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

danfabulich.medium.com

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

#131

Post by numpad0 »

twright0 wrote: post #51
ryandrake wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This should really go without saying. I’m sometimes shocked at the extent to which it has become normalized to mix up one’s personal accounts with work. I can’t count the number of times a colleague accidentally sent me an email using their personal account, or tex…

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…

> if someone is signing up for many different services, they are probably using the same password everywhere, or ...

This is completely the case, and at least from my experience the reality is worse than what is often believed: people don’t have distinctions between websites.

i.e. if a layman registers john@cool-website.invalid:correctStaple, and then they open another-sitename.invalid the other day, and presented with login screen, his intuition will be “john@.:correctStaple has to work”, because that’s what he “entered” yesterday.

Federated sign-in solves this by allowing users to use coherent id:password string for any login page without having to have distinctions between domains.

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

#132

Post by EvilEy3 »

snotrockets wrote: post #17
busymom0 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epik and Namecheap are pretty good imo. Definitely don't use GoDaddy. EDIT: One can find several instances where users search domain names on GoDaddy and they are available at regular price but when they try to place the order, the domain is no longer available and must be bought at a premium price.

Epik is excited to provide services for white supremacists. I'd think thrice if this is a vendor I'd like to have my name associated with.

Keep up with the same attitude and you'll have only Google to select from.

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

#133

Post by tzfld »

Trias11 wrote: post #9

I'd say - use any platform for what it's good at. Extract value from platform. Benefit from it, monetise it, let it help you to gather users or following. But NEVER rely on any propriately platform for your business. You're NOT in control. Make sure you have a contingency plan. Have backup (whatever it is for your business). Make sure you have direct, alternative contacts with your users if platform goes nuts.

> But NEVER rely on any propriately platform for your business.

And after so many bans and incidents there are still businesses dependent on google services. The ban threads keep coming to the too, and pretty sure there are many threads like this not reaching the front page. I'm blaming this businesses too, not just google.

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

#134

Post by spacehunt »

edoceo wrote: post #31
bogwog wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stories like this always scare me because they remind me that all of my domain names are on Google domains, including the one I use for my work email address. I gotta migrate out one of these days.

porkbun is cheap/good too (but some may throw the China boogeyman at them)

Wait, isn't Porkbun based out of Portland?

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

#135

Post by mschuster91 »

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…

> Create a separate account at the same company for the other purpose.

To make it even worse: you should even keep separate devices for the profiles. God knows who uses device-unique identifiers to join "sock puppet" accounts together, it is pretty much suspected that Twitter does.

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

#136

Post by Rastonbury »

If anyone doesn't think Google and FB are advertising monopolies imagine getting both or either of your ad account banned. Say you have a small Shopify store selling a niche product and competitor reported your ads, no one will answer your support tickets. This actually happens

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

#137

Post by ashkankiani »

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…

Until those services decide to force you to have a phone number registered, which means that you can't have more than one of those services, unless you're willing to sign up for a new cell contract because they don't accept prepaid cell numbers anymore or VOIP numbers.

(yes, this is based on personal experience)

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

#138

Post by tomcam »

andi999 wrote: post #111
cookiengineer wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm this solid advice. Even at a mega-scale social games publisher like Zynga, we had to deal with automated bans all the time. That's why at one point we used an avatar for each game that was separately managed and was basically a separate identity with a separate bank account with a holding company etc. - Invent an avatar that has their own profile, residence, birth date, gender etc. - Use separate email ad…

How do you make an avatar with a bank account?

I too am trying to work that one out. My guess is that they used DBAs, each with a separate bank account.

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

#139

Post by pretext »

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…

I'd called it 'account sandboxing'.

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

#140

Post by mytherin »

CrendKing wrote: post #22
busymom0 wrote: post #15

> Google will never tell you why they banned you from AdSense/AdMob. (Honestly, it sort of makes sense that they share no evidence, because Google doesn’t want people to learn how Google detects click fraud.) I disagree with this as I mentioned on a prior post about DroidScript. If a justice system doesn't tell people what crime they committed, what proof they have of such crimes etc, then such systems are exploitati…

But justice system works equally for everyone, while this is private sector, where contracts rule. It is apple vs pear. Same to freedom of speech. Anyone can say anything in public, but if someone post a thread in Google Groups, they can ban you for whatever reason, because the user agreed to their ToS first. Of course, DroidScript has the freedom to choose different ad provider altogether, but they didn't.

The reason government is treated differently from companies in that regard is because the government has a natural monopoly in many areas. You cannot choose an alternative government, you are forced to deal with the one there is.

When companies hold monopoly status (which Google absolutely does), there is also no real, viable alternative to choose from. When publishing on Android, realistically you are forced to deal with Google. They are not any different from a government in that regard.

The only difference between Google and the actual government is that (under the current set of laws) Google can get away with levels of abuse without recourse that the government cannot.

> Of course, DroidScript has the freedom to choose different ad provider altogether, but they didn't.

They could have chosen a different ad provider, but that is clearly not the problem. They could not have chosen a different publisher on Android without sacrificing >95% of their marketshare, and after being banned by Google from the play store it is game over for them.

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