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Banned for Life

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Re: Banned for Life

#101

Post by byuu »

sergiosgc wrote: post #86
_petronius wrote: post #2

The author used other people's content, packaged them into an app, and then repeatedly submitted the same app (with one minor modification -- the use of someone else's content) to the Play store. 'Beta' apps or apps that you write for close friends/family can be distributed via other means than the main app market. This article admits that he ignored all of the warnings he was given, and now accuses Google of unfair…

Your position is a common response: paint the affected individual in such light that you can safely state he's different from you, and making it obvious this wouldn't possibly happen to you. The important facts, irrespective of the correctness of app suspension are: a) App suspension led to Google Wallet suspension. Google Wallet can be used as a payment processor, so this decision could have affected entirely indepe…

B is probably a legal issue. If they give you any additional information outside of their canned, lawyer-approved responses, you may be able to use that in a legal claim against them.

Re: Banned for Life

#102

Post by aikah »

wolfgke wrote: post #22
icebraining wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rule is explicit: it's called trademark law. You can't just copy the name and logo of another company, append " TV" and distribute it publicly. This is an official app of The Verge: http://www.myappwiz.com/home/getapp?platform=Ios&appID=54251... This is OP's unofficial app: http://www.myappwiz.com/home/getapp?platform=Android&appID=c... It's pretty clear that this is prone to cause confusion, even with the discla…

Quotes from the article: "I emailed Google back and asked them to tell me exactly what I need to change to be compliant with the rules. Is it the icon? The name? The disclaimer? What? Google refused to give me any additional information. So, I just left the app in the suspended state and never attempted to update it since I really didn’t know what I needed to change" "Why didn’t you give the apps a different name? We…

> If Google does not inform you in detail that it was the trademark that was violated, they have no right to ban you on that reason.

They have no obligation to inform you and they have every right to ban you whatever the reason is ,it is stated in the TOS you agree on when you register as a developper on Google Play. You want information? hire a trademark,copyright attorney.

It's up to you to make sure your business is legit before hand.Google doesnt owe you anything. It's their plateform. If you feel they violated contractual obligations, sue them. Just dont complain you were not informed. Misinformation can never be a proper excuse in any case.

Re: Banned for Life

#103

Post by [deleted] »

claudius wrote: post #68
TuringTest wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is, was the punishment proportional to the crime? The 'whine' was about being banned for life because of novice mistakes made without bad faith. How is one supposed to learn the ropes? It's like learning to drive in a country where driving schools didn't exist and the full extent of traffic laws applied to you. How possibly could the author learn what he was doing wrong?

There was no crime (at least no criminal prosecution of one form or another) and no punishment. There was a violation of the contract the OP agreed upon and the other party decided to make use of their right and terminate that contract. That other party has no obligation whatsoever to continue to uphold the contract or not make use of the clause which allows them to exit. The other party is also under no obligation t…

[deleted]

Re: Banned for Life

#104

Post by tim333 »

PeterisP wrote: post #81
Fuxy wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it amazing that everyone here seems to be a lawyer or extremely well versed in the rules while agreeing with them. What's wrong with packaging other people's content as long as you're not profiting from it? If the content owner wants it removed there should be a way to request that while not negatively affecting the developers account. Plus the whole 3 strikes rule seems a bit too strict for me especially if i…

"What's wrong with packaging other people's content as long as you're not profiting from it?" Everything, and the "you're not profiting from it" part is completely irrelevant and can be skipped from the sentence. Redistributing other people's content without their consent is simply not allowed, and the fact that they have made this content freely available on channel A doesn't give you permission to make it freely av…

Aside from the legal and policy issues, as a user this stuff can be pretty annoying. You just want say the Facebook app and you have to wade through half a dozen spam apps saying Facebook in their name before you get to the real one. With facebook it's fairly obvious but if you are trying to download some app you don't know well it's easy to get a bogus one by mistake.

Re: Banned for Life

#105

Post by mattstocum »

TuringTest wrote: post #29
rrrx3 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed - the whole thing reads like a giant whine, to me. The author has zero concept of what he's done wrong, which is astounding to me.

The question is, was the punishment proportional to the crime? The 'whine' was about being banned for life because of novice mistakes made without bad faith. How is one supposed to learn the ropes? It's like learning to drive in a country where driving schools didn't exist and the full extent of traffic laws applied to you. How possibly could the author learn what he was doing wrong?

He was warned. Repeatedly. What the hell else did he want? An overt act of divine intervention?

Re: Banned for Life

#106

Post by IanDrake »

Microsoft was known as the Borg, but that was poorly placed. Google has been more of a Borg than MS ever was.

Google has decided to automate everything. There is no way to get actual help across their entire product line. Having problems with your adwords account? It doesn't matter if you spend $20K month, you get automatic email responses to your queries with obnoxious links to the help system that you've already read.

While I agree that author did more wrong than he realizes, he also asked Google for an explanation to their objection, to which he received no response. I guess the Borg NLP engine was down that day and couldn't find the appropriate form letter.

Whatever you think about this author, you can't deny the danger of relying on one ecosystem so heavily. Google is the worst. At least Apple would have denied his app with a reason which he could have corrected.

Re: Banned for Life

#108

Post by dpark »

Fuxy wrote: post #94
PeterisP wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What's wrong with packaging other people's content as long as you're not profiting from it?" Everything, and the "you're not profiting from it" part is completely irrelevant and can be skipped from the sentence. Redistributing other people's content without their consent is simply not allowed, and the fact that they have made this content freely available on channel A doesn't give you permission to make it freely av…

The Description of the app clearly states that the app is not actually affiliated in any way with the original content creator. So it's not really impersonation is it? Plus they can always just request nicely for it to be removed if their really that bothered by it. What is with this need of taking drastic measures for something as simple as this. Whatever happened to talking to the developer and sorting it out like…

They did request for it to be removed. They sent Google the request, which is what I would do, because dealing with some spammy app developer isn't worth my time. And frankly, given how this guy doesn't admit to wrongdoing or even breaking the rules, I don't buy that he'd be particularly responsive. I expect I'd get a defensive and argumentative email in response.

Re: Banned for Life

#109

Post by mattstocum »

therobot24 wrote: post #10
_petronius wrote: post #2

The author used other people's content, packaged them into an app, and then repeatedly submitted the same app (with one minor modification -- the use of someone else's content) to the Play store. 'Beta' apps or apps that you write for close friends/family can be distributed via other means than the main app market. This article admits that he ignored all of the warnings he was given, and now accuses Google of unfair…

"I thought I was doing these guys a favor. The apps I wrote would have cost about $50,000 each if I had charged for my time. I basically donated $500,000 to the Android community. That’s how I saw things." This is where i stopped reading - the author is a bit delusional.

"The app was simple. Launch it and it display the videos for a single YouTube channel. I made the app, and it was really nice and a pleasure to use."

I'm assuming his hourly rate is $50,000/hr. Did he do anything other than wrap the web page for the channel in a web view? I'm not familiar with Android, but on iOS, you can accomplish this without writing a single line of code, everything could be done inside Interface Builder. I can't imagine it's any more difficult on Android.

Re: Banned for Life

#110

Post by jmuguy »

ericfrederich wrote: post #100

Don't believe you You were a die hard Apple fan boy since '85 even during their darkest times... then you can't provide your users updates within hours so you... "threw out my macs, smashed my iPhones, switched my whole family to Ubuntu and Android." http://www.reactiongifs.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/dont_b...

Ha, yep, stopped reading at that. "The walled garden upset me so much I hulked out and destroyed thousands of dollars of my family's tech."
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