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Appeal accepted: Google removed my ads-free app for “deceptive ads”

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jeremydeanlakey 8y ago
I tried tweeting at them now. My first tweet ever. (Please someone tell me if I goofed it in any way.) https://twitter.com/jeremydeanlakey/status/1110684501665996800 https://twitter.com/jeremydeanlakey/status/11106845016659968...
- Osiris 8y ago
  This is the only thing I use Twitter for also. Trying to get support from a business.
  - blunte 8y ago
    It actually works better than many other methods of reaching support for many companies, and that's a real unfortunate reality.
colinbartlett 8y ago
So if I get this correct, the app ID of com.mommysaverapp.plus is correct but the screenshots they use to justify their app removal are not from that app?!
- jeremydeanlakey 8y ago
  So far as I can tell, yes. I googled the app in the screenshots and it shows in google but now it 404s, just like Mommy Saver Plus. So it seems they removed the correct app also.
- userbinator 8y ago
  Do apps have a GUID or some other actually unique identifier they can use? It seems a huge oversight to not have or use such an ID, even if it's something as simple as a cryptographic hash of the binary(ies). (Not an Android developer. Thought of starting but never did --- for mostly different reasons, however.)
  - rkcr 8y ago
    The app ID is a unique identifier. Once you claim an app ID, it's yours forever.
unreal37 8y ago
Your mistake was writing a "two sentence appeal" and expecting it would do anything. Appeal again. But this time, put some real effort into it. Spend more than 2 seconds on it. Really make it clear that your app does not contain ads and the screenshot is not your app.
- MichaelDickens 8y ago
  I've never worked in customer service but this seems wrong to me. I would expect that you would be able to communicate more effectively by saying the single core thing you need to say, because the more words you add, the less likely they are to miss that part, or even to not read anything in your message at all.
  - derefr 8y ago
    If a message is really really important, then you don't make it short and you don't pad it with fluff either. Instead, you say the simple thing you need communicated, over and over again in different ways, together with supporting evidence. Then, anywhere their eyes land on the page, they'll understand your message.
- jschwartzi 8y ago
  The job of customer service people is to actually respond to customers. You can't expect your customers to be perfectly clear every time they communicate with you and it is entirely your job to figure out what they really mean before blithely dismissing them. Seeing yet another one of these stories hit the front page of HN is making me want to double-down on removing Google from my life entirely.
- gus_massa 8y ago
  I agree that the message was too short to be 200% clear (sometimes 100% clear is not good enough). gpm wrote a comment with an alternative hypothetical redaction that I like: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19497131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19497131
jeremydeanlakey 8y ago
Update: Google's reversed their decision and the appeal is accepted. I wrote a passive-aggressive email. I posted this. I tweeted at them (first tweet ever). I'm not sure what worked, but something got through. Thanks all for the support.
- nraynaud 8y ago
  the issue is that you have no idea if you won't encounter another stupidity around Google Play in the future.
- Derek_MK 8y ago
  Wow, I've never been able to get a real person at Google to review a case of supposedly breaking ToS. My Google account got suspended for "traffic pumping". I didn't know what "traffic pumping" was at the time but after looking it up, it looks like they thought I was a bot for a phone carrier trying to commit fraud: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_pumping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_pumping For reference, I haven't ever used the Google account for anything like Google Duo, Allo, Hangouts, etc. There was an appeal system linked in the message saying "You broke the terms", but when I filled it out, about 24 hrs later I got a response saying "You can't appeal if you broke the terms", which seems inconsistent at best. I managed to track down a Google support employee and basically told him "Hey, it should be obvious that I'm a real person and not a bot for a phone carrier". His response at first was "The appeal should work, let me know if it doesn't". I told him that it didn't work, and his response was "Well we're not allowed to help you if the automated system says you broke the terms. You must have broken the terms." Happy for you getting anything out of them other than a brick wall, at least. EDIT - To pre-empt some questions that may come up: I was using a unique, randomly generated password for my Google account. Plus, you have to be able to login to the account to see the "You broke the terms" message, so the password was definitely not changed.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    "Trust The Computer. The Computer is your friend!" We're descending into the parody dystopia envisioned in this game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game) In the early 90's, if I were to tell people that a mega-corporation would seek to take over all the world's information, and they would subject users to this Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare treatment straight out of the movie "Brazil," they'd think my brain was taken over by "Paranoia" the role playing game.
hs86 8y ago
Context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19487506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19487506
superasn 8y ago
Congrats on getting back but it's sad that this story had two be on frontpage of HN twice before they took notice and accepted their fault. Chances of this happening again are very slim for the next guy who falls prey to their faulty moderation (ai).
eyeareque 8y ago
I guess hacker news is the only place where google gives their customers support.
- ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
  I don't think they care about HN. It's too niche. I posted multiple times to reinstate my account but never got it reinstated.
  - eyeareque 8y ago
    I should have stated the front page gets you support :)
- nikanj 8y ago
  They also deliver support on the front page of Reddit
gpm 8y ago
Jeremy says he wrote "something very close to" the following for his appeal, how would you have written it? > "Mommy Saver Plus was removed for 'deceptive ads' which is a little silly because there is no ads in the app. The attached screenshots have nothing to do with Mommy Saver Plus." I think it would be a bit too easy for someone a google employee reading this to go 'he's saying he doesn't consider them ads, and ranting about the screenshots out of frustration'. That's not a reasonable thing for the google employee to do, but it is a possible one. I think I would prefer something like > The evidence attached for removing "Mommy Saver Plus" are screenshots from a different app by a different developer. "Mommy Saver Plus" was removed for having "deceptive ads", but unlike the app in the screenshot "Mommy Saver Plus" doesn't have any ads, so clearly this was done in error. > Please see the attached screenshot of "Mommy Saver Plus" for comparison. > Thanks, > <Name>
- jeremydeanlakey 8y ago
  I agree. I included my wording specifically because of this. My response email to the rejection today was very clear. Unfortunately, it was also passive aggressive. Hopefully I'll learn to clear my head before reacting next time.
  - gpm 8y ago
    I can't really blame you, people do all sorts of stupid things under anger/stress/etc... and that email, while not ideal, wasn't that bad. I've sent worse. I actually posted this hoping to spark some useful conversation on what a good email to send would be, unfortunately all I've got are upvotes instead
    - jeremydeanlakey 8y ago
      > unfortunately all I've got are upvotes instead I wouldn't call that unfortunate. You pretty much nailed it and no one has much to add.
      - gpm 8y ago
noobermin 8y ago
It would be nice again to question why must Google control everything and whether that's a good or bad thing.
- majewsky 8y ago
  No no, you got that all wrong. When you have an iOS device, it's Apple who controls everything. See? No monopoly!!!111
otterley 8y ago
I’m curious, you redacted something but don’t talk about it. What was the alleged “disguised app” you redacted, and why might they have thought you were disguising it? And why did you redact this fact?
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  It's in the screenshots in the previous post. The app on the right whose name is covered in a purple box. It's redacted because that app has nothing to do with OP.
neilv 8y ago
The frequent lack of due process by the app stores is another reason I've been trying to do Web-first, in some startup ideas I've been tossing around. I did ship a complex HTML5 Offline app for a client, and it was more pain than it should've been, but I made it work. (Tip: the two big mobile platform owners seem to have an obvious disincentive for HTML5 Offline to work well.) If I do something Web-first, it'll be handheld&desktop responsive, and I'll be keeping a smooth path to HTML5 Offline in mind as a possible alternative to the app stores.
- nat8265639392 8y ago
  Not an app developer. But isn’t a big reason for native apps just to harvest more metrics and data about your customers? (Not implying anything bad about that in this context btw)
  - JimDabell 8y ago
    > But isn’t a big reason for native apps just to harvest more metrics and data about your customers? I've been a native app developer for ten years, I've worked on dozens and dozens of apps, and I know a tonne of app developers and entrepreneurs. I don't think I've come across a single case of somebody saying that they want an app for those reasons. The closest I can think of is a loyalty card app, and they got the usage data through use of the loyalty system, not by spying on your phone, and it didn't matter whether you used the plastic card, the website, or the app.
blunte 8y ago
There is no excuse for Google mistaking one app for another. They have literally all the data, so they know which app is which better than any other party in existence. It's their Play store! It bothers me greatly that not only can they shut down your app, but they can shut down your Google account (and any future accounts they might deem as being related...) What are the chances that they might accidentally (human failure or algo failure) believe one Google account is related to another "bad" account and close the good account? It certainly seems possible given that obviously Google does not have complete control over its systems.
andrewstuart 8y ago
As I posted about recently - big organisations need to have an ombudsman - a way to resolve problems when the company's ordinary support mechanisms fail to resolve issues. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19092039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19092039 It's silly that the only way to get big companies to resolve crazy failings in their normal processes is to take the problem public on social media. Instead they should have a built in process that operates outside their normal systems - an ombudsman who has the power and authority to instruct other areas of the organisation to make different decisions.
- rhizome 8y ago
  I'm not sure how you square that against the reality that many companies specifically and obviously do not have humans backing up these things. Do you think Google has never heard of human support? When you have hundreds of millions of people clamoring for your products, ignoring several million -- regardless of what the issues might be -- is easy. These things literally do not show up on their radar, which is why stupid shit like posting to HN about it is required to get a basic level of service and fairness out of the system. Their organization and priorities absolutely do not leave room for support for everyday people. There is zero evidence that they have any intentions of changing this, just like every other one of the past 20 years.
- jakejarvis 8y ago
  Wasn’t this, in theory, one of the selling points for upgrading to a paid Google One account? https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/02/google-finally-adds-consumer-customer-support-with-google-one/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/02/google-finally-adds-consum... I’d be interested to hear if anyone’s tried to take advantage of this, I’m upgraded to One for more storage but haven’t had a reason to test out their humanoids (yet). [edit: I’m definitely not suggesting Google One would have helped with this particular Play Store publishing predicament, for the record!]
- kevingadd 8y ago
  Having access to a Google employee won't change anything because even Google employees can't fight erroneous takedowns of their own content, or get abusive/inappropriate ToS-violating content taken down off of YouTube or Google News Source: me
anonlastname 8y ago
Google can be very difficult when it comes to approving add-ons for their add-on store as well. They approved my add-on that blocks porn ads on a certain website, but won't accept a trivial update on the grounds that it is too NSFW. They make you provide a screenshot to submit an add-on. I used a screenshot of the website it works on with the porn ads it blocks heavily pixelated. I can't think of any other way to take a screenshot of what my add-on does. So I guess users will have to do without the new update.
wolfgke 8y ago
"This part scares me: '... repeated violations can result in the suspension of this app or your Google Play Developer account.'" Learn the lessson not to make yourself dependent on a despot.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

I tried tweeting at them now. My first tweet ever. (Please someone tell me if I goofed it in any way.) https://twitter.com/jeremydeanlakey/status/1110684501665996800 https://twitter.com/jeremydeanlakey/status/11106845016659968...

Osiris 8y ago
This is the only thing I use Twitter for also. Trying to get support from a business.
- blunte 8y ago
  It actually works better than many other methods of reaching support for many companies, and that's a real unfortunate reality.

colinbartlett 8y ago

So if I get this correct, the app ID of com.mommysaverapp.plus is correct but the screenshots they use to justify their app removal are not from that app?!

jeremydeanlakey 8y ago
So far as I can tell, yes. I googled the app in the screenshots and it shows in google but now it 404s, just like Mommy Saver Plus. So it seems they removed the correct app also.
userbinator 8y ago
Do apps have a GUID or some other actually unique identifier they can use? It seems a huge oversight to not have or use such an ID, even if it's something as simple as a cryptographic hash of the binary(ies). (Not an Android developer. Thought of starting but never did --- for mostly different reasons, however.)
- rkcr 8y ago
  The app ID is a unique identifier. Once you claim an app ID, it's yours forever.

unreal37 8y ago

Your mistake was writing a "two sentence appeal" and expecting it would do anything. Appeal again. But this time, put some real effort into it. Spend more than 2 seconds on it. Really make it clear that your app does not contain ads and the screenshot is not your app.

MichaelDickens 8y ago
I've never worked in customer service but this seems wrong to me. I would expect that you would be able to communicate more effectively by saying the single core thing you need to say, because the more words you add, the less likely they are to miss that part, or even to not read anything in your message at all.
- derefr 8y ago
  If a message is really really important, then you don't make it short and you don't pad it with fluff either. Instead, you say the simple thing you need communicated, over and over again in different ways, together with supporting evidence. Then, anywhere their eyes land on the page, they'll understand your message.
jschwartzi 8y ago
The job of customer service people is to actually respond to customers. You can't expect your customers to be perfectly clear every time they communicate with you and it is entirely your job to figure out what they really mean before blithely dismissing them. Seeing yet another one of these stories hit the front page of HN is making me want to double-down on removing Google from my life entirely.
gus_massa 8y ago
I agree that the message was too short to be 200% clear (sometimes 100% clear is not good enough). gpm wrote a comment with an alternative hypothetical redaction that I like: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19497131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19497131

jeremydeanlakey 8y ago

Update: Google's reversed their decision and the appeal is accepted. I wrote a passive-aggressive email. I posted this. I tweeted at them (first tweet ever). I'm not sure what worked, but something got through. Thanks all for the support.

nraynaud 8y ago
the issue is that you have no idea if you won't encounter another stupidity around Google Play in the future.
Derek_MK 8y ago
Wow, I've never been able to get a real person at Google to review a case of supposedly breaking ToS. My Google account got suspended for "traffic pumping". I didn't know what "traffic pumping" was at the time but after looking it up, it looks like they thought I was a bot for a phone carrier trying to commit fraud: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_pumping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_pumping For reference, I haven't ever used the Google account for anything like Google Duo, Allo, Hangouts, etc. There was an appeal system linked in the message saying "You broke the terms", but when I filled it out, about 24 hrs later I got a response saying "You can't appeal if you broke the terms", which seems inconsistent at best. I managed to track down a Google support employee and basically told him "Hey, it should be obvious that I'm a real person and not a bot for a phone carrier". His response at first was "The appeal should work, let me know if it doesn't". I told him that it didn't work, and his response was "Well we're not allowed to help you if the automated system says you broke the terms. You must have broken the terms." Happy for you getting anything out of them other than a brick wall, at least. EDIT - To pre-empt some questions that may come up: I was using a unique, randomly generated password for my Google account. Plus, you have to be able to login to the account to see the "You broke the terms" message, so the password was definitely not changed.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  "Trust The Computer. The Computer is your friend!" We're descending into the parody dystopia envisioned in this game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game) In the early 90's, if I were to tell people that a mega-corporation would seek to take over all the world's information, and they would subject users to this Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare treatment straight out of the movie "Brazil," they'd think my brain was taken over by "Paranoia" the role playing game.

hs86 8y ago

Context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19487506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19487506

superasn 8y ago

Congrats on getting back but it's sad that this story had two be on frontpage of HN twice before they took notice and accepted their fault. Chances of this happening again are very slim for the next guy who falls prey to their faulty moderation (ai).

eyeareque 8y ago

I guess hacker news is the only place where google gives their customers support.

ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
I don't think they care about HN. It's too niche. I posted multiple times to reinstate my account but never got it reinstated.
- eyeareque 8y ago
  I should have stated the front page gets you support :)
nikanj 8y ago
They also deliver support on the front page of Reddit

gpm 8y ago

Jeremy says he wrote "something very close to" the following for his appeal, how would you have written it? > "Mommy Saver Plus was removed for 'deceptive ads' which is a little silly because there is no ads in the app. The attached screenshots have nothing to do with Mommy Saver Plus." I think it would be a bit too easy for someone a google employee reading this to go 'he's saying he doesn't consider them ads, and ranting about the screenshots out of frustration'. That's not a reasonable thing for the google employee to do, but it is a possible one. I think I would prefer something like > The evidence attached for removing "Mommy Saver Plus" are screenshots from a different app by a different developer. "Mommy Saver Plus" was removed for having "deceptive ads", but unlike the app in the screenshot "Mommy Saver Plus" doesn't have any ads, so clearly this was done in error. > Please see the attached screenshot of "Mommy Saver Plus" for comparison. > Thanks, > <Name>

jeremydeanlakey 8y ago
I agree. I included my wording specifically because of this. My response email to the rejection today was very clear. Unfortunately, it was also passive aggressive. Hopefully I'll learn to clear my head before reacting next time.
- gpm 8y ago
  I can't really blame you, people do all sorts of stupid things under anger/stress/etc... and that email, while not ideal, wasn't that bad. I've sent worse. I actually posted this hoping to spark some useful conversation on what a good email to send would be, unfortunately all I've got are upvotes instead
  - jeremydeanlakey 8y ago
    > unfortunately all I've got are upvotes instead I wouldn't call that unfortunate. You pretty much nailed it and no one has much to add.
    - gpm 8y ago

noobermin 8y ago

It would be nice again to question why must Google control everything and whether that's a good or bad thing.

majewsky 8y ago
No no, you got that all wrong. When you have an iOS device, it's Apple who controls everything. See? No monopoly!!!111

otterley 8y ago

I’m curious, you redacted something but don’t talk about it. What was the alleged “disguised app” you redacted, and why might they have thought you were disguising it? And why did you redact this fact?

Dylan16807 8y ago
It's in the screenshots in the previous post. The app on the right whose name is covered in a purple box. It's redacted because that app has nothing to do with OP.

neilv 8y ago

The frequent lack of due process by the app stores is another reason I've been trying to do Web-first, in some startup ideas I've been tossing around. I did ship a complex HTML5 Offline app for a client, and it was more pain than it should've been, but I made it work. (Tip: the two big mobile platform owners seem to have an obvious disincentive for HTML5 Offline to work well.) If I do something Web-first, it'll be handheld&desktop responsive, and I'll be keeping a smooth path to HTML5 Offline in mind as a possible alternative to the app stores.

nat8265639392 8y ago
Not an app developer. But isn’t a big reason for native apps just to harvest more metrics and data about your customers? (Not implying anything bad about that in this context btw)
- JimDabell 8y ago
  > But isn’t a big reason for native apps just to harvest more metrics and data about your customers? I've been a native app developer for ten years, I've worked on dozens and dozens of apps, and I know a tonne of app developers and entrepreneurs. I don't think I've come across a single case of somebody saying that they want an app for those reasons. The closest I can think of is a loyalty card app, and they got the usage data through use of the loyalty system, not by spying on your phone, and it didn't matter whether you used the plastic card, the website, or the app.

blunte 8y ago

There is no excuse for Google mistaking one app for another. They have literally all the data, so they know which app is which better than any other party in existence. It's their Play store! It bothers me greatly that not only can they shut down your app, but they can shut down your Google account (and any future accounts they might deem as being related...) What are the chances that they might accidentally (human failure or algo failure) believe one Google account is related to another "bad" account and close the good account? It certainly seems possible given that obviously Google does not have complete control over its systems.

andrewstuart 8y ago

As I posted about recently - big organisations need to have an ombudsman - a way to resolve problems when the company's ordinary support mechanisms fail to resolve issues. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19092039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19092039 It's silly that the only way to get big companies to resolve crazy failings in their normal processes is to take the problem public on social media. Instead they should have a built in process that operates outside their normal systems - an ombudsman who has the power and authority to instruct other areas of the organisation to make different decisions.

rhizome 8y ago
I'm not sure how you square that against the reality that many companies specifically and obviously do not have humans backing up these things. Do you think Google has never heard of human support? When you have hundreds of millions of people clamoring for your products, ignoring several million -- regardless of what the issues might be -- is easy. These things literally do not show up on their radar, which is why stupid shit like posting to HN about it is required to get a basic level of service and fairness out of the system. Their organization and priorities absolutely do not leave room for support for everyday people. There is zero evidence that they have any intentions of changing this, just like every other one of the past 20 years.
jakejarvis 8y ago
Wasn’t this, in theory, one of the selling points for upgrading to a paid Google One account? https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/02/google-finally-adds-consumer-customer-support-with-google-one/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/02/google-finally-adds-consum... I’d be interested to hear if anyone’s tried to take advantage of this, I’m upgraded to One for more storage but haven’t had a reason to test out their humanoids (yet). [edit: I’m definitely not suggesting Google One would have helped with this particular Play Store publishing predicament, for the record!]
kevingadd 8y ago
Having access to a Google employee won't change anything because even Google employees can't fight erroneous takedowns of their own content, or get abusive/inappropriate ToS-violating content taken down off of YouTube or Google News Source: me

anonlastname 8y ago

Google can be very difficult when it comes to approving add-ons for their add-on store as well. They approved my add-on that blocks porn ads on a certain website, but won't accept a trivial update on the grounds that it is too NSFW. They make you provide a screenshot to submit an add-on. I used a screenshot of the website it works on with the porn ads it blocks heavily pixelated. I can't think of any other way to take a screenshot of what my add-on does. So I guess users will have to do without the new update.

wolfgke 8y ago

"This part scares me: '... repeated violations can result in the suspension of this app or your Google Play Developer account.'" Learn the lessson not to make yourself dependent on a despot.