Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

danfabulich.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 406 posts

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

#241

Post by pja »

Sander_Marechal wrote: post #150
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…

If he is in Europe he can probably force Google to allow him to download his data under GDPR

I believe Google deletes your data fairly quickly after they decide to ban you, so best get that GDPR request in fast.

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

#242

Post by andi999 »

wwn_se wrote: post #212
andi999 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you make an avatar with a bank account?

If you are just paying a couple of $100 a month for app related stuff you can just use a new bank if you want and just transfer the amount needed each month. Opening accounts is something banks really like when you do so its usually not hard.

Don't you have to name the account after a real or legal person?

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

#243

Post by busymom0 »

snotrockets wrote: post #25
busymom0 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here we go again with the "white supremacist" boogeyman. Not worth discussing this because such discussions never change anyone's minds.

It's only a boogeyman if you're white.

I don't see how skin color is relevant but since your comment enjoys assigning responsbilities based on skin color - I am a brown immigrant. Divide and conquer has been used for centuries and is what’s being used as usual to get political points. Nothing new about it.

Your comment is doing the same racism which you claim to be against. Usually the next response is to call me an Uncle Tom for not falling for the boogeyman and going along with the narrative. Anything which doesn't fit the establishment narrative gets classfied as "white supremacist" and other such labels now a days - just like your comment did.

Ps. Won’t be replying further because this discussion is neither relevant nor productive, plus probably borderline breaks HN rules.

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

#244

Post by busymom0 »

georgyo wrote: post #151
bryan_w wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 al…

I couldn't have said it better. If we refuse to allow speech for those who we don't like, then we will soon be the next silenced.

Remember Google came for Tulsi Gabbard by banning her Adsense account and now they are even coming for the anti-establishment classical liberals like Jimmy Dore, Aaron Mate, Glenn Greenwald. Anyone who opposes forever wars is the next "white supremacist" and "russian agent".

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

#245

Post by busymom0 »

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.

Do you use CloudFlare? CloudFlare defends hosting terrorist site for "free speech" reasons:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90312063/how-cloudflare-straddle...

https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-and-free-speech/

> the company serves at least seven groups on the U.S. State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations, including al-Shabab, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), al-Quds Brigades, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and Hamas.

> CEP has sent letters to Cloudflare since February 13, 2017, warning about clients on the service, including Hamas, the Taliban, the PFLP, and the Nordic Resistance Movement. The latest letter, from February 15, 2019, warns of what CEP identified as three pro-ISIS propaganda websites.

I do wish CF would apply the same standards to other sites too.

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

#246

Post by thiht »

ezoe wrote: post #221
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…

Well, if you took such strategy, obviously you nee more precautions. - Never share the same IP address among accounts. - But keep IP address range consistent for one service because anomaly means automatic ban. - Never share the same physical computer among accounts. Or you can be like never bother to relies on a single platform.

Hopefully they wouldn't ban other accounts linked to the same IPs?

I mean, what about families sharing a single IP? A single computer? Sometimes a single phone number?

What about companies VPNs?

What about hotspots and public WiFi?

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

#247

Post by londons_explore »

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!

Two reasons:

* Some account bans are for illegal content - Child porn, bans so an account state can be investigated, copyright claims etc. In that case, letting a user download their data could violate the law/ethics.

* Technically implementing this in Googles infrastructure is hard. The login session used by takeout has to have access to all data (so that takeout itself can get your data from each service and build an archive). Stopping you taking that same cookie and using it to access services directly isn't part of their auth model.

Despite all this, I think they should try harder, both for the users, but also to save a potentially very expensive EU fine when someone with power in the EU gets impacted by this...

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

#248

Post by busymom0 »

smcl wrote: post #183
skinkestek wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has a lot to lose if nazis ever get back in power: isn't the correct thing to still register their domains and just go to the police with it? Based on my sysadmin background I actively try to know as little about my customers as possible: sure I might become a hero whistleblower but more likely I'll taint myself in various ways.

I think life as a neo-nazi should be as difficult as humanly possible so I'd try find a way to boot them off any service I operate. It's likely many hosting providers etc have a "no illegal stuff or neo-nazi shit" clause in their TOS. A few of these sites have bounced around providers before landing with Epik, so it doesn't seem to be rare or hard to do. It's a choice Epik have made to, if not welcome them then toler…

When one doesn't defend free speech for those they don't like, then they don't care about free speech. Would you rather have them run their site in open so people can simply not visit their site and others can watch for vile stuff they might be talking about? Or put them under the rug so they go even more underground with even less opposing view points and thus falling in their echo chambers?

Also now a days any opposing speech gets classified as nazis and white supremacist etc labels. Take Tulsi Gabbard getting her Adsense account censored by Google for example and getting called a russian agent and then it escalating to her supporters being called nazis and Assad toadies. Bernie supporters got called misogynsts for political purposes. The censorship tools always get abused eventually on those who advocated for it.

Related article on how ACLU used to defend free speech of even neo-nazis but have since then abandoned their principles and now actively give their data to Facebook:

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/aclu-again-cowardly-abstain...

https://news.yahoo.com/aclu-says-shares-user-data-134345916....

Now censorship is being used against animal rights groups:

https://outsidevoices.substack.com/p/the-targets-of-bidens-w...

Even CloudFlare defended hosting terrorist site for "free speech" reasons:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90312063/how-cloudflare-straddle...

https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-and-free-speech/

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

#249

Post by thiht »

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…

> Even his business domain registrations

If true this is likely an ICANN violation, or a registry violation in case of ccTLDs. This needs to be reported and could cost them a lot.

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

#250

Post by londons_explore »

skinkestek wrote: post #167
IshKebab wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 las…

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

Building takeout archives is incredibly expensive for Google. Do that just a few times and you might have wiped out years of profit Google made off you. Thats because most data in your Google account (eg. a random email or a photo you took in 2013) is only accessed once and then never again. Storage systems are designed for that. Yet when you go and try and access every single piece of data ever, you're putting more load on their storage systems than years of regular use.

Thats part of why it takes so long to build the archive - they do it at low priority and slowly so as not to overload the service for other users.

Post reply on HN