Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads • Hacker News Board

Re: Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads

#101

Post by twright0 » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 6:11 AM UTC

ximeng wrote: post #77

twright0 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firm agree on mixing work/personal contexts. However, in practice, using "Sign in with Google" by default dramatically increases resilience to most failure modes for almost everyone without a sophisticated threat model. > To save what? An additional password? The average person does not manage their passwords in a sophisticated way; if someone is signing up for many different services, they are probably using the sam…

Using Google SSO is fine unless Google arbitrarily closes your account with no recourse.

Strongly agree! And if Google closing your account is a big part of your threat model, that's something to hedge against.

But I suspect that for the average consumer - people using their gmail to send and receive emails, and doing stuff like watching Youtube and installing Android apps - the odds of that are quite small, especially if they don't have a business or developer context associated with their personal gmail. Account loss/takeover due to password re-use is a much bigger threat for the average person.

Re: Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads

#102

Post by koluna » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 6:14 AM UTC

wombatpm wrote: post #71

cmeacham98 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not aware of any major business that publicizes this kind of information. Try going to your bank and ask them for details on how their anti-fraud system works. The problem here is this imperfect click fraud ban can ricochet into your app getting banned too.

But the bank will point to a specific transaction as the reason or a series of transactions to show a pattern. i.e., You've had 15 $9000 deposits over the last 15 weeks in what appears to be an attempt to avoid reporting to to the federal government.

No, they won’t. They can close any accounts without a notice or reason.

https://www.helpwithmybank.gov/help-topics/bank-accounts/ope...

Re: Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads

#103

Post by privacyking » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 6:14 AM UTC

CGamesPlay wrote: post #7

I'd extend this even further: never use a single account for more than one purpose. Create a separate account at the same company for the other purpose. Some examples: - Every product/project you manage should be on a separate account on Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. - Nothing tied to your consumer accounts should be used for anything business related. - Your Amazon shopping account and your AWS account should defin…

Even if you use separate accounts, Google can and has banned all associated accounts (including personal accounts) in the past.

Re: Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads

#104

Post by tdrp » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 6:14 AM UTC

We removed ads from our app a few years ago after having read a similar story.

In our case we were worried that any script kiddie or bad actor could very easily sabotage us and cause us to go bankrupt without any recourse.

Re: Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads

#105

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 6:15 AM UTC

rexf wrote: post #52

genuine_smiles wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Every product/project you manage should be on a separate account on Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. I wouldn’t do this with Facebook. Creating a second account is against Facebook policy, and they may ban both accounts.

It seems like a risk with Google too. It's common to be logged into Google/Gmail with multiple Google accounts. Even with separate Google accounts, Google can tell they are related and could potentially ban them too. A quick web search came up with Google's "associated account ban": > "Associated account ban" means not just explicit account linkages, but also implicit ones, where a wife can be banned for the misbehav…

[deleted]

Re: Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads

#106

Post by tdrp » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 6:18 AM UTC

GeekyBear wrote: post #99

cwkoss wrote: post #74

What sort of legislation could be put into place that would effectively prevent these sorts of situations without having horrible side effects?

I believe the GDPR requires that companies be able to explain the decisions of black box algorithms when they have the potential to cause harm personally or financially.

I'm curious if anyone on here ever used GDPR (or some other legal framework) to get this kind of ban overturned or at least explained.

Re: Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads

#107

Post by mathrawka » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 6:20 AM UTC

Google's support has really taken a turn for the worse.

We had our Google Pay (not Play, Pay) account suspended following the instructions that Google Play Support gave us to add our new bank account.

Long story, still dealing with it, but here is a summary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26918013

Re: Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads

#108

Post by josefx » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 6:20 AM UTC

malikNF wrote: post #21

How on earth does google manage to still be one of the most valuable (in $$$) companies in the world with this kind of behavior. I just can't imagine treating my customers half as bad as the way google does and still continue to be in business. Abruptly dropping support for products[1], violating their user's privacy [2] , working with organizations accused of human rights violations. Each passing year it seems googl…

Abuse of its market position, violating anti trust laws left and right. It is sad how even the "open" handset alliance it created to manage android is just a thin wrapper around licensing agreements that have been found inherently anti competitive and illegal all over the world. There is an army of lawyers waiting to jump any of the large Android manufacturers if they tried to move away from Google services for even a single Android based device.

Re: Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads

#109

Post by kevingadd » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 6:23 AM UTC

anoncow wrote: post #94

KorematsuFred wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have done this in past. At one point we had 4 LLCs with 4 adsense accounts each making $30K per day. There was nothing fishy here it was perfectly legal and 100% legitimate traffic. Over time we even split our large website into multiple domains under these 4 accounts to make them profitable. Google eventually banned all 4 over time without ever telling us why. We shut down out company eventually.

Why were the accounts banned?

"without ever telling us why" indicates that they do not know.

Re: Google can ban your Android app if they think you’ve clicked on your own ads

#110

Post by Digit-Al » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 6:26 AM UTC

I just don't see how this can be legal. How can they be allowed to completely destroy a business with no evidence and no appeal process? This surely must class as abuse of a monopoly position.

I guess the fact that they haven't been sued yet must be evidence that their terms are fairly tight but it feels like I've seen something that states that terms are only enforceable if they can be shown to be "reasonable" and it sure can't be "reasonable" to say "we think you have committed fraud but we will show you no evidence that you have done so and will give you no way to appeal your innocence".

Right now it seems like they literally have the power to completely destroy any business hosted on their platform at a whim.