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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

#161

Post by TrianguloY »

franga2000 wrote: post #152
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.

And even if your app is free, clones with ads will still be made and receive downloads.

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

#162

Post by unionpivo »

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 would add that buy your domain separately.

All cloud/hosting providers offer domains sometimes for free. You don't want that.

Because if you get locked out of an account you get locked out of your domain. Sure you can sometimes get at least domain back, but that usually involves layers and can take weeks or months.

If you can (its often not practical, but when it is) hosts your DNS elsewhere as well.

And most importantly, have at least one backup somewhere else (if you host on AWS have backup on something that isn't using AWS as a backend)

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

#163

Post by cube00 »

franga2000 wrote: post #158

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…

If they're banning a free account and you haven't suffered any monetary loss I doubt if the court will take kindly to its time being wasted with a case like this. Any argument about data loss would be put back on you with "back up better next time"

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

#164

Post by TrianguloY »

I'll repeat what I said in the other discussion:

What I find interesting is the little information they give you after a ban. Apparently if they explained the reasons of the banning then other people could use that information to find flaws and 'game the system'.

This means that, if you deliberately made something against the rules and were banned, you can then 'explain your mistake and the measures to not do it again'. But if you don't do anything unusual and simply break one of the crazy rules they have by mistake, it's game over.

P.S. If you have a blog and practically all of your visits come from a single source (perhaps a link in something popular) don't EVER use admob on that blog. You will be banned too.

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

#165

Post by thih9 »

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.

I'd love to create separate accounts for other purposes, but doing this has become such a big pain that I only did it a couple of times so far.

Most services now require mobile number during account registration. It seems necessary to provide a unique number, but how to get one? Numbers from "burner" apps often cannot get the text with confirmation code. Also, the registration process itself is difficult; sometimes multiple genuine attempts at account registration get your IP blocked, at least temporarily.

If anyone has any tips, I'd be happy to hear them.

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

#166

Post by rlayton2 »

jaimex2 wrote: post #2

If there's a good alternative never use Google anything. The sole fact that there is no appeal system to account shutdowns and the way they just kill services at random should be enough reason for anyone.

Agree. I've moved my business email off Google because, despite being a paying customer, I had zero confidence in getting a resolution if my account got banned for any reason.

I still have an Android, and a personal gmail etc, but if they go away I can still run my business and I'll recover quickly.

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

#167

Post by skinkestek »

IshKebab wrote: post #142
BMorearty wrote: post #127

Four months ago a friend of mine had his Google account suspended with a vague message about a terms of service violation. He escalated and appealed it with my help. It was no use. He lost everything. Files. Photos. Email. Calendar. Even his business domain registrations. He was paying for Google services like YouTube and storage. He couldn’t even get a download of his data. This is why I never used Google Cloud. I’v…

I don't understand why they don't at least allow Google Takeout for banned accounts. They've already done all the hard work of implementing it!

Also takeout is kind of underwhelming: It was probably one of the last things Google announced that I was enthusiastic about:

The rest here is my personal feeling. It might be wrong. I might have missed something.

... only when trying to use it it is dark patterns in layers to prevent you from actually using it:

- getting links to download stuff takes more than enough time to get you to forget it.

- and they only last for a very limited time

- archives are unwieldy

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

#168

Post by wizhi »

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)

How is Porkbun related to China? I thought they were US based.

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

#169

Post by eloisant »

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…

This is the right thing to do, however Google has ways to detect multiple accounts from the same individuals. Cookies, credit card numbers, IP addresses, etc. It's really hard to separate them enough so they can't link them.

And sometimes they will ban all your accounts if they find something they dislike on one of them.

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

#170

Post by matkoniecz »

franga2000 wrote: post #152
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.

And in turn people are unwilling to pay for fairly good reasons.

I decided to pay for one of app with premium features (my the first payment in Google Play). What happened? App was "redesigned" two weeks later with features that I paid for removed.

What caused me to not pay for anything else, why I will gladly pay for software which I can download and keep running even if new version is crippled.

For example yesterday I bought LibgtBurn for controlling laser cutter, at 80$ price. While I am unwilling to pay 1$ for an app.

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