Banned for Life • Hacker News Board

Re: Banned for Life

#221

Post by chrismeller » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 4:24 PM UTC

thefreeman wrote: post #180

sergiosgc wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They do, but I don't think Google is ethically obligated to let this guy post spammy apps that are closely named to companies he doesn't officially work with. But Google is ethically obligated not to punish the guy by closing associated services (GWallet). It is also ethically bound to treat the customer as good-intentioned, and bound to explain the basis for suspension. Google failed on both counts.

He hasn't even tried to reactivate the wallet account. They requested information to verify his identity, which he claims "will be used to confirm and blacklist his address", so he hasn't provided it.

Which is even more interesting, since he said he can't open a new account and move on because they'll block him by IP address... so what exactly is he going to lose by sending the verification?

Re: Banned for Life

#222

Post by sergiosgc » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 4:27 PM UTC

midnightreactor wrote: post #206

sergiosgc wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The walled garden I can live with. The problem is that his actions inside the walled garden had effects outside. It's like crashing your car while drunk driving causes your insurance company to cancel your credit card (because the same company owns both your bank and your insurance company).

You're awfully willful about this whole thread. To a degree that you might be the author. It's a matter of convenience, not necessity, to bank and insure through the same company, but this exposes you to a greater degree of risk, which only compounds with irresponsible behavior as a customer. End of story. He shouldn't have used his personal account. That's part of the reason individuals do things like set up LLCs, t…

> You're awfully willful about this whole thread. To a degree that you might be the author.

Come on! Unnecessary ad-hominem. I'm easily googleable and obviously not the author.

I won't dignify the rest of your comment with an answer.

Re: Banned for Life

#223

Post by PeterisP » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 4:30 PM UTC

Fuxy wrote: post #114

dpark wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is why we can't have nice things you just assume he's not going to comply but you don't even make an attempt to resolve the issue in a gentlemanly fashion. Why? Because you can't be bothered to. You would rather give him a black mark on his account with the knowledge that only 3 in his life time would get him permanently banned.

Gentlemanly fashion would involve the guilty party to invest all the effort in resolving the situation and apologize to everyone involved, instead of demanding others to educate him and point out how exactly to improve his wrongdoings.

Noone is really entitled to free handholding from others in the first place, and doing harmful stuff (such as spamming the appmarket with those fake apps) doesn't offer any extra rights, it can only offer extra duties.

It would be harsh to punish someone after the first offense, but if someone is showing both with his words (the "clarification" sent to google) and actions (the other two strikes) that he perceives those actions as socially acceptable, then there's no duty for anyone to reeducate him when just putting him on lifetime ignorelist achieves the required result (protecting appstore customers from such publishers) much cheaper, faster and better.

Re: Banned for Life

#224

Post by pronoiac » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 4:32 PM UTC

I knew I'd seen this before. It looks like Medium's wacky URL structure is bypassing the dupe checker. If you search for the hex code at the end[1], you get the previous discussions.

From when this was first posted in March:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7478975

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7569454

From May:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7855337

[1] like this: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=c62f2404f66#!/story/forever/0/c62f...

Re: Banned for Life

#225

Post by JohnBooty » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 4:32 PM UTC

me1010 wrote: post #158

VLM wrote: post #26

"Google could have, and still could block my gmail" They have a different revenue generation business model for gmail. My son's account was blocked, couldn't figure out why, and they wouldn't say. I suspect some kind of data mining thing where watching more than 5000 blitzwinger videos on youtube "proves" you're a kid or a teen. He does like his video games... He falls into that gap between being old enough to have a…

I know lots of people don't know how to setup an email server. But gmail, as an email account, is worth less than $10/month. And, in fact, your ISP probably includes several email accounts with your internet service. If your child needs an email account, just assign him one... If you have Verizon, here's how... [8 extra] http://www.verizon.com/Support/Residential/Internet/HighSpee... If you have Comcast, here's how..…

This is terrible advice. Why tie yourself to your ISP like that? What if you want to switch ISPs, or need to switch ISPs?

Re: Banned for Life

#226

Post by lmm » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 4:34 PM UTC

M4v3R wrote: post #12

> I continued to be an Apple fan until they announced the “walled garden” and the app review process for iOS. I am totally against having to get permission from a corporation to write and sell apps (...). All Apple products are banned in my household to make a statement about programmer freedom. > Now my Google play account and Google Wallet account are both banned for life. I’m no longer able to write Android apps e…

Apple is far from explicit about the rules. It's entirely possible to submit the same app (or almost-identical apps) twice and have one rejected and one approved. And they're no clearer about the reasons why something was rejected than Google is.

Re: Banned for Life

#227

Post by logicallee » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 4:38 PM UTC

I stopped reading at "So, I threw out my macs, smashed my iPhones, switched my whole family to Ubuntu and Android." (Because nobody does that, specifically the first two things.) BTW until this line I was relating strongly with the author and especially the stuff about supporting a family.

Never got to find out the meat of the story. Oh well - it was promising and I was looking forward to it, I kind of wish I didn't realize what I was reading. (i.e. a fabrication.)

Basically, I don't find the sentence credible, nor am able to read it in context as an exaggeration or metaphorical, it's presented as fact, and I lost interest.

This is written by a marketer, not a developer. i.e. it's "a paid lie" (if we are cynical), or more generously it's allegory, that I don't have time to read. None of this stuff happened, in my judgment.

Granted I didn't read the 3900 word essay so I could be wrong - I stopped at word 278. It's just my impression that this story takes you for a ride.

Re: Banned for Life

#228

Post by midnightreactor » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 4:40 PM UTC

sergiosgc wrote: post #222

midnightreactor wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're awfully willful about this whole thread. To a degree that you might be the author. It's a matter of convenience, not necessity, to bank and insure through the same company, but this exposes you to a greater degree of risk, which only compounds with irresponsible behavior as a customer. End of story. He shouldn't have used his personal account. That's part of the reason individuals do things like set up LLCs, t…

> You're awfully willful about this whole thread. To a degree that you might be the author. Come on! Unnecessary ad-hominem. I'm easily googleable and obviously not the author. I won't dignify the rest of your comment with an answer.

A tongue-in-cheek observation is hardly ad-hominem. The remark was made to point out that you have a habit of cherry-picking arguments and refuse to see any reason behind opposing views in the same vein of the author, to state plainly. I don't actually care about who you are. At all.

And responding to a reasoned argument is hard to dignify when you have neither a response nor dignity.

Re: Banned for Life

#229

Post by cma » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 4:42 PM UTC

Perseids wrote: post #152

kazinator wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for _petronius, but what makes this guy obviously different from me is: * he thinks that an icon which links to something on the web is an "app", whereas I think that an app is something which contains a significant amount of program logic. * he thinks that changing the configuration (like YT channel id) generates a whole new app. This is like claiming that, at your Unix command line, "grep foo" is a di…

> he thinks he can no longer write apps for Android, whereas it is obvious to me that you can put a .apk file up for download anywhere you want, and get paid by means other than Google Wallet. And how many people will find and buy such an app? You do know of the standard security advice to disallow app installations outside of the Play Store as this is the main attack vector for malware on Android, for example for ba…

The Amazon app store is pretty popular, and you can install it on any android device.

Re: Banned for Life

#230

Post by klibertp » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 4:48 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #82

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…

Packaging another person's content should result in an immediate take down of an app. A content owner should not have to opt out of other people using their material, that is akin to telling people you can use someone's stuff until they catch you. I put along the lines of, would you let people use your house just because the door was open? Take your car? It is content/stuff you own. Why do some many discount digital…

You can have your content just fine without anyone taking it from you - just don't publish it. Wanting to both give the content to people and keep it to yourself at the same time is a bit contradictory IMHO. I'm not strictly against people being able to restrict how their content is used, but they definitely should have to explicitly state this. The content itself wants to spread and it will do so if left alone. Unlike your car, remember, which won't magically multiply so that every single person looking on it gets his own version. Anyway, if you want your content to be restricted in some way you should just say so, because what you want is unnatural and exceptional in case of content (and perfectly reasonable, natural and common place in case of your car, where, conveniently, you don't have to do anything if you happen to wan't it to not be stolen).