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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

#371

Post by BMorearty »

skinkestek wrote: post #297
londons_explore wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once the archive is generated it isn't hard to download it I don't think... Click the link in the email and it starts downloading... They even have an option to split into multiple files for ease of download if you have slow or unreliable internet, and their download links do support "download managers" which can resume failed downloads. Giving you 7 days to download it seems fine... Remember they are effectively giv…

You defend Google better than any of their official spokespersons IMO :-) I still dislike Google intensely for a number of things but not for this anymore. (In case you are interested: - serving me insulting ads and not giving me good ones whenever I didn't have adblock activated for over a decade. (edit: I've lost count of how many times I've clicked "not interested" on semi nude pictures advertising for scammy dati…

What did they do with double quotes?

(I googled it but couldn’t find it, haha)

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

#372

Post by BMorearty »

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

Good to know. But he’s in California.

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

#373

Post by namibj »

varispeed wrote: post #342
Sander_Marechal wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Have you tried to use your GDPR rights and complain if they were not delivered? You are most likely get a template response, completely irrelevant to your complaint. Then few more templates when you try to "escalate" and finally you get no replies. That's how those big companies are serious about GDPR. Then if you try to complain to one of the body responsible for GDPR they'll likely say if you don't like the service…

Article 79 gives the data subject legal standing to bring a civil lawsuit against the data processor.

It's been the case before GDPR that you had to at least threaten legal action to make corporations behave. Freedom of association does typically mean that a human can just ban you from ever being their customer again, but that's IMO an important freedom. The monopoly ISP in your municipality doing the same to you does not seem ok, however. And it might not be reasonable to ban ownership of a Google account that's used exclusively for "Sign in with Google".

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

#374

Post by mindslight »

oneplane wrote: post #354
kps wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the only tool you have is an MBA, every customer looks like a nail.

If there was a screwdriver analogy, we could turn this in to: "If all you have is an MBA, every customer looks like it needs to be screwed". All of this is of course fine banter, but there does seem to be a pattern where the end-of-the-chain responsible party just has some generic business related schooling that results in questionable practises in the name of profit, or in some cases just growth (or some derivative)…

More critically, it's people that claim positions of authority while not having any clue of how real work actually gets done, making protecting their own position their primary goal. These people excel at playing politics such that nobody is responsible for any given problem, so once you get a critical mass it becomes a stable situation where little can change.

If you created a new company with ten random people from this thread, it would not suffer this banning problem as everyone would be aware of this failure mode. But if you fed the same people one by one into Google, they would each either succumb to corporate politics or quit, and at the end nothing would change.

These kind of bullshit jobs are the best argument for basic income. Our society would be better off if they were paid to stay home and stay out of the way.

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

#375

Post by 12ian34 »

franga2000 wrote: post #152
12ian34 wrote: post #147

I find it strange that it's so normalised to consider something as invasive and manipulative as advertising as the standard method of monetisation. How about trying to make a product so good that it has some intrinsic value that a user wants to pay for?

Because people won't pay, especially not on Google Play. Even if people do buy it and it's mildly successful, a company from a country where work costs less will clone it and offer it for free with ads - and no price can compete with free.

If someone else can clone your idea so easily then surely the idea is likely not to have much value anyway?

More importantly, my point was more an expression of disappointment that people are too keen to make quick and easy money through something which I consider to be generally deplorable. A large proportion of adverts are FUD exploitation and I don't think it's in the consumers' interests.

For me personally, if it came down to a choice between 1. monetisation through ads or 2. earn my living another way, I'd make an effort to pick the latter. I caveat this with the fact that I haven't had to face this choice in life yet.

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

#376

Post by atum47 »

atum47 wrote: post #359

Well, I know someone who wrote a bot to play his game and watch the ad at the end. This person made about 4 dollars in one or two nights letting the bot run. When pay day came, Google marked half of the revenue as invalid, and only paid 1,75 dollars. This person knew the risks of being caught and let it go. My point is, I think Google warns you first about doing that.

My friend just shared with me Google marking part of his payment as invalid:

https://imgur.com/x8mtQ5S

"Invalid Trafic"

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

#377

Post by atat7024 »

philliphaydon wrote: post #255
KorematsuFred wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have done this in past. At one point we had 4 LLCs with 4 adsense accounts each making $30K per day. There was nothing fishy here it was perfectly legal and 100% legitimate traffic. Over time we even split our large website into multiple domains under these 4 accounts to make them profitable. Google eventually banned all 4 over time without ever telling us why. We shut down out company eventually.

I had several domains once for a couple of ideas I was working on, due to them taking about a year to do as it was just personal thing I did in spare time in between playing games and attempting to have a life, I decided to domain park them with Adsense. I set them up. Clicked on each one once to make sure it worked. Closed it. Didn’t open the domains again. Week later banned from Adsense for click fraud… I don’t get…

"make sure it worked" is when the ads are displayed — unless you've accidentally disabled clicks or something..?

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

#378

Post by aasasd »

cookiengineer wrote: post #66
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…

Can confirm this solid advice. Even at a mega-scale social games publisher like Zynga, we had to deal with automated bans all the time. That's why at one point we used an avatar for each game that was separately managed and was basically a separate identity with a separate bank account with a holding company etc. - Invent an avatar that has their own profile, residence, birth date, gender etc. - Use separate email ad…

Funny thing, that sounds precisely like what you'd do with shell companies and any other kind of alter-egos making you hard to find. Bonus points if the companies have different owners and formal directors.

Nice of Google to educate people how to do this stuff.

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

#379

Post by philliphaydon »

atat7024 wrote: post #377
philliphaydon wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had several domains once for a couple of ideas I was working on, due to them taking about a year to do as it was just personal thing I did in spare time in between playing games and attempting to have a life, I decided to domain park them with Adsense. I set them up. Clicked on each one once to make sure it worked. Closed it. Didn’t open the domains again. Week later banned from Adsense for click fraud… I don’t get…

"make sure it worked" is when the ads are displayed — unless you've accidentally disabled clicks or something..?

This was like in 2005. I didn’t really know what I was doing because it wasn’t adding JS to the page. And when updating the NS records it wasn’t rendering properly. So yes I clicked on the ad. It linked me to the site. And I deemed it working. I also even added my (static) ip to the list for ignored clicks.

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

#380

Post by aasasd »

paxys wrote: post #35
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 I get what you are saying, this is sounding more and more like an abusive relationship. "Getting beaten by your husband? Try not being around him when he is drunk." At some point we have to face the reality that the tech ecosystem needs some serious fixing, for both consumers and developers.

I had this exact comparison pop up into my mind yesterday when I read this, yet another, news of Google flexing on someone.

Actions of both tech companies and content publishers make it clear as day that they have zero respect for people. Well, since consumers keep returning to them, they evidently don't have much respect for themselves either.

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