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Banned for Life

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Re: Banned for Life

#281

Post by TuringTest »

fooqux wrote: post #177
sergiosgc wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google only holds power over those swaths of people who surrendered some aspects of their lives to Google No. Google wallet is, as of now, an unacceptable payment processor for me. Its existence, however, precludes other competitors from entering the space. As such, even if I do not use Google services, its power still affects me. For a reduction to the absurd, imagine Google wallet a payment processor monopolist,…

>Its existence, however, precludes other competitors from entering the space. Amazon and Paypal are still both way bigger than Google Wallet is. I sincerely doubt that anybody looking to get into the payment processing industry is saying "crap, we can't do this because Google already does". They're worried about competing with Paypal. Hell, even Bitcoin is accepted at more places than Google Wallet is, from my own li…

Do Paypal and Bitcoin work as standard payment processors for applications in the Play store? And Amazon, for non-Kindle devices?

The whole point of the walled garden is that, in order to be able to access a customer base, you have to play by the rules of the gatekeeper (and pay the toll). I'm not comfortable with a market model where the only choice is what garden you want to be in.

Re: Banned for Life

#282

Post by TuringTest »

GFischer wrote: post #162
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Khan Academy TV - youtube.com/user/khanacademy" Is that impersonation? Basically his app let you have a "bookmark" that opened a YouTube provided channel. Sure he seems to be naive about the trademark issues (but interestingly never mentions how much money was made, if any) but Google were highly flawed in their customer service/developer relations [as usual]. The trademark issue isn't entirely clear cut (but I woul…

To continue your analogy, it would be more akin to selling Nike shoes in your store, and calling your store Nike Store Seller, and using Nike's logo prominently in your store. I'm sure Nike wouldn't like that, even if you were actually selling Nike shoes. I agree that Google wasn't exactly communicative (they never are).

Wouldn't it more like having a Nike stand in a store called Google's Play App Store, with a small sign noting "this is not an official Nike stand"? (the developers name and notice).

I understand that Nike wouldn't want the unauthorized usage, but an app is a product, not a store.

Re: Banned for Life

#283

Post by wolfgke »

tripzilch wrote: post #279
wolfgke wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quotes from the article: "I emailed Google back and asked them to tell me exactly what I need to change to be compliant with the rules. Is it the icon? The name? The disclaimer? What? Google refused to give me any additional information. So, I just left the app in the suspended state and never attempted to update it since I really didn’t know what I needed to change" "Why didn’t you give the apps a different name? We…

But the initial app suspension email from Google did say he was violating trademark.

But which one?

Re: Banned for Life

#284

Post by juliob »

Google's culture of automated customer service continues a long tradition of poor people skills, and disdain for feelings and livelihoods, as well as their own reputation. I was contemplating switching from AWS to the Google Cloud, but it's posts like this that remind me that, oh yeah, I myself have been unjustly banned twice from one of their services.

Google cannot be trusted to handle relationships, whether with developers or companies. It's clear that they don't care and that's fine. They have their niche for providing services to those who don't mind the lack of the human touch. Just not for me.

Re: Banned for Life

#285

Post by GFischer »

TuringTest wrote: post #282
GFischer wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To continue your analogy, it would be more akin to selling Nike shoes in your store, and calling your store Nike Store Seller, and using Nike's logo prominently in your store. I'm sure Nike wouldn't like that, even if you were actually selling Nike shoes. I agree that Google wasn't exactly communicative (they never are).

Wouldn't it more like having a Nike stand in a store called Google's Play App Store, with a small sign noting "this is not an official Nike stand"? (the developers name and notice). I understand that Nike wouldn't want the unauthorized usage, but an app is a product , not a store.

Yeah, it would be more like a stand, with a huge Nike logo, and the small sign :) ( "this is not an official Nike stand").

What the developer did is hardly unique, my GF was looking for a Prezi app yesterday, and she almost installed an unofficial app, which looked really official (like the original author's, it says "This is unofficial app."):

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andromo.de...

Re: Banned for Life

#286

Post by jpwagner »

krschultz wrote: post #264
msandford wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I sue someone for something I don't get to just say "your honor, look at the law and this contract, they're clearly violating it!" and blammo get a judgement against them. I have to enumerate my claims as to what they did wrong. I have to CITE things. Should we hold Google to the same standard that we hold the criminal justice system? No obviously not. But if it's so obvious what portion of the T&C he's breaking s…

"The suspension email stated that I was trying to impersonate another company, and that this was forbidden." Impersonation or Deceptive Behavior: Don't pretend to be someone else, and don't represent that your app is authorized by or produced by another company or organization. .. Apps must not have names or icons that appear confusingly similar to existing products I don't know how Google can be any more clear about…

That is not a satisfactory response.

From the OP:

I emailed Google back and asked them to tell me exactly what I need to change to be compliant with the rules. Is it the icon? The name? The disclaimer? What?

Repeating the T&C verbiage alone is not good enough.

Re: Banned for Life

#287

Post by hawleyal »

icebraining wrote: post #89
hawleyal wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost like how Youtube ignores copyright and trademark laws.

Except they don't, and in fact have built a state-of-the-art video and audio recognition system to deal with infringement[1], and of course respond to DMCA takedown requests. There's plenty of infringement on YouTube, of course, but that's inevitable for any platform where anonymous users can submit media files. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube#Content_ID

> that's inevitable for any platform where anonymous users can submit media files

Exactly.

Re: Banned for Life

#288

Post by tedks »

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #196
wolfgke wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What he wanted is stated clearly in the article: "I emailed Google back and asked them to tell me exactly what I need to change to be compliant with the rules. Is it the icon? The name? The disclaimer? What? Google refused to give me any additional information. So, I just left the app in the suspended state and never attempted to update it since I really didn’t know what I needed to change".

Some developers have a serious problem with understanding that there are times when an app's problems aren't about checkboxes on an issue tracker. The entire spirit of this app is about infringing on intellectual property rights. Furthermore, the app is so basic that it provides zero value to simply bookmarking the YouTube channel in your browser. The entire concept is so terrible that he had to hide behind an appeal…

>The entire spirit of this app is about infringing on intellectual property rights.

How is this true in any sense? Adding a frame around a YouTube channel is basically an RSS reader.

The value is that you now have an icon on your home screen instead of having to go through a browser. That's valuable. I value that. I'd use that app.

Re: Banned for Life

#289

Post by AppSec »

true_religion wrote: post #182
darushimo wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a false equivalence. Apps are not people.

It's a comparison, an analogy if you will not a 1:1 equivalence.

This even includes some bad police work. Because since the developer didn't post a single app of this type after the initial suspension google could have easily identified all apps and found them all and notified the developer that all apps must be dealt with.

This would be akin to the police having 10 open murders with the same exact weapon, charging the assailant with one and not looking for any other open murders on file.

Re: Banned for Life

#290

Post by AppSec »

smoe wrote: post #241
PythonicAlpha wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much I understood, they did tell him not enough, that he could understand what was wrong. Automated eMails are "customer-support from hell".

I have no experience with google customer support as a normal developer[1], but I guess there is a vast amount of this kind of arguably spamy apps submitted every day. On that scale it's probably hard and too time consuming to distinguish naive from fraudulent developers. For me its difficult to believe, that someone who has been a developer for so long, really didn't think, that using another companies name in an ap…

Googles' model is to allow apps without pre-screening. This model (trust but verify) lends itself to having more spammy apps submitted to it (no proof, just an educated guess). Google is providing a gateway for others to generate income.

The OP stated: 1) They had a disclaimer in multiple places. 2) They reached out explicitly because they weren't sure where the real problem existed. 3) Only one app was notified at a time when multiple apps had been following the same style and none were notified until later. Surely Google would want to investigate whether the developer posted any other apps which might be in violation? 4) Was not trying to nor had any interest in making any money off of this set of apps.

It has been said, the OP was naive and should have pulled the apps after the first notice since they were just beta. But any corporation that is providing business support services really needs to fund a customer service desk with real people. The fact that people use google for businesses like this knowing this situation is really surprising.

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