games Ltd - AKA TOD Studio) without prior notices and warnings I think the…

By that timeline they never fully terminated the association with H. H went from FTE to consultant, who had privileges for what he was working on.

And this is why they got hit with the banhammer. A known bad actor had access to their account.

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

#459

Post by nadalizadeh » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 11:57 PM UTC

Update: Google reviewed our case and reinstated the accounts. I really appreciate your help and I'm extremely grateful to anyone in this community who helped us to reach a real representative in the policy team. Although our issue has been resolved (and we are really happy about that), there should not be a need for such a social media campaign in the first place and not all small businesses might have this chance to reinstate their accounts. I hope that the team at Google stops associating the accounts automatically and would improve their relationship with the developer community more than ever.

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

#460

Post by jddil » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 12:04 AM UTC

nadalizadeh wrote: post #229

jddil wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His own developer account was linked to yours ... that's how this works. In the future, fully control the accounts yourself or don't build in someones walled garden and then complain when they ask you to leave.

Sure, you are good in giving advice!

It's not for you, it's for the next tech entrepreneur who may stumble on this thread.

It's a warning that if your livelihood or something is really important to you, you should not build it inside google or apples walled garden. Or if you do, know that for any reason they choose they can kick you off. Unfair as that is.

Welcome to capitalism. Go host your own stuff if you don't like their rules.