4 ms·

I'm not saying developers have a legal claim against Google, but that Google still owes them something, in the moral sense. Google could still deny appeals. Th

I'm not saying developers have a legal claim against Google, but that Google still owes them something, in the moral sense. Google could still deny appeals. They certainly would deny appeals. But having a real process with humans involved would be a healthy change compared to tripping an automated alarm and being locked out forever with no explanation. It's not about a human pressing the button, it's about a human actually being required to make a judgement and explain it, with reference to actual facts. The result of this process will be a yes/no decision attached to, I don't know, a paragraph or two of human-generated text referencing actual aspects of the app in question. Lots of administrative law works like this. Yes, your appeal may be denied. In fact, the people you're appealing to may even be part of the same bureaucracy that is causing you harm in the first place. But creating an actual process whereby claims are adjudicated (even if it's all totally internal) has some value!

endisneigh 6y ago
Again, in the article: https://groups.google.com/g/androidscript/c/Mbh5TZ6YYnA/m/GflwflqaDAAJ?pli=1 https://groups.google.com/g/androidscript/c/Mbh5TZ6YYnA/m/Gf... the person already speaks to a real person with an appeal and is still rejected. What else do you want Google to do? People need to stop making themselves so dependent on Google and Apple to begin with.
- roywiggins 6y ago
  "You can read through the Malware policy page for more details and examples of common violations." is not an explanation. It's not even specifying which part of the malware policy the app violated, just that it violated it. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about- that's not an explanation, it's a simulacrum. You can see that the replies from "Cindy" are canned. I'm saying that Google owes developers some sort of explanation that is not canned and actually at least references some sort of behavior or code contained the actual app in question. "Your app is bad and we don't like it, look at our bad things policy for examples of bad things we don't like" is not an explanation, "Your app is going this bad thing so we don't like it" is. It's like being fired for violating company policy without at least an explanation of what happened or what policy it was. Sure, maybe that's totally legal and above board, but companies don't have to behave that way- they can choose to write a good-faith paragraph about 1) what the bad thing was and 2) which policy it violated and 3) why it was a violation. I don't see any of that in their correspondence. I'm not saying this needs to go to an independent arbiter[0]. Google can choose what apps to allow. I'm saying that Google really does owe long-time developers explanations when they nuke their apps from orbit. [0] though, you know, the more they behave like this, the more politics may force it on them
  - endisneigh 6y ago
    It’s not really unusual for things to be vague. I don’t know of any organization that gives the level of specificity around decisions that you’re looking for.

endisneigh 6y ago

Again, in the article: https://groups.google.com/g/androidscript/c/Mbh5TZ6YYnA/m/GflwflqaDAAJ?pli=1 https://groups.google.com/g/androidscript/c/Mbh5TZ6YYnA/m/Gf... the person already speaks to a real person with an appeal and is still rejected. What else do you want Google to do? People need to stop making themselves so dependent on Google and Apple to begin with.

roywiggins 6y ago
"You can read through the Malware policy page for more details and examples of common violations." is not an explanation. It's not even specifying which part of the malware policy the app violated, just that it violated it. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about- that's not an explanation, it's a simulacrum. You can see that the replies from "Cindy" are canned. I'm saying that Google owes developers some sort of explanation that is not canned and actually at least references some sort of behavior or code contained the actual app in question. "Your app is bad and we don't like it, look at our bad things policy for examples of bad things we don't like" is not an explanation, "Your app is going this bad thing so we don't like it" is. It's like being fired for violating company policy without at least an explanation of what happened or what policy it was. Sure, maybe that's totally legal and above board, but companies don't have to behave that way- they can choose to write a good-faith paragraph about 1) what the bad thing was and 2) which policy it violated and 3) why it was a violation. I don't see any of that in their correspondence. I'm not saying this needs to go to an independent arbiter[0]. Google can choose what apps to allow. I'm saying that Google really does owe long-time developers explanations when they nuke their apps from orbit. [0] though, you know, the more they behave like this, the more politics may force it on them
- endisneigh 6y ago
  It’s not really unusual for things to be vague. I don’t know of any organization that gives the level of specificity around decisions that you’re looking for.