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Google terminated our start-up Google Play Publisher Account

250 points by dsr12 8y ago

ryanlol 8y ago
>If I have a problem with Google Ads, I can just make a phone call and have direct customer support. hahahahahhahahaha no
- chillydawg 8y ago
  As with all things like this, it depends on entirely who you are and how much you spend.
  - ryanlol 8y ago
    The same certainly applies to play store, “hahahaha no” still accurately reflects the general case for both platforms.
    - mtnGoat 8y ago
      And then you get so big they want to call and chat you up every week or two(ads that is) . Pay to play? I guess so.
skilled 8y ago
Still not entirely sure what kind of apps this guy is making, are they legitimate? Otherwise, it looks like a reoccurring HN thing, where people plea for help while they're actually involved in some shady stuff. Not trying to accuse the author, of course. At the same time, it drives me nuts to see these kinds of flaws in the system. People get invested in a platform, and then one day that platform kicks you in the nuts, and slams the door as you fall out on the pavement.
- komali2 8y ago
  I don't think we have any way of answering this question without the social media frenzy that will inevitably follow from this playing out start to finish. Your point, to me, is just another indication of how transparency is a win.
- dna_polymerase 8y ago
  > Still not entirely sure what kind of apps this guy is making Yeah so you decided to post this bullshit comment and spread FUD instead of reading a few paragraphs into the actual article.
  - skilled 8y ago
    Did he edit the article to mention what his apps are about? Let me check. /s
    - dna_polymerase 8y ago
      The name of his company was linked all the time.
- mirekrusin 8y ago
  Hey, where are Blockchain solutions for skipping this single authority problem?
- mpeg 8y ago
  From their website [0] they seem to make city lifestyle apps. Apps for public transport in Spanish cities, a price comparison app for utilities, a pollution level map. I would guess they supplement their own app income with contracting. [0]: https://www.greenlionsoft.com/ https://www.greenlionsoft.com/
- Illniyar 8y ago
  These, as far as I can tell: https://web.archive.org/web/20170428152946/https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=5839227326909135542 https://web.archive.org/web/20170428152946/https://play.goog... https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lx9XkectdGgJ:https://play.google.com/store/apps/details%3Fid%3Dcom.greenlionsoft.free.madrid%26hl%3Den_US+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=il&client=firefox-b https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lx9Xke... At first glance doesn't seem to be scummy, but you never know.
yulaow 8y ago
Wait a second... Did I understand it bad or if my Google dev account gets banned I cannot even create a new dev account directly linked to my person for the rest of my life? What.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- mdp 8y ago
  That’s correct as far as I understand it. In OPs case, it seems this is what Google is accusing them of, creating a new account after other accounts were banned.
- Dayshine 8y ago
  Further, does this mean once banned, I could maliciously join organisations to get them shut down? Perhaps Pablo should get a job with a high profile but small on tech company (maybe a bank?) and watch Google change their policies immediately.
  - naniwaduni 8y ago
    If that were the case, you might find yourself having a hard time joining organisations that care about this. It'd be something of a liability.
    - DelightOne 8y ago
      How does one check for this? Showing you currently have an app on the AppStore which is older than a few months?
- ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
  Not only that, if you use multi-sign in via google chrome or via gmail , all other accounts playstore will be terminated for being "Related"
acd10j 8y ago
Any Google employee reading here willing to help, Also if possible please ask your leadership to fix your company's customer support.
- ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
  I don't think any google employee can help. I reached out to Chris the VP of engineering via reddit google_take_action account and even he couldn't do much to our then startup which was terminated because one of the devs had a banned google account.
athirnuaimi 8y ago
As someone who has built and published apps on both major platforms, this issue of not being able to speak to someone is a problem on the Apple platform as well (as on Googles). As mentioned in the article, it’s heart wrenching to receive an email saying there is a problem with your app and know that the app or the release you worked so hard on might not get published. Having a release rejected can also be as bad as a termination if that release has a major new feature. The platforms price their developer accounts very low to attract developers but those of us who make a living of it would gladly pay a bigger price to get a higher quality of support. There are many developers who make their living off apps and struggle with the black hole that is app approval and the associated dispute process
- ForHackernews 8y ago
  Wait, am I understanding correctly that Apple and Google actually charge developers money to produce the content that Apple and Google monetize on their app stores?
  - athirnuaimi 8y ago
    They charge to have access to the dev tools and the right to publish apps. There are real costs to doing this right and I believe most developers are happy to pay.
    - chillydawg 8y ago
      Other than the 30% fee they charge and ad revenue generated via the apps? Please. That fee is 100% an anti spam mechanism.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
  - simonh 8y ago
    IIRC it’s about $100 or so per year. Basically hobby money just to make sure anyone submitting apps for review means it.
klgt 8y ago
This is not new, the Android developer community need to do something to raise more voice against this bad policy. https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/9n88wv/the_future_of_android_development/ https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/9n88wv/the_futu...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
komali2 8y ago
Wow, I feel for that company. I was always skeptical of people raising alarm bells at everything "going chrome," but now I'm starting to get it - Google has the ability to just nuke a company from orbit on a whim, and I'm not sure anybody can do anything about it. Sure, that company developed a business around Google. But it still feels bad. The only problem is that I don't trust a large portion of American politicians that are seeking regulation - they seem highly motivated to force Google to become a Chinese-style propagandic censorship machine (i.e. Republicans complaining about "bias" because the president's picture shows up if you Google image search for "moron.") So while articles like this make me feel bad, I feel trapped into a need to fervently defend Google and "tech companies" to avoid my concerns being coopted.
- taneq 8y ago
  > Google has the ability to just nuke a company from orbit on a whim, and I'm not sure anybody can do anything about it. And that's why you don't build that critical point of failure into your product, even if it's harder and more expensive to do it another way. Which, sadly, means don't build your company around an Android app. They can do this to your personal Google account, too. What are the repercussions, to most people, of being summarily banned from all Google products? (Hint: What's the recovery email address for all of your random online services? What's your personal contact email for work, taxation, etc.? Do you have a local backup of your Gmail archive?) It's unlikely, sure, but if it does happen then it's gonna suck.
  - jeena 8y ago
    For me it's (just) a way to log in into YouTube, I have a coupple of lists there which are nice, and I also use it for the Play Store on my phone where I bought 2 apps which I use, so I guess those would be gone too. Otherwise I don't think I use a google account for anything else.
  - PavlovsCat 8y ago
    > Hint: What's the recovery email address for all of your random online services? hey_$service_dont_spam_me@my_domain.com > What's your personal contact email for work, taxation my_name@my_domain.com I always thought of gmail like gmx.net or something, it's where people who don't know internet things could get free email. I figured it's a good way to test the waters, I also had free email long before I had a domain... but over a decade later, we're actually building houses out of this duct tape? It's duct tape, it's useful, but it's still duct tape. I don't mean this to blame the author. (Though them making another account with Google for private stuff made me despair) My first thought was, if companies want to be persons, and do this to other persons, a fair response would actually be "Dear Google, stop existing. Please don't make another company, either." I know it's not realistic, not even desirable to me -- we don't even boycott really horrible actors on a large scale, so why ruin Google and all the lives that hang off of that. I don't believe in collective punishment under any circumstances, ever. But as a response to Google (et al.) "as a company", it would be fair -- and no need to tell them why, either.
sbr464 8y ago
Besides the point/argument laid out in the article, could you mention any possible reasons you think this may have happened? Would help to hear.
- cdmckay 8y ago
  Exactly. From the wording of the email, it sounds like his previous ventures might have been doing something shady and those accounts are linked to the startup account.
  - Jabbles 8y ago
    How shady would it have to be to justify banning someone for life?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - livueta 8y ago
    > My “personal publisher account”, was terminated last August 1th. I probably will never know why. It was mostly abandoned, I had just a few old apps just for testing features or make experiments. That's distressingly vague, especially when he provides screenshots of the recent termination emails. If there wasn't more to this, you'd expect the history of that other account, which is pretty clearly relevant here, to be laid out in a lot more detail. I agree that Google is prone to arbitrary and Kafkaesque behavior, but this instance smells fishy.
ilamont 8y ago
Here is one of the developer's websites: https://www.greenlionsoft.com https://www.greenlionsoft.com It's a bit out of date, but it looks like they were working on commuting apps for metro bus lines, etc.
putzdown 8y ago
This is what monopolization looks and feels like. Google Play is less of a monopoly within its ecosystem than Apple’s App Store is, but in both cases you have a monopoly that brooks no competition and is consequently unaccountable and, well, evil. The only way to fix this is to force Google and Apple to allow alternative markets/stores on their platforms.
- simonh 8y ago
  iOS user so Ive no idea, but I thought they did? Isn’t there a setting in Android to enable sideloading, and lots of phone manufacturers include their own app stores, notably Samsung. Or is this comment a sarcastic ‘why don’t they just do X’, when everyone knows they already do X? In which case what dies the ‘brooks no competition’ comment mean? Honest question.
0xfaded 8y ago
Is online Office 365 (I'm using Firefox on Linux) comparable to gdocs? My account's payment method has been flagged twice for some reason, and reading this makes me think how screwed I'd be if my startup's gapps account gets flagged.
- mtnGoat 8y ago
  Yes it is. Honestly I prefer o365 because I can use the desktop versions of their applications to edit my cloud stored docs/spreadsheets, etc.
southerndrift 8y ago
>Do not attempt to register a new developer account. Any new accounts will be closed and your developer registration fee will not be refunded. We recommend that you use an alternative method for distributing your apps in the future. If this is a serous problem, why is there no other app store? There should be plenty of programmers who need another method to reach their customers. For starters, Amazon's app store should do [1]. If enough developers reach out to their customers, it could become a viable alternative. That said, "The Castle" [2] should be a compulsory reading for each Android developer, or app developers in general. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Appstore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Appstore [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle_(novel)
- Someone 8y ago
  ”If this is a serous problem, why is there no other app store?” It is serious, but only for a few developers, not for most, nor for Google. It has to be wide-spread to make alternative store(s) viable.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- altfredd 8y ago
  "Other app stores" do exist, but Google went to great lengths to destroy them. Publishing clients for alternative stores in Google Play/Android Market have been prohibited by Google's ToS for years (don't know if it is still prohibited). The "allow alternative app sources" checkbox (unchecked by default!) has been deterring users from installing from non-Google sources till Android 8. It still exists, but Google have ruled, that third-party marketplace apps are better than malware-riddled piracy websites, so Android 8+ allows to whitelist specific marketplace apps while still keeping the checkbox unchecked. And let's not forget about Google's war to banish alternatives to their services from Android devices, while using their own Google Services packages as leverage. Google's overall approach to building it's walled garden is not much different from Apple's. They give some fake "choice", because they know, that tech-illiterate consumers won't be able to make use of alternative options.
gaius 8y ago
We also have this story on HN today https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18781473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18781473 Imagine a world in which Google Pay is dominant, and your Google Play account is terminated, and nowhere takes cash, and you can't buy food now, or ever.
- jsty 8y ago
  Considering the reputed prevalence of WeChat in much of China for everyday transactions, this may be moving close to reality for people banned from that platform
kayoone 8y ago
I just watched a couple of Black Mirror episodes and reading this feels eerie from that perspective.
n_e 8y ago
What I found the most infuriating is this: > We recommend that you use an alternative method for distributing your apps in the future. There is no reasonable alternative method for distributing commercial apps on android. The app store is a monopoly.
- lern_too_spel 8y ago
  > There is no reasonable alternative method for distributing commercial apps on android. How about your company's website?
- yellowapple 8y ago
  There's always F-Droid (+ a custom repo if you're unable to FOSSify your app) or Amazon's app store. Those may or may not be "reasonable" for everyone (in particular since they're not typically preinstalled on phones), but it's a start.
  - shakna 8y ago
    That's only reasonable if the _target audience_ is likely to make use of F-Droid. If your target audience will only use Play, then the only reasonable target store _is_ Play. I'm in the F-Droid target audience, so you could target me. However, as they appear to be publishing transport/mapping tools for Spain... It's unlikely they can reach their target audience any more.
zenexer 8y ago
For those of you wondering, it appears that the company mentioned in the article, GreenLionSoft [1], develops apps that show public transportation schedules in Spain, at least as of 2017 [2]. Their Google Play page still exists in some places but has been cleared of all apps [3]. I can't find Pablo A. Martinez's personal developer account; the closest match is com.pablomartinez, which belongs (belonged?) to a law form, according to the description on Google. (The page is no longer accessible and doesn't seem to be archived anywhere.) Pablo A. Martinez has additional work history publicly posted on his LinkedIn profile [4]. I just gave it a quick skim, but I don't see anything shady. At least on the surface, there's no clear explanation for the account terminations. Pablo, if you're reading this, please consider adding more info about the apps you published, ideally with links to back up your claims. It'll make your case stronger. [1]: https://www.greenlionsoft.com/ https://www.greenlionsoft.com/ [2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20170428152946/https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=5839227326909135542 https://web.archive.org/web/20170428152946/https://play.goog... [3]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=5839227326909135542 https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=583922732690913554... [4]: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamartineza/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamartineza/
- wallflower 8y ago
  > Pablo, if you're reading this, please consider adding more info about the apps you published, ideally with links to back up your claims. It'll make your case stronger. I strongly second this. If it is not clear, this means to please be clear on what your experimental and play apps were from the original personal developer account. > My “personal publisher account”, was terminated last August 1th. I probably will never know why. It was mostly abandoned, I had just a few old apps just for testing features or make experiments.
- sideshowb 8y ago
  Perhaps they consider this sort of app a direct competitor to Google maps?
  - gomox 8y ago
    CityMapper is too. Banning competitors seems like a recipe for antitrust lawsuits.
supernes 8y ago
This has been going on for years, I've experienced it firsthand and have read dozens of reports from other people in the same situation. If this was an error, it would have been fixed long ago. At this point in time I'm convinced it's a deliberate tactic - terminate an account once they start to get popular and see if they can pull enough strings or raise enough of a stink to have a human look at it. Blaming an "algorithm" is becoming a very convenient way to abdicate from any responsibility for shitty business practices and biases against certain groups of people.
ashelmire 8y ago
Google, shutting down a service, replying with bots pretending to be humans, and a total lack of customer service? Say it ain’t so. The only Google services I rely on are email and search, and even in those cases I’m looking for alternatives.
- moreira 8y ago
  Email is the most dangerous service for you to be relying on a company that you describe as having "a total lack of customer service". Email is the gateway to all your accounts across the entire Internet.
- bad_user 8y ago
  Relying on them for email isn’t a small dependency since that’s your online identity, being linked to all your other online accounts. Pay for your own domain and if you can’t live without Gmail, at least go with GSuite. Personally I think Gmail sucks for delivering email and I got off it based on technical limitations too.
  - ashelmire 8y ago
    It’s on my todo list.
PavlovsCat 8y ago
Aaaand flagged of the front page, what just by score and would would probably still sit firmly at the #1 spot it shot to. What's a valid reason to do that, rather than clicking "hide" and just ignore the story if you personally don't care about it? Sure, I'd also prefer an article, that maybe contains this and other things as examples. But the discussion can be in that spirit regardless -- and who who will that article, or have such a discussion, when stuff like this is actively being hidden from sight? Once again it turns out that most people are way better than the manipulated results make it seem like. I think of that whenever someone says "the market decided that "$shitty_thing is okay". edit: answer the 2 questions, and we'll see who's contributing and thinking, and who isn't.
- Induane 8y ago
  I wonder if Google (and most large companies) has PR employees whose job it is to flag stuff like this.
  - parrellel 8y ago
    You wonder? I thought that was just common knowledge?
    - Induane 8y ago
      I guess I hate to beso cynical but.. yea I kinda figured :-/
holoduke 8y ago
The once beloved company Google turned into a gigantic evil company with absolutely no compassion towards its developers and users. Everything they do is presented and marketed as something good, but deep under it is shady, controversial and goes straight into our norms of a good society. Imagine if companies like Google, Amazon, apple etc are dictating the rules. It won't be far of a regime in China. Expelled from society based on automated bits and false information. We shouldn't accept that kind of behaviour. We all should standup and knock this evil thing over.
- glow8 8y ago
  They've made sure they can't be knocked over though
supermatt 8y ago
These app stores need to be made accountable for their decisions to do this. A sympathetic judge setting a precedent is all thats needed for this process to be more transparent.
dgudkov 8y ago
Google, Apple, PayPal and other platforms that can cause a major disruption to a business by terminating its account must offer a service of auditing on demand in order to mitigate and control the risk of sudden deactivation. Such service can be paid, no problem. Customers should be able to request the auditing in order to understand what they look like from the platform's point of view and estimate possible risks. Shutting down established business accounts without a notice is absolutely not acceptable.
ranrub 8y ago
Most shocking to me was that the whole process plus the super creepy text ‘Do not attempt to open another developer account’ hasn’t changed in 5 years
viewpoint92 8y ago
Am from India ....This newYear2019 goes very difficult to me...Because same email am also received about the Google Play console account termination ...if some buddy has answer for that please reply me...am waiting for you all answer. skype id : viewpoint92
pamartineza 8y ago
Hi Zenexer, I just get aware of the existence of this thread. I still don't know if our "GreenLionSoft" account is going to be reinstantiated but I've got more info from the review team. Our company account hasn't violated any policy but it was "associated" with my personal account that hadn't violated any policy but was "associated" to a third account from which I had console access in the past and that was terminated due "IP violation and Trademark" months before personal mine. The owner of this account appealed denying any IP violation but was ignored and the termination cascaded from one account to another. The point here is not whether this first termination was fair or not, the point is that now anybody that shares wifi, hardware or console access with anybody that suffers a termination will be terminated too. It is quite usual that developers working for a start-up, have also their own personal GP account just for publishing their pet projects or just testing new API's or features. If any of your employees while or before working for you have their account terminated the company account risks to be terminated too. I have now sent back to the review team extra info to demonstrate that my personal account and company accounts were not created to impersonate this terminated account, nor republish any suspended app. Still waiting an answer...

250 points by dsr12 8y ago

>If I have a problem with Google Ads, I can just make a phone call and have direct customer support. hahahahahhahahaha no

chillydawg 8y ago
As with all things like this, it depends on entirely who you are and how much you spend.
- ryanlol 8y ago
  The same certainly applies to play store, “hahahaha no” still accurately reflects the general case for both platforms.
  - mtnGoat 8y ago
    And then you get so big they want to call and chat you up every week or two(ads that is) . Pay to play? I guess so.

skilled 8y ago

Still not entirely sure what kind of apps this guy is making, are they legitimate? Otherwise, it looks like a reoccurring HN thing, where people plea for help while they're actually involved in some shady stuff. Not trying to accuse the author, of course. At the same time, it drives me nuts to see these kinds of flaws in the system. People get invested in a platform, and then one day that platform kicks you in the nuts, and slams the door as you fall out on the pavement.

komali2 8y ago
I don't think we have any way of answering this question without the social media frenzy that will inevitably follow from this playing out start to finish. Your point, to me, is just another indication of how transparency is a win.
dna_polymerase 8y ago
> Still not entirely sure what kind of apps this guy is making Yeah so you decided to post this bullshit comment and spread FUD instead of reading a few paragraphs into the actual article.
- skilled 8y ago
  Did he edit the article to mention what his apps are about? Let me check. /s
  - dna_polymerase 8y ago
    The name of his company was linked all the time.
mirekrusin 8y ago
Hey, where are Blockchain solutions for skipping this single authority problem?
mpeg 8y ago
From their website [0] they seem to make city lifestyle apps. Apps for public transport in Spanish cities, a price comparison app for utilities, a pollution level map. I would guess they supplement their own app income with contracting. [0]: https://www.greenlionsoft.com/ https://www.greenlionsoft.com/
Illniyar 8y ago
These, as far as I can tell: https://web.archive.org/web/20170428152946/https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=5839227326909135542 https://web.archive.org/web/20170428152946/https://play.goog... https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lx9XkectdGgJ:https://play.google.com/store/apps/details%3Fid%3Dcom.greenlionsoft.free.madrid%26hl%3Den_US+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=il&client=firefox-b https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lx9Xke... At first glance doesn't seem to be scummy, but you never know.

yulaow 8y ago

Wait a second... Did I understand it bad or if my Google dev account gets banned I cannot even create a new dev account directly linked to my person for the rest of my life? What.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
mdp 8y ago
That’s correct as far as I understand it. In OPs case, it seems this is what Google is accusing them of, creating a new account after other accounts were banned.
Dayshine 8y ago
Further, does this mean once banned, I could maliciously join organisations to get them shut down? Perhaps Pablo should get a job with a high profile but small on tech company (maybe a bank?) and watch Google change their policies immediately.
- naniwaduni 8y ago
  If that were the case, you might find yourself having a hard time joining organisations that care about this. It'd be something of a liability.
  - DelightOne 8y ago
    How does one check for this? Showing you currently have an app on the AppStore which is older than a few months?
ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
Not only that, if you use multi-sign in via google chrome or via gmail , all other accounts playstore will be terminated for being "Related"

acd10j 8y ago

Any Google employee reading here willing to help, Also if possible please ask your leadership to fix your company's customer support.

ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
I don't think any google employee can help. I reached out to Chris the VP of engineering via reddit google_take_action account and even he couldn't do much to our then startup which was terminated because one of the devs had a banned google account.

athirnuaimi 8y ago

As someone who has built and published apps on both major platforms, this issue of not being able to speak to someone is a problem on the Apple platform as well (as on Googles). As mentioned in the article, it’s heart wrenching to receive an email saying there is a problem with your app and know that the app or the release you worked so hard on might not get published. Having a release rejected can also be as bad as a termination if that release has a major new feature. The platforms price their developer accounts very low to attract developers but those of us who make a living of it would gladly pay a bigger price to get a higher quality of support. There are many developers who make their living off apps and struggle with the black hole that is app approval and the associated dispute process

ForHackernews 8y ago
Wait, am I understanding correctly that Apple and Google actually charge developers money to produce the content that Apple and Google monetize on their app stores?
- athirnuaimi 8y ago
  They charge to have access to the dev tools and the right to publish apps. There are real costs to doing this right and I believe most developers are happy to pay.
  - chillydawg 8y ago
    Other than the 30% fee they charge and ad revenue generated via the apps? Please. That fee is 100% an anti spam mechanism.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- simonh 8y ago
  IIRC it’s about $100 or so per year. Basically hobby money just to make sure anyone submitting apps for review means it.

klgt 8y ago

This is not new, the Android developer community need to do something to raise more voice against this bad policy. https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/9n88wv/the_future_of_android_development/ https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/9n88wv/the_futu...

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

komali2 8y ago

Wow, I feel for that company. I was always skeptical of people raising alarm bells at everything "going chrome," but now I'm starting to get it - Google has the ability to just nuke a company from orbit on a whim, and I'm not sure anybody can do anything about it. Sure, that company developed a business around Google. But it still feels bad. The only problem is that I don't trust a large portion of American politicians that are seeking regulation - they seem highly motivated to force Google to become a Chinese-style propagandic censorship machine (i.e. Republicans complaining about "bias" because the president's picture shows up if you Google image search for "moron.") So while articles like this make me feel bad, I feel trapped into a need to fervently defend Google and "tech companies" to avoid my concerns being coopted.

taneq 8y ago
> Google has the ability to just nuke a company from orbit on a whim, and I'm not sure anybody can do anything about it. And that's why you don't build that critical point of failure into your product, even if it's harder and more expensive to do it another way. Which, sadly, means don't build your company around an Android app. They can do this to your personal Google account, too. What are the repercussions, to most people, of being summarily banned from all Google products? (Hint: What's the recovery email address for all of your random online services? What's your personal contact email for work, taxation, etc.? Do you have a local backup of your Gmail archive?) It's unlikely, sure, but if it does happen then it's gonna suck.
- jeena 8y ago
  For me it's (just) a way to log in into YouTube, I have a coupple of lists there which are nice, and I also use it for the Play Store on my phone where I bought 2 apps which I use, so I guess those would be gone too. Otherwise I don't think I use a google account for anything else.
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  > Hint: What's the recovery email address for all of your random online services? hey_$service_dont_spam_me@my_domain.com > What's your personal contact email for work, taxation my_name@my_domain.com I always thought of gmail like gmx.net or something, it's where people who don't know internet things could get free email. I figured it's a good way to test the waters, I also had free email long before I had a domain... but over a decade later, we're actually building houses out of this duct tape? It's duct tape, it's useful, but it's still duct tape. I don't mean this to blame the author. (Though them making another account with Google for private stuff made me despair) My first thought was, if companies want to be persons, and do this to other persons, a fair response would actually be "Dear Google, stop existing. Please don't make another company, either." I know it's not realistic, not even desirable to me -- we don't even boycott really horrible actors on a large scale, so why ruin Google and all the lives that hang off of that. I don't believe in collective punishment under any circumstances, ever. But as a response to Google (et al.) "as a company", it would be fair -- and no need to tell them why, either.

sbr464 8y ago

Besides the point/argument laid out in the article, could you mention any possible reasons you think this may have happened? Would help to hear.

cdmckay 8y ago
Exactly. From the wording of the email, it sounds like his previous ventures might have been doing something shady and those accounts are linked to the startup account.
- Jabbles 8y ago
  How shady would it have to be to justify banning someone for life?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- livueta 8y ago
  > My “personal publisher account”, was terminated last August 1th. I probably will never know why. It was mostly abandoned, I had just a few old apps just for testing features or make experiments. That's distressingly vague, especially when he provides screenshots of the recent termination emails. If there wasn't more to this, you'd expect the history of that other account, which is pretty clearly relevant here, to be laid out in a lot more detail. I agree that Google is prone to arbitrary and Kafkaesque behavior, but this instance smells fishy.

ilamont 8y ago

Here is one of the developer's websites: https://www.greenlionsoft.com https://www.greenlionsoft.com It's a bit out of date, but it looks like they were working on commuting apps for metro bus lines, etc.

putzdown 8y ago

This is what monopolization looks and feels like. Google Play is less of a monopoly within its ecosystem than Apple’s App Store is, but in both cases you have a monopoly that brooks no competition and is consequently unaccountable and, well, evil. The only way to fix this is to force Google and Apple to allow alternative markets/stores on their platforms.

simonh 8y ago
iOS user so Ive no idea, but I thought they did? Isn’t there a setting in Android to enable sideloading, and lots of phone manufacturers include their own app stores, notably Samsung. Or is this comment a sarcastic ‘why don’t they just do X’, when everyone knows they already do X? In which case what dies the ‘brooks no competition’ comment mean? Honest question.

0xfaded 8y ago

Is online Office 365 (I'm using Firefox on Linux) comparable to gdocs? My account's payment method has been flagged twice for some reason, and reading this makes me think how screwed I'd be if my startup's gapps account gets flagged.

mtnGoat 8y ago
Yes it is. Honestly I prefer o365 because I can use the desktop versions of their applications to edit my cloud stored docs/spreadsheets, etc.

southerndrift 8y ago

>Do not attempt to register a new developer account. Any new accounts will be closed and your developer registration fee will not be refunded. We recommend that you use an alternative method for distributing your apps in the future. If this is a serous problem, why is there no other app store? There should be plenty of programmers who need another method to reach their customers. For starters, Amazon's app store should do [1]. If enough developers reach out to their customers, it could become a viable alternative. That said, "The Castle" [2] should be a compulsory reading for each Android developer, or app developers in general. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Appstore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Appstore [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle_(novel)

Someone 8y ago
”If this is a serous problem, why is there no other app store?” It is serious, but only for a few developers, not for most, nor for Google. It has to be wide-spread to make alternative store(s) viable.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
altfredd 8y ago
"Other app stores" do exist, but Google went to great lengths to destroy them. Publishing clients for alternative stores in Google Play/Android Market have been prohibited by Google's ToS for years (don't know if it is still prohibited). The "allow alternative app sources" checkbox (unchecked by default!) has been deterring users from installing from non-Google sources till Android 8. It still exists, but Google have ruled, that third-party marketplace apps are better than malware-riddled piracy websites, so Android 8+ allows to whitelist specific marketplace apps while still keeping the checkbox unchecked. And let's not forget about Google's war to banish alternatives to their services from Android devices, while using their own Google Services packages as leverage. Google's overall approach to building it's walled garden is not much different from Apple's. They give some fake "choice", because they know, that tech-illiterate consumers won't be able to make use of alternative options.

gaius 8y ago

We also have this story on HN today https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18781473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18781473 Imagine a world in which Google Pay is dominant, and your Google Play account is terminated, and nowhere takes cash, and you can't buy food now, or ever.

jsty 8y ago
Considering the reputed prevalence of WeChat in much of China for everyday transactions, this may be moving close to reality for people banned from that platform

kayoone 8y ago

I just watched a couple of Black Mirror episodes and reading this feels eerie from that perspective.

n_e 8y ago

What I found the most infuriating is this: > We recommend that you use an alternative method for distributing your apps in the future. There is no reasonable alternative method for distributing commercial apps on android. The app store is a monopoly.

lern_too_spel 8y ago
> There is no reasonable alternative method for distributing commercial apps on android. How about your company's website?
yellowapple 8y ago
There's always F-Droid (+ a custom repo if you're unable to FOSSify your app) or Amazon's app store. Those may or may not be "reasonable" for everyone (in particular since they're not typically preinstalled on phones), but it's a start.
- shakna 8y ago
  That's only reasonable if the _target audience_ is likely to make use of F-Droid. If your target audience will only use Play, then the only reasonable target store _is_ Play. I'm in the F-Droid target audience, so you could target me. However, as they appear to be publishing transport/mapping tools for Spain... It's unlikely they can reach their target audience any more.

zenexer 8y ago

For those of you wondering, it appears that the company mentioned in the article, GreenLionSoft [1], develops apps that show public transportation schedules in Spain, at least as of 2017 [2]. Their Google Play page still exists in some places but has been cleared of all apps [3]. I can't find Pablo A. Martinez's personal developer account; the closest match is com.pablomartinez, which belongs (belonged?) to a law form, according to the description on Google. (The page is no longer accessible and doesn't seem to be archived anywhere.) Pablo A. Martinez has additional work history publicly posted on his LinkedIn profile [4]. I just gave it a quick skim, but I don't see anything shady. At least on the surface, there's no clear explanation for the account terminations. Pablo, if you're reading this, please consider adding more info about the apps you published, ideally with links to back up your claims. It'll make your case stronger. [1]: https://www.greenlionsoft.com/ https://www.greenlionsoft.com/ [2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20170428152946/https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=5839227326909135542 https://web.archive.org/web/20170428152946/https://play.goog... [3]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=5839227326909135542 https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=583922732690913554... [4]: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamartineza/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamartineza/

wallflower 8y ago
> Pablo, if you're reading this, please consider adding more info about the apps you published, ideally with links to back up your claims. It'll make your case stronger. I strongly second this. If it is not clear, this means to please be clear on what your experimental and play apps were from the original personal developer account. > My “personal publisher account”, was terminated last August 1th. I probably will never know why. It was mostly abandoned, I had just a few old apps just for testing features or make experiments.
sideshowb 8y ago
Perhaps they consider this sort of app a direct competitor to Google maps?
- gomox 8y ago
  CityMapper is too. Banning competitors seems like a recipe for antitrust lawsuits.

supernes 8y ago

This has been going on for years, I've experienced it firsthand and have read dozens of reports from other people in the same situation. If this was an error, it would have been fixed long ago. At this point in time I'm convinced it's a deliberate tactic - terminate an account once they start to get popular and see if they can pull enough strings or raise enough of a stink to have a human look at it. Blaming an "algorithm" is becoming a very convenient way to abdicate from any responsibility for shitty business practices and biases against certain groups of people.

ashelmire 8y ago

Google, shutting down a service, replying with bots pretending to be humans, and a total lack of customer service? Say it ain’t so. The only Google services I rely on are email and search, and even in those cases I’m looking for alternatives.

moreira 8y ago
Email is the most dangerous service for you to be relying on a company that you describe as having "a total lack of customer service". Email is the gateway to all your accounts across the entire Internet.
bad_user 8y ago
Relying on them for email isn’t a small dependency since that’s your online identity, being linked to all your other online accounts. Pay for your own domain and if you can’t live without Gmail, at least go with GSuite. Personally I think Gmail sucks for delivering email and I got off it based on technical limitations too.
- ashelmire 8y ago
  It’s on my todo list.

PavlovsCat 8y ago

Aaaand flagged of the front page, what just by score and would would probably still sit firmly at the #1 spot it shot to. What's a valid reason to do that, rather than clicking "hide" and just ignore the story if you personally don't care about it? Sure, I'd also prefer an article, that maybe contains this and other things as examples. But the discussion can be in that spirit regardless -- and who who will that article, or have such a discussion, when stuff like this is actively being hidden from sight? Once again it turns out that most people are way better than the manipulated results make it seem like. I think of that whenever someone says "the market decided that "$shitty_thing is okay". edit: answer the 2 questions, and we'll see who's contributing and thinking, and who isn't.

Induane 8y ago
I wonder if Google (and most large companies) has PR employees whose job it is to flag stuff like this.
- parrellel 8y ago
  You wonder? I thought that was just common knowledge?
  - Induane 8y ago
    I guess I hate to beso cynical but.. yea I kinda figured :-/

holoduke 8y ago

The once beloved company Google turned into a gigantic evil company with absolutely no compassion towards its developers and users. Everything they do is presented and marketed as something good, but deep under it is shady, controversial and goes straight into our norms of a good society. Imagine if companies like Google, Amazon, apple etc are dictating the rules. It won't be far of a regime in China. Expelled from society based on automated bits and false information. We shouldn't accept that kind of behaviour. We all should standup and knock this evil thing over.

glow8 8y ago
They've made sure they can't be knocked over though

supermatt 8y ago

These app stores need to be made accountable for their decisions to do this. A sympathetic judge setting a precedent is all thats needed for this process to be more transparent.

dgudkov 8y ago

Google, Apple, PayPal and other platforms that can cause a major disruption to a business by terminating its account must offer a service of auditing on demand in order to mitigate and control the risk of sudden deactivation. Such service can be paid, no problem. Customers should be able to request the auditing in order to understand what they look like from the platform's point of view and estimate possible risks. Shutting down established business accounts without a notice is absolutely not acceptable.

ranrub 8y ago

Most shocking to me was that the whole process plus the super creepy text ‘Do not attempt to open another developer account’ hasn’t changed in 5 years

viewpoint92 8y ago

Am from India ....This newYear2019 goes very difficult to me...Because same email am also received about the Google Play console account termination ...if some buddy has answer for that please reply me...am waiting for you all answer. skype id : viewpoint92

pamartineza 8y ago

Hi Zenexer, I just get aware of the existence of this thread. I still don't know if our "GreenLionSoft" account is going to be reinstantiated but I've got more info from the review team. Our company account hasn't violated any policy but it was "associated" with my personal account that hadn't violated any policy but was "associated" to a third account from which I had console access in the past and that was terminated due "IP violation and Trademark" months before personal mine. The owner of this account appealed denying any IP violation but was ignored and the termination cascaded from one account to another. The point here is not whether this first termination was fair or not, the point is that now anybody that shares wifi, hardware or console access with anybody that suffers a termination will be terminated too. It is quite usual that developers working for a start-up, have also their own personal GP account just for publishing their pet projects or just testing new API's or features. If any of your employees while or before working for you have their account terminated the company account risks to be terminated too. I have now sent back to the review team extra info to demonstrate that my personal account and company accounts were not created to impersonate this terminated account, nor republish any suspended app. Still waiting an answer...