"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

"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