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Google removed my ads-free app for “deceptive ads”
- renholder 8y ago>Felkod: SEC_ERROR_REVOKED_CERTIFICATE Couldn't access it. Found Web Archive link[0]. Mistaken identity for an app with the same name (it seems). More specifically, it seems like someone at Google was looking to disable the app, yours was the first to return in their search, so that must've been it. You'd think there'd be correlatable identifiers to specifically prevent this? [0] - https://web.archive.org/web/20190325230133/https://www.purpleleafsoftware.com/2019/03/google-removed-mommy-saver-plus-for.html https://web.archive.org/web/20190325230133/https://www.purpl...
- jeremydeanlakey 8y agoSorry about the error. I noticed and flicked the "enable https" shortly after posting. I flicked it off again for now.
- godelski 8y agoI am still experiencing an error in FF65 (Secure connection failed)
- floatingatoll 8y agoPerhaps you need to disable HTTPS Everywhere — the link in this post is HTTP, not HTTPS.
- auscompgeek 8y agoI have HTTPS Everywhere and didn't have any problems accessing the link (it loaded over cleartext HTTP as intended).
- adjagu 8y agoI am running Firefox Developer Edition 67.0b4 and did not have this issue. I noticed that you are using Firefox 65. Maybe updating to Firefox 66.0.1 (current version) would resolve this?
- godelski 8y agoI'm guessing it is actually a https thing. Do you have that on? Because I am currently on a FF66 (different computer) and having the same error. But given the error it looks more to be because there is no https version of the site. Which I'm fine with. If you don't have https I don't need to go to your site.
- wolco 8y agoA news site or blog needs to be https for you to visit for what reason? Is it ideology? Fear of network neighbours spying?
- e12e 8y agoProbably fear of content injection (eg a third party on shared wifi injecting a pdf with a zero day exploit, or just some malicious Javascript).
- godelski 8y agoMore of a principle thing. SSL is easy to enable and the whole web should be encrypted. I fully support all the major browsers' decision to warn users about sites that aren't https (even without login). It doesn't feel like there's a good excuse to not have https enabled.
- tyingq 8y agoFunny that their internal tool wouldn't have a workflow that kept the app id. Googlers doing error prone swivel chair correlation is kind of sad.
- echelon 8y agoCan we sue Google when they do things like this? No single entity should wield this much power. And we should rewrite the laws to make this so. Google and Apple wanted to be in the role of gatekeeper, so they should be beholden to the apps on their platform. We had a web where developers were in control of their own deployment. Everything was decentralized and required responsibility and diligence. Now the power is out of our hands and its unfair. It isn't our choice. One might argue this is better for consumers, but I honestly don't think so. Technology could have fixed discoverability and provided sandboxing, networks could provide curation. And there would probably be better privacy in the world where Mozilla won instead of Google. Edit: I am so happy that GDPR and CDPA have arrived to protect consumers. We need similar laws to protect startups, small businesses, and sole proprietors that rely on these platforms to treat us fairly. They owe us that after haven taken away the nice open web we once had. Maybe laws are how we get back the web we lost.
- joeframbach 8y ago> And there would probably be better privacy in the world where Mozilla won instead of Google. In that world Mozilla wouldn't sell your data to Pocket or Stranger Things or whoever knows a bizdev at Mozilla?
- fiddlerwoaroof 8y agoPocket isn’t the same as stranger things since, iirc, Mozilla bought pocket.
- est31 8y agoYes, they've bought Pocket and the recommendation system is built in a way that your data isn't sent to Mozilla but processed on the device. Quite a cool idea IMO and what we should be doing.
- m-p-3 8y agoPocket belongs to Mozilla FYI.
- 8y ago
- ycombass 8y agoI wonder why Google is allowing to ban people, delete they accounts etc.. only because user is not following the mainstream ? Talking own theories is not allowed anymore in Google or YouTube.. Follow the template model or be casted out is the message.
- megy 8y agoI got that too. I had no ads, but I did have a link to other apps that I made that were similar (It was a city travel guide app). That counted as an ad apparently. Yeah, I can see there point, so I changed the link text.
- point78 8y agoA popup link or just sitting on a page onside the app somewhere? Did you get reinstated once removed?
- sercand 8y agoWhen you receive that email from Google you can only fill a generic form given at the bottom of the email. You can't contact a human being to understand why it is rejected/removed. Problem is not written clearly and it doesn't include a screenshot as apple does. Google is terrible at support on Play Store (and some more of its services).
- tjpnz 8y agoAt the very least they're being honest about not giving a shit about their users.
- wogg 8y agoSame experience at RescueTime. I don't understand why Apple is able to have humans interact with developers, but Google is not.
- criddell 8y agoI understand that Google wants to handle as much as possible with a support.py script, but they really should start having people to contact. Maybe there should be a fee for a support request and if the Google rep finds that Google's automated system messed up they report the problem internally and refund the fee to the app developer.
- openloop 8y agoI like Methamphetamine ads. It's not deceptive to sell pablo escobar like drugs to me.
- openloop 8y agoI like meth ads personally. If they are purple even better. It's not deceptive. It's legal and stuff.
- mrschwabe 8y agoWhy anyone would develop apps for Apple/Google duopoly is beyond me. Right, I get that you may need the money - but if your livelihood depends on money earned from making this world a worser place perhaps it is time to gut check and determine what really is your purpose and best use of time; maybe (easy) money is not all it's cut out to be in that context.
- vernie 8y agoI think I'll go work for a defense contractor instead.
- hombre_fatal 8y ago> making this world a worser place The reality is that we're here and it's now and everyone already owns a smartphone and you can enrich people's world with an app that helps them find love, participate in community, develop a hobby, find a new podcast, expand their mind, discover their creativity, track their ambitions, and more. There's a lot of crap, too, but there's no sense throwing the baby out with the bathwater and then sitting around hoping things change. There's a world you can engage right now, and it's indifferent to your ideals.
- AllegedAlec 8y agoYour comment boils down to 'why would anyone develop apps'. There is no way at the moment to make an app in a way that doesn't benefit Apple of the Alphabet spaghetti.
- josefresco 8y ago> maybe (easy) money is not all it's cut out to be in that context Where do I get some of this easy money exactly?
- eddieone 8y agoSimilar happened to us, they want to keep the traffic in their platform so they want for tricky behavior, confusing buttons, ect. Pretty anal about getting constant updates to games, makes it impossible for small companies to survive.
- point78 8y agoDid you get reinstated eventually?
- MikeGale 8y agoThese guys, if this is what they do, are the enemy. I guess when the general populace realises we may get mass defection from this hostile, mindlessness. Before that you may be randomly screwed. There's always the possibility that having no ads was the actual crime, and they cooked up evidence.
- quickthrower2 8y agoFrom the blog comments: > Good luck man. I had an app removed because someone did a review of it and their review had screenshots of my app and Google banned the app for copyright infringement siting them as the source. No appeal, one strike, never got through to a human. If true that’s laughablly insane.
- antocv 8y agoYou, still using google for anything, is insane. OK, harsh word, but really, your behaviour is modified by the search results/ads/suggestions you see. Every search you do, leans you to continue using Google in the future, and looking at the web through their eyes.
- quickthrower2 8y agoTrue. Although I mostly use google for [Technical Keyword] not working with [Technical Keyword], rather than [Who should I vote for]. I actually use hn.algolia.com more often when I want an opinion on something important to me :-)
- r_singh 8y agoI use hn.algolia.com as a more reliable source to look for info & opinion on a lot of things a lot more than I use google. I feel like there ought to be a google competitor now that google is so crappy.
- giancarlostoro 8y agoWith all their efforts to block copyrighted stuff their engine has really gone downhill I swear, and this was years ago. I hardly ever find anything I'm looking for, that or we've hit a stage on the internet where people don't ask any questions on Stack Overflow and just google and monkey patch it all together.
- stefkors 8y ago
- User23 8y agoWhen are we going to admit that Stallman was right?
- ggm 8y agoI do think that the redress model is broken. It might require money, but there should be a path, to put up a stake for a good-faith review. If they judge you not a spammer or time waster, you should get to talk to a person with an advocate or adjudicator.
- thinkingemote 8y agoLooking at this from another lense, think the reason why so much moderation is automated is that these companies do Human Ops (might be the wrong term) where essentially it's important to employees mental health not to be working on menial moderation duties. So to improve the quality of employees working life they use bots to do the same job. Now moderation seems to be automateable but could a bot do customer service?
- nightfly 8y agoIt's to save money. Don't kid yourself into thinking they're trying to look out for people by doing this in an automated manner.
- z3t4 8y agoI hear a lot of people complain they got falsely banned by some automated process. But automatic processes are easy to game, so just do what the spammers likely do, slightly edit the app, re-upload using another account and IP, etc, repeat. I'm sad every time I install an Android app, thinking how much crap/spyware it will install on my device ... Android should allow other "app stores", just like you can have different browsers, you should also be able to have different "app stores". Just like there is not just one "store" in the physical world. Then there could be niche stores that focus on some category, or quality.
- pmx 8y agoThere is nothing stopping you from using other app stores on android. Amazon has their own (amazon underground) and samsung have their own (galaxy store). There are others out there, too!
- onli 8y agoThere is F-Droid (https://f-droid.org/ https://f-droid.org/) especially. Horribly broken UI, but still a great app to get other (free!) apps.
- trickstra 8y agotry G-Droid for better UI
- Svoka 8y agoGoogle is de-facto monopolist if you want to make money off your apps/games. Company was publishing same game on basically all android stores, and returns were less than one hundredth comparing to the Play Store; even if it was featured in other stores.
- Faark 8y agoIts sad so few people can acknowledge strong network effects is all it needs to create a de-facto monopolist. Can you say what resources company invested to get listed on other stores? I'd expect it to be rather simple and would hope the tiny earnings would still pay for itself. But even for strategical reasons, I don't understand why even Google-competitors like Microsoft Office don't offer an optional PlayStore free download. At least for those not integrating Google services... and most of the apk's i got from "other" source did indeed work fine. But maybe there is just no way to avoid a tragedy of the commons without regulation.
- 0gz 8y ago"Games" part considered advertising because you are advertising your own games. You should rename it to like "Our Other Games", "Check Other Games" or just add "ADS" label to pictures and update your new APK.
- Dylan16807 8y agoThat screenshot is the wrong app.
- maxencecornet 8y agoThe exact same thing happened to me last week My ads-free really simple React Native app was removed from the play store for “deceptive ads” I don't care too much as this was just a way to learn React Native for me, but it's still really weird To be honest every interaction I have with Google products nowadays are bad: - This app kicked from the Play store - A bug with the new Adsense Auto-ads where you couldn't disable the giant ads that were added on your content without removing completely Google Adsense script, which I did I'm now moving away from anything Google
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoCan apps be decompiled easily? I'd imagine one could download the app, report it for whatever (eg ads), wait for the automated system to remove it, then upload your own version (with ads, and what ever else). Or if not decompiled, perhaps you got spearphished for access to your apps code, or it was acquired some other way. Similar things probably happen as far as malicious reporting for sales platforms (like Amazon). If you 'steal' the product I imagine Amazon would even handover the original sellers good product reviews too.
- foxyv 8y agoIf they are Java, which most are, then yes. Unless you use obfuscation, Java decompile is trivial.
- geniium 8y agoDon't forget to switch to something else than Google Chrome as well.
- maxencecornet 8y agoI've switched to Brave a long time ago already And to protonmail for emails
- vortico 8y agoI refuse to port my desktop application to Android and iOS because of stories like these. If I wanted to gamble my salary, I'd go to Vegas.
- SonicSoul 8y agoit seems that in such cases easiest approach is to contact someone at Google to forward your case to the right person. I met Goog people at my coffee shop and had cases where weird behavior happened (when i tried to leave a review for example) and i just emailed them and they said "oh @#$ that looks like a bug I've forwarded this to PM at xxx. here's interim solution.." I couldn't believe it was that easy.. in the end network is probably the best path
- splatcollision 8y agoNot everyone is lucky enough to have a network that includes google engineers. And it's laughable to suggest this as a remedy for "developer as platform customer service"...
- SonicSoul 8y agopoint well taken. i just wanted to share what worked for me, and assumed there are other ways to network with people. i don't live or ever visited SV. I do see how this is a low feasibility path
- justtopost 8y agoSo what do the other 4 billion people do who dont eat lunch in SV? Sounds like a great example of how privlidge blinds you to the endemic problems the world faces.
- kaybe 8y agoBuy plane tickets obviously. I wonder what would happen if people actually did that.
- anyzen 8y ago> I met Goog people at my coffee shop... > I couldn't believe it was that easy You're kiding, right? :) Yes, it looks like this is one of the few ways one can make the appeals work. Awful solution though.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- anigionuio 8y agoWhy is it that software repositories work so much better than these app stores? Every app store on every platform is a wasteland of adware and malware, but I have never found such a program in, say, the Debian repos. App stores manage to be simultaneously more restrictive than a repository and less trustworthy than downloading executables through a web browser.
- arianvanp 8y agoScale. The average user has never heard about software repositories.
- ppeetteerr 8y agoThis is due to the audience of a Debian repo versus the audience of an app store.
- smadurange 8y agoPeople using Debian repo probably check the check sum as advised unlike Google Playstore users :)
- baud147258 8y agoIn addition to what other had said, I think that, since there aren't any money to be made of debian repos, unlike the app store, shady actors won't be likely to bother.
- dTal 8y agoThere's an element of curation - any rando can't just upload something to Debian, there's a web of trust. But mainly I think it's that repositories are invariably built from source. Everything in a distro repository is open source software, guranteed to have been built from source from scratch. F-Droid does this, and its repositories are as clean as any Linux distro's as far as I can tell. (This is why Moxie's claim that F-Droid is somehow less secure than Google Play because it signs its own .apks is weapons-grade baloneyum. On Google Play, that .apk could have anything in it. On F-Droid, that signature is a guarantee that that app has been downloaded and built from public sources, just like any Linux distribution. If F-Droid allowed developers to sign their own apps, then F-Droid couldn't build the apps, unless every app supported reproducible builds.)
- jeremydeanlakey 8y agoUpdate: I looked up the app in the screenshots attached to Google's email. It appears to have been removed as well.
- alohahacker 8y agoI had a similar situation where I contacted google and asked permission about having a certain app made. Got the green light from several google teams. Pushed and marketed the app and app brought in 7+ figures of revenue throughout the years. Got shut down after about 2 years randomly with no feedback etc. Even my personal consultants from google that they assign to you had no clue and I was left to fend for myself and just eat the lost/work I put into the app.
- megous 8y agoIf Google can't be bothered to give a fuck, can't this be mittigated by splitting the responsibilities? Have a company that takes care of building, uploading and distributing apps from developers to the app store, and fixing all the distribution issues (via Google/Apple contacts in cofee shops in SV, that could push for resolution of issues internally). And developers would work with this comapny, and would not need to care about Google/Apple at all. Why do we need to see all these "Google did this to us" articles on HN? This should be a solvable problem, via some intermediary that would have more options/human contacts/power wrt Google, than a single developers.
- wgoodall01 8y agoBasically, that sounds like a union for app developers. That might end up being a positive thing.
- foxyv 8y agoI kind of wish that you could pay a monthly fee to Google for app developers that entitled you to some basic customer support.
- lnanek2 8y agoIn case it helps - they recently forced me to remove all "upgrade to pro" UI affordances that led from a free app to a paid app in the app store claiming they were ads as well. So their definition of ads is pretty strange.
- ParanoidShroom 8y agoAdvertising your own apps/games in a different app of yours is still an ad. If you click it, it will probably point to the play store to install it like any other ad. Change the copy to "install more of my apps" and they will allow it. Yes since they employed lots of manual labor, many false positive have hit me as well. And it's very frustrating. But this is just another empty "Lets hate on Google". Following the guidelines this IS a deceptive ad. Simple reply them in the policy form and they'll get back to you why within 2 days.