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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

#261

Post by corobo »

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

fyi this is against Google Ads's terms last time I looked into it. You can do it if you've got the secondary account registered as it's own legal entity but one Ad account per entity

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

#262

Post by Strom »

jraph wrote: post #85
themolecularman wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there's a good alternative never use Google anything. Brave instead of Chrome. Duck Duck Go instead of Google. Proton Mail instead of Gmail. The only thing I haven't been able to replace is YouTube. That's a tricky one because it's the content creators that keep me locked into it.

> The only thing I haven't been able to replace is YouTube. That's a tricky one because it's the content creators that keep me locked into it. Yes, this is a pain. At least YouTube does not require an account and you can use it through Invidious (or NewPipe on Android, or mpv/youtube-dl on Linux if you already have the YouTube link). > Brave instead of Chrome. Brave is Chrome repackaged. This a bit feels like "I avoi…

> Brave is Chrome repackaged. This a bit feels like "I avoid [brand] but I'll take this white-label product (produced by [brand]")

> Avoid anything Chromium.

Yes but this whole discussion is taking place because of the policies Google has for running things, not for building things. It's the operations that suck, not the underlying product.

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

#263

Post by ryanjshaw »

koluna wrote: post #102
wombatpm wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the bank will point to a specific transaction as the reason or a series of transactions to show a pattern. i.e., You've had 15 $9000 deposits over the last 15 weeks in what appears to be an attempt to avoid reporting to to the federal government.

No, they won’t. They can close any accounts without a notice or reason. https://www.helpwithmybank.gov/help-topics/bank-accounts/ope...

"If you believe your account was wrongfully closed, you can file a written complaint with the Office of the Comptroller's (OCC) Customer Assistance Group."

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

#264

Post by cyborgx7 »

GuB-42 wrote: post #199

I winder if stories like that will ultimately be Google and other tech giants downfall. The idea is that you can get banned, you will never know why, there is no way to appeal, they won't give you a chance to fix things, and the only contact you will have will be robots, or if you are lucky, people completely dehumanized by the corporate structure. So simply, they are unreliable. Just like files stored in a hard driv…

Another underappreciated danger is nationalization or regulation if google et all continue on the trajectory they are on now. As they strive to become more and more essential to participate in modern society, these opaque bans will become more and more devastating. There is a reason there is a justice system in place to create some kind of accountability and appeal process when cutting into the rights of people. If being able to interact with google service approaches being as essential as finding employment, they can't handle limiting access to their services in the way they have been doing forever.

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

#265

Post by smolder »

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…

How does one effectively police who is a neo Nazi? This thread is about the failures of customer service and anti-abuse techniques at scale, the inevitable false positives and the dire consequences. You seem to be advocating for more of that.

With broadly applied rules, you either have to accept some rule breaking will occur, or accept that you will end up punishing the innocent in efforts to prevent it. Realistically it's both, but there is a give and take between them.

Those inevitably flawed systems are not an ultimate solution to the problems they mitigate. To tackle the problems stemming from bigotry and intolerance, for example, attacking the perpetrators as "bad people" doesn't work, and is a bit self defeating. The goal should be to defeat the harmful ideas underpinning it, through positive proof of better ideas.

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

#266

Post by skinkestek »

londons_explore wrote: post #250
skinkestek wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Y…

Aha, that explains a lot of course.

Still: why make it so hard to get the archives once they are generated?

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

#267

Post by nextlevelwizard »

antihipocrat wrote: post #198
nextlevelwizard wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious with your question or is this hyperbole? When you hear about something like this you are seeing the one in a million false positive or more likely there was some fuckery going on. Obviously there is no upside for the banned devs to admit that they tried to abuse click rate on their ads, so unless Google comes forward admitting they made a mistake we will never know whose on right here. This still leav…

That argument could be, and has been, used to justify some terrible actions by governments and corporations. While we may never know the full story in this specific case. What we do know for certain is that Google has a history of pulling the pin on services and products used by customers. Google's lack of customer support is also a well known feature of the company. These two facts suggest that the situation describ…

Are you actually a customer? Are you paying for the services?

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

#268

Post by alexchamberlain »

blibble wrote: post #47
o-__-o wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Creating a subsidiary business for every type of Google account you have would be quite expensive Costs roughly $1000/yr to run a properly sheltered LLC. Just saying, that’s a low barrier to overcome for any company turning modest revenue.

why so expensive? in the UK it's £13/year (under $20)

It's going to be more expensive than that to get accounts prepared, right?

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

#269

Post by nextlevelwizard »

skinkestek wrote: post #180
nextlevelwizard wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Works if you are only delivering live videos. I've never been able to get into Twitch because there is so much dead time without anything interesting happening. Patreon only works if you already have established fan base that is willing to pay for your content. It does not help with discoverability at all. Youtube is still the king of video no matter how you slice it.

> Youtube is still the king of video no matter how you slice it. For now. Rumble might or might not break through to mainstream. Same with those fediverse solutions for different reasons. Vimeo already works beautifully and is clean in every way AFAIK.

>Rumble

I've never heard about it before now

>fediverse solutions

The what?

>Vimeo already works beautifully

Except you can't monetize your content and in fact you have to pay to post in the first place plus you can't post (at least) gaming related content.

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

#270

Post by irl_ »

kypro wrote: post #231
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…

While this is good and practical advice, it does irritates me that there isn't more of a push for regulation to protect people against automated actions like this. I know in the EU we have protections under GDPR which allow us to request an explanation for an automated action, but I don't believe we have anyway to request human review. Part of the problem it seems is that even if these actions are unfair and unjustif…

GDPR is for people. It doesn't help you if you're a business.
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