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Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income

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Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google really should have a manual process with actual humans one can interact with when Google accounts that had enough money pass through them are involved.

> Google really should have a manual process with actual humans one can interact with when Google accounts that had enough money pass through them are involved Flip side of this is compromised accounts, or those doing illegal or dangerous things would run far longer.

Your account would get suspended, and google would contact you to verify what happened, that your account did whatever it did, and if it was you or someone else doing that.

It's not the suspending that's the problem, it's the inability to find out why it was suspended, and the inability to get someone to reinstate your account.

Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income

#32
post #4

Based on the frequency with which this sort of post gets significant traction it's pretty clear that no one at Google gives a crap about this issue. I find it hard to imagine that people in Google are unaware of this problem. I often wonder if this has happened to people with more clout who have managed to pull strings to get it sorted, or if Google have just got lucky and managed to avoid hitting someone who might a…

> Based on the frequency with which this sort of post gets significant traction it's pretty clear that no one at Google gives a crap about this issue. Lots of other reasonable explanations that match the available evidence and involve Google caring about this issue. For example, their hands could be tied by legal forces beyond their control. Or they could care a great deal, but perhaps they have been unable to resolv…

But you see these stories again and again about Google specifically. The creator of Terraria was banned a while back and was also unable to get it corrected or get a real human to respond. You'd think if they are terminating accounts that are bringing in money they could put down the automation for one second and actually do the right thing.

Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Based on the frequency with which this sort of post gets significant traction it's pretty clear that no one at Google gives a crap about this issue. Lots of other reasonable explanations that match the available evidence and involve Google caring about this issue. For example, their hands could be tied by legal forces beyond their control. Or they could care a great deal, but perhaps they have been unable to resolv…

What sort of legal issues would prevent Google actually providing some information on the reason for the ban, of prevent it actually engaging in any kind of useful communication? My issue with these bans is not the bans themselves, but the Kafkaesc process in which you are supposed to argue why you think their decision is wrong without knowing what they based the decision on.

If they receive a court order it generally comes with a gag order too.

Theres nothing stopping them from coming clean after the period of that order has dropped though.

Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income

#34
post #22

At this point competition is one of the great solution to this problem.

Unfortunately, as of September of last year, Google Play's terms and conditions match Apple's App Store's terms and conditions, in that apps must use Google's payment method and cannot advertise or include links to alternate methods of paying for the app or distributing it.

Ultimately, these policies are meant to further restrict viability of competition by either company.

Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income

#35
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to really defend Google here, but how else would you do it? The amount of data on these platforms is enormous and having people review the videos/apps/whatever would be simply prohibitively expensive. I think they need to balance how strict their abuse detection is. Making it too strict will kick out legitimate users without mercy. Making it less strict will allow potentially harmful (for business) content to spr…

If it is a service they provide for free, charging a fee to get something important (like a total account ban) fairly reconsidered would be perfectly reasonable. Google is big enough the government should require that sort of thing. "Let's be as evil as we want to be" is a fairly inappropriate guideline for a company like that.

Oh man... wait till some beancounter finds out that they can earn $X per every banned account,... that would be a pain in the ass for everyone.

Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income

#36

I still think some congress person needs to pass a consumer rights bill that forces companies like this to disclose the exact reason and data relating the account termination. The excuse of security practices should not come before consumer rights. Frankly, we would ALL also be safer if the decision had to be made based on conduct on that specific service and could not include anything outside that service. There is…

Actually it should go one more step further.

Companies making over a certain amount should be banned from outright removing your access to your account. At most it should be making the account read only.

People have a right to their photos, emails, conversations, and data they have safeguarded to these companies.

Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income

#38
post #27

For anyone curious about what kinds of apps this person developed, this is what I could find https://steprimo.com/iphone/ph/developer/1076545147/Roberto-... Seems like an app providing radio for free.

Can't read spanish but possibly piracy problems?

Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sort of legal issues would prevent Google actually providing some information on the reason for the ban, of prevent it actually engaging in any kind of useful communication? My issue with these bans is not the bans themselves, but the Kafkaesc process in which you are supposed to argue why you think their decision is wrong without knowing what they based the decision on.

I'm not in a position to comment about what sorts of legal issues there might be. But Google is hardly the only company that hands down bans with scant explanation. It's endemic. I've actually not heard of a large company that gives detailed explanations in these sorts of situations. That leads me to believe there is a good reason for avoiding such explanations, since I would expect some variation in company behavior…

The reason is that it's expensive and companies don't want to waste resources verifying whether or not their bans followed their policy accurately or not.

For every account banned, one million new users will enter the Google ecosystem. Bans cost them nothing in the long run, but having reviews to justify bans would.

Re: Google cancels Google Play publisher account and ends family’s source of income

#40
post #3

Another day, another termination by Google Play. The reason? None. Just a generic response sent to the developers on Christmas Day. Might have been the grinch himself issuing those automated responses to others. This company and its services (including, YouTube) are run by bots and they are the ones doing the moderation and not even the humans running them care at all. Unless something completely fundamental happens,…

Not to really defend Google here, but how else would you do it? The amount of data on these platforms is enormous and having people review the videos/apps/whatever would be simply prohibitively expensive. I think they need to balance how strict their abuse detection is. Making it too strict will kick out legitimate users without mercy. Making it less strict will allow potentially harmful (for business) content to spr…

They don’t need to filter and moderate everything, but they should at least have humans for taking care of escalations and issues like the one reported here. Sure 5hey have all sorts of AI/ML algorithms doing the automated banning and removal of apps but they could have real people taking care of the false positive cases.
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