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I'm nowhere close to a lawyer and law is always a head-scratcher for me, but I'd hope that if that theory held even the slightest amount of legal water, a lette

I'm nowhere close to a lawyer and law is always a head-scratcher for me, but I'd hope that if that theory held even the slightest amount of legal water, a letter for your lawyer to their legal team might be enough to nudge them to fix your account and that'd be the end of it.

gambiting 8y ago
That's basically how it works. It costs you very little(couple hundred £ at most) to ask a lawyer to craft a letter to send to Google legal team saying they have to resolve the issue for you within 14 days or you will be taking them to court. And if there's one thing that's absolutely certain is that Google's law team's time is way more expensive than whatever lawyer you found to write a letter or two is going to charge you . So yes, they can write back telling you to fuck off. But they will know that if you do file a case against them, they will have to send someone to court - and that's going to cost them a lot more than just fixing the stupid issue.
- ben_jones 8y ago
  Or Google might realize acquiescing to every small legal request might become untenable and create a policy of only giving in to well-funded threats.
  - ThrustVectoring 8y ago
    That's why you buy a lawyer to craft the letter - so it looks indistinguishable from threats with actual funding behind it.
- lovich 8y ago
  If your theory here was true, why does every small business who gets in this situation get stuck with no recourse when its just a few hundred to fix the problem? Yes, Google could likely not handle the legal costs if everyone went after them in court. Much like prosecutors in the US, what Google does is go hard on anyone who tries to defend themselves legally. At the point the calculus a small business has to make is if its worth it to try and get a remedy in court when Google will make sure to push back as hard as possible and likely destroy your business.
  - Arnt 8y ago
    Do you have some examples of Google doing that? (Honest question. I would remember it if I'd heard about that happening, but I might very well not hear about it in the first place.)
    - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      I'd expect Google to be devious enough to say "as a gesture of good will we'll pay your legal fees if you sign this NDA".
    - justinclift 8y ago
      From a sister comment: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-google-bothered-to-ap_b_213176.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-google-bo...
      - asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
        FWIW, this isn't Google going "hard" on someone. Rather, it's just Google defending themselves under the law, as you would expect.
        cft 8y ago
        No, this article illustrates that Google took the effort disproportionate to the judgement amount. That means going hard.
        asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
        OK. Under this definition of "going hard," literally all companies will "go hard" to defend themselves against incorrect small claims suits. The alternative is to always pay anyone who sues you for $100, since the effort of defending any individual suit in that amount will always be greater than the amount of the potential judgment. Of course, you can't do that, because then more people will start suing you for $100, seeing as you're just giving away money for the asking. Personally I think that a definition of "going hard" that encompasses the behavior of all actors in a space is absurd. But you're free to interpret those words how you wish.
- pyrale 8y ago
  > Google's law team's time is way more expensive than whatever lawyer you found to write a letter or two is going to charge you. The reality of it is that the legal team is a sunken cost to the company. They hire or retain lawyers for whatever's going to happen anyway.
- tacon 8y ago
  No, Google sends a "litigation paralegal" to small claims court. But you will eventually lose: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-i-sued-google-and-won_b_172403.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-i-sued-go... https://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-google-bothered-to-ap_b_213176.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-google-bo...
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
    Because any other approach would be game-theoretic suicide. If it became common knowledge that you could threaten to sue Google to get special treatment, that's exactly what everyone would do in every situation where some kind of special treatment was desired. The special treatment would no longer be special; it would be the normal treatment. And so the typical costs associated with handling developers detected as fraudulent by automated defenses would skyrocket. Somebody would have to pay for that, either the shareholders (lol, not likely), or non-fraudulent developers, in the form of handling fees.
  - baybal2 8y ago
    Write a letter in plain language yourself, and escalate, escalate, escalate, then them being represented by a paralegal drone will begin to bite them. Another advice: have 1 account per project, invariably of what their tos say.

gambiting 8y ago

That's basically how it works. It costs you very little(couple hundred £ at most) to ask a lawyer to craft a letter to send to Google legal team saying they have to resolve the issue for you within 14 days or you will be taking them to court. And if there's one thing that's absolutely certain is that Google's law team's time is way more expensive than whatever lawyer you found to write a letter or two is going to charge you . So yes, they can write back telling you to fuck off. But they will know that if you do file a case against them, they will have to send someone to court - and that's going to cost them a lot more than just fixing the stupid issue.

ben_jones 8y ago
Or Google might realize acquiescing to every small legal request might become untenable and create a policy of only giving in to well-funded threats.
- ThrustVectoring 8y ago
  That's why you buy a lawyer to craft the letter - so it looks indistinguishable from threats with actual funding behind it.
lovich 8y ago
If your theory here was true, why does every small business who gets in this situation get stuck with no recourse when its just a few hundred to fix the problem? Yes, Google could likely not handle the legal costs if everyone went after them in court. Much like prosecutors in the US, what Google does is go hard on anyone who tries to defend themselves legally. At the point the calculus a small business has to make is if its worth it to try and get a remedy in court when Google will make sure to push back as hard as possible and likely destroy your business.
- Arnt 8y ago
  Do you have some examples of Google doing that? (Honest question. I would remember it if I'd heard about that happening, but I might very well not hear about it in the first place.)
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    I'd expect Google to be devious enough to say "as a gesture of good will we'll pay your legal fees if you sign this NDA".
  - justinclift 8y ago
    From a sister comment: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-google-bothered-to-ap_b_213176.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-google-bo...
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
      FWIW, this isn't Google going "hard" on someone. Rather, it's just Google defending themselves under the law, as you would expect.
      - cft 8y ago
        No, this article illustrates that Google took the effort disproportionate to the judgement amount. That means going hard.
        asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
        OK. Under this definition of "going hard," literally all companies will "go hard" to defend themselves against incorrect small claims suits. The alternative is to always pay anyone who sues you for $100, since the effort of defending any individual suit in that amount will always be greater than the amount of the potential judgment. Of course, you can't do that, because then more people will start suing you for $100, seeing as you're just giving away money for the asking. Personally I think that a definition of "going hard" that encompasses the behavior of all actors in a space is absurd. But you're free to interpret those words how you wish.
pyrale 8y ago
> Google's law team's time is way more expensive than whatever lawyer you found to write a letter or two is going to charge you. The reality of it is that the legal team is a sunken cost to the company. They hire or retain lawyers for whatever's going to happen anyway.
tacon 8y ago
No, Google sends a "litigation paralegal" to small claims court. But you will eventually lose: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-i-sued-google-and-won_b_172403.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-i-sued-go... https://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-google-bothered-to-ap_b_213176.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-google-bo...
- asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
  Because any other approach would be game-theoretic suicide. If it became common knowledge that you could threaten to sue Google to get special treatment, that's exactly what everyone would do in every situation where some kind of special treatment was desired. The special treatment would no longer be special; it would be the normal treatment. And so the typical costs associated with handling developers detected as fraudulent by automated defenses would skyrocket. Somebody would have to pay for that, either the shareholders (lol, not likely), or non-fraudulent developers, in the form of handling fees.
- baybal2 8y ago
  Write a letter in plain language yourself, and escalate, escalate, escalate, then them being represented by a paralegal drone will begin to bite them. Another advice: have 1 account per project, invariably of what their tos say.