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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

#91

Post by z3t4 »

dfabulich wrote: post #19
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…

(Author here.) This is excellent advice for consumer apps/products, (it's especially important to keep enterprise accounts fully separate from your individual consumer accounts), but it wouldn't have helped DroidScript in this case. DroidScript is a non-profit organization; when they signed up for Google AdMob and Google Play Store, they provided the same tax ID (their EIN) in both cases. Creating separate Google acc…

If you wonder if a computer system can think logically or if its very stupid, its always the latter.

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

#92

Post by nawgz »

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.

Since when have we not looked at capitalist entities as abusers and exploiters?

No one wants to be in this situation wrt megacorps and their stranglehold on the internet, free speech, and so many livelihoods. Putting the onus on consumers to fix this is hilarious and naive.

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

#93

Post by anoncow »

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…

We need competition, an alternate app store or a rule that says that companies involved in making operating systems cannot get into the business of maintaining/curating/controlling app stores. Else these app publishers end up being beholden to the whims of the companies controlling the app stores.

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

#94

Post by anoncow »

KorematsuFred wrote: post #70
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.

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.

Why were the accounts banned?

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

#95

Post by black_puppydog »

nn3 wrote: post #13
jaimex2 wrote: post #2

If there's a good alternative never use Google anything. The sole fact that there is no appeal system to account shutdowns and the way they just kill services at random should be enough reason for anyone.

Do other mobile ad networks have a working appeal system? It seems doubtful because of the same dynamic the article describes. Any working appeal system would teach people how to game them. The ironic part here is that Google is essentially gaming themselves here: creating a feedback loop that encourages people to not use their ad products. I guess the ML algorithms are not clever enough yet(?) to figure things like…

the point is to decouple getting false-positive-banned on the ad network from getting banned from the playstore.

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

#96

Post by jraph »

Also teach people to use and prefer F-Droid over Google Play when possible, and make your open source app available on it:

- no obscure ban for application vendors

- no mandatory account for installing apps and from which you can be banned

- no user tracking

If you don't like vendor lock-ins and its consequences, push for the alternatives.

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

#97

Post by matkoniecz »

ryandrake wrote: post #41
genuine_smiles wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Every product/project you manage should be on a separate account on Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. I wouldn’t do this with Facebook. Creating a second account is against Facebook policy, and they may ban both accounts.

Legit question: is there any other service/company on earth that bans you for having multiple accounts? This seems like an insanely restrictive policy. One of the defining characteristics of internet communication is that you can have a “work persona” and a “home persona” and maybe another one for your hobbies, another one for your porn browsing and gambling, another one for your aunts and uncles. To deny this basic,…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry

It is also a common policy on many forums.

And while I love complaining about policies and behavior of FB, Google, Amazon etc, this one makes sense.

Almost always you ban person, not account - so standard is to allow one account or to require accounts to be clearly linked (for example, a separate bot account that is clearly declared).

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

#98

Post by EvangelicalPig »

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…

> - Your Amazon shopping account and your AWS account should definitely not be the same account.

If you need another reason. I've heard allegations that the recovery process for Amazon shopping accounts and for dedicated AWS accounts are different, with the former being easier to socially engineer.

Probably some risk management department figuring that in the case of the former any "fraud" can be resolved with any chargebacks/refunds

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

#99

Post by GeekyBear »

cwkoss wrote: post #74

What sort of legislation could be put into place that would effectively prevent these sorts of situations without having horrible side effects?

I believe the GDPR requires that companies be able to explain the decisions of black box algorithms when they have the potential to cause harm personally or financially.
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