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For those of you wondering, it appears that the company mentioned in the article, GreenLionSoft [1], develops apps that show public transportation schedules in

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.
- zenexer 8y ago
  This sort of app is quite common and serves a distinct, specialized purpose, so I doubt that. Additionally, Google doesn’t generally remove apps that compete with their own; it’s Apple that does that.
- steve_taylor 8y ago
  Google has been caught banning AdSense accounts to avoid paying website ownsers. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were found to be banning developers of apps that take eyeballs away from Google services.
appleflaxen 8y ago
> It'll make your case stronger the case to whom? the primary message from the post is that there is likely no human being who will look at this again (and based on the robotic 24h + 1min timestamp on the email, the question is whether one ever did in the first place).
- londons_explore 8y ago
  Google certainly re-looks at cases which make the front page. They're quite strict on the 'if you've been banned and you use another account, we'll ban that one too', so that's the reason for the recent termination. Sometimes it takes months for them to link together accounts like this, because they gradually accumulate evidence like signing apk's with the same key, or logging into the console from the same IP addresses. The old account I would bet had something shady on it. For example, an ad-clicker or rooting tools.
  - zenexer 8y ago
    Should they really be linking personal accounts with reputable commercial accounts, though? What if one of your developers who has access to the commercial account has published something shady on their personal account?
- zenexer 8y ago
  To the audience (us). Our perception of the article has the potential to affect our choices in the future.
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...
- pamartineza 8y ago
  I just wanted to share with you that Google has finally reinstantiated our account, 23 days after our suspension.

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.
zenexer 8y ago
This sort of app is quite common and serves a distinct, specialized purpose, so I doubt that. Additionally, Google doesn’t generally remove apps that compete with their own; it’s Apple that does that.
steve_taylor 8y ago
Google has been caught banning AdSense accounts to avoid paying website ownsers. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were found to be banning developers of apps that take eyeballs away from Google services.

appleflaxen 8y ago

> It'll make your case stronger the case to whom? the primary message from the post is that there is likely no human being who will look at this again (and based on the robotic 24h + 1min timestamp on the email, the question is whether one ever did in the first place).

londons_explore 8y ago
Google certainly re-looks at cases which make the front page. They're quite strict on the 'if you've been banned and you use another account, we'll ban that one too', so that's the reason for the recent termination. Sometimes it takes months for them to link together accounts like this, because they gradually accumulate evidence like signing apk's with the same key, or logging into the console from the same IP addresses. The old account I would bet had something shady on it. For example, an ad-clicker or rooting tools.
- zenexer 8y ago
  Should they really be linking personal accounts with reputable commercial accounts, though? What if one of your developers who has access to the commercial account has published something shady on their personal account?
zenexer 8y ago
To the audience (us). Our perception of the article has the potential to affect our choices in the future.

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...

pamartineza 8y ago
I just wanted to share with you that Google has finally reinstantiated our account, 23 days after our suspension.