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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

#151

Post by georgyo »

bryan_w wrote: post #72
snotrockets wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And namecheap protects spammers. I'm pretty sure this is the combo you go with if you want to do borderline illegal things.

You can't have it both ways...

Google doesn't protect scammers and actively goes after them. But if they flag _you_ incorrectly then your entire legitimate business may be defunct if you have your domains there as well.

If you use a service that has the moral high ground, that is all fine and good. But there is chance the service may decide you are immoral.

The only way to protect yourself is to use a service that also protects people you don't like.

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

#152

Post by franga2000 »

12ian34 wrote: post #147

I find it strange that it's so normalised to consider something as invasive and manipulative as advertising as the standard method of monetisation. How about trying to make a product so good that it has some intrinsic value that a user wants to pay for?

Because people won't pay, especially not on Google Play. Even if people do buy it and it's mildly successful, a company from a country where work costs less will clone it and offer it for free with ads - and no price can compete with free.

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

#153

Post by johnx123-up »

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…

IMHO, it is not true with GitHub. Once I had to access a couple of my clients' GitHub account and all of them got banned. It was a stressful process to remove the flag.

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

#154

Post by [deleted] »

cookiengineer wrote: post #66
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…

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…

[deleted]

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

#155

Post by kwdc »

I dread doing business with these mega-companies. Its like dealing with a fickle god of chaos. Completely dystopian even if you follow the rules. Even worse if one of the daemons decides you broke a commandment and pits you into purgatory or hell with no hope of a meaningful appeal.

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

#156

Post by Tepix »

Everyone is bashing Google, and rightfully so. I avoid using their services.

However, I've also experienced the other side. I've run an online gaming business and we had to ban players that created multiple accounts to cheat. I remember an infamous player whom we kicked out after he created a bunch of accounts and used them to brazenly cheat.

He created yet another account and posted on our forums complaining about his locked main account. It contained a statement, written in all caps "ICH BIN MIR KEINER MANIPULATION BEWUSST" ("I'm not aware of any manipulation") that turned into a meme in our company because it was so brazen.

Google has no interest in locking out its users and customers. I'm sure there are many accounts that got locked erroneously and it's appaling that it's almost impossible to reach a human to appeal the decision. But i'm convinced that there are far more accounts that were rightfully locked.

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

#157

Post by Lammy »

cy_hauser wrote: post #124
Lammy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive me for piling on yet-another-unsolicited-registrar-recommendation, but I'm a big fan of NFSN due to their terms of service and feel safe that none of my domains will ever get pulled without very good reason. I've never had that trust tested, but it's at least spelled out: https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/services/domains https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/help/abuse

They haven't been easy to get a response from for me. Tried to ask a question that wasn't in the FAQ and got silence. That was a few years ago. Went elsewhere. Same situation different question last year and again no response. YMMV but I got zero mpg.

I've contacted them a few times over the years to set/change the glue records for my vanity NS and they were always very responsive. It also cost like a dollar each support instance, but I still haven't spent double-digits contacting support in over a decade of membership :)

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

#158

Post by franga2000 »

I keep reading about all of these people who got their Google accounts nuked, both business and personal, and keep wondering how there hasn't been a class-action lawsuit yet.

Their marketing says "your data in the cloud, safe", but then uploading a single copyrighted movie to GDrive (even if you don't share it) can result in not only losing access to all your other unrelated files, but also emails, app purchases, etc. And if you're really unlucky and administer a company's GApps, the entire company might get dragged down alongs with your personal account, despite there being no other connection than "administered by the same person".

This is so unreasonable that even if it's in their ToS, that wouldn't be enough in court, and surely there's some law that's breaking somewhere...

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

#159

Post by kwdc »

avereveard wrote: post #129
dgs_sgd wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by associated accounts? How does Google know they are linked?

Same device access, same email domain, same tax registration number, going off other answers in the thread

Its just about same anything. Simple guilt-by-association is a real thing for google at least. You have an employee who's deemed by google as a bad app developer? That can impact the business that employs them even if its an unrelated app.

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

#160

Post by AgentME »

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…

> - Your Amazon shopping account and your AWS account should definitely not be the same account.

My Amazon account has been locked for a few days now because I tried to buy a friend a gift card, and I can't even access my AWS account at all. Thankfully all I have on there currently is some old backups in S3, but I previously used AWS for some projects and this could've been a fucking disaster.

I tried to buy an Amazon gift card the other day for a friend's birthday, and a few minutes afterwards, the transaction was reverted and my account "was locked for unusual activity". I got an email saying they thought an unauthorized party accessed my account, and it included instructions to reset my password. I did so and then tried to buy the gift card again. A few minutes later, my account was locked again, and this time it told me to wait two hours and then call customer support. I did so, explained everything, got my account unlocked, and the customer service rep assured me the gift card purchase would work this time and volunteered to stay on the line for a few minutes while I reordered the gift card to make sure it worked correctly. It seemed to go through, and then an hour later it got reverted and my account got locked a third time. I waited two hours, called customer service again, and they told me that they'll mark the purchase as legitimate and that I should try logging in again after 24 hours. It's been a few days and my account is still locked. I need to call again. Seriously what the fuck.

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