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Google destroyed our startup by terminating our Play Developer Account

477 points by busymom0 5y ago

njsubedi 5y ago
This happens so many times and some people posted it on HN before. The most common reply is that you should not put all your eggs in someone else’s basket. I’m amused no one has posted that comment yet. By the way, Google will most probably not restore the account, but I’d be interested to know whether it does because our startup is also similar to yours, and half of our eggs are in Google’s basket too. Please keep us (the community) updated.
- ourmandave 5y ago
  "You should not put all your eggs in someone else’s basket."
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- josephcsible 5y ago
  So if you want to write a mobile app, what are you supposed to do? Aren't your only choices to put all of your eggs in Google/Apple's baskets?
  - ant6n 5y ago
    To what extend could one use a website instead of an app?
    - 2cb 5y ago
      Depends on the app in question. OP is about a gaming company so using a website isn't a serious option.
  - techrat 5y ago
    > So if you want to write a mobile app, what are you supposed to do? Not hire someone who had been banned before due to ad fraud.
    - busymom0 5y ago
      Google isn't even telling you that that's what happened. Also as a developer who used to use ads until 5 years ago, I got a wrongful 1 month suspension claiming I was clicking my own ads even though I never did. It's obviously my words vs theirs but I know what my truth is. Yet Google claimed I was clicking my own ads and therefore gave me a 1 month suspension. That convinced me to stop using ads all together and since then, I have become even more reluctant to build Android apps. I just work on iOS apps instead. I hadn't built any android apps for past 5 years except last month when I finally built one because I was getting many user requests to have one.
      - techrat 5y ago
        I guess you missed all those stories of Apple doing the same thing to developers... even going as far as to shut down accounts when they want to use the features from their apps in the next version of iOS.
        busymom0 5y ago
        I have been making apps for both iOS and Android for past 10 years (I did take a 4 year break from Android though). While there's small bit of truth to your statement, I find dealing with Apple on pretty much every issue to be much better than dealing with Google. Maybe this is because of Apple charging the annual developer license fee. With Apple, I always get to deal with an actual human when they reject an app or update and while their descriptions can be a bit vague, it seems to direct me in the right direction to fix the issue. With Google, it's a nightmare. For example, recently they banned DroidScript, one of the most popular IDE on Android accusing them of committing Ad Fraud, and the developer had to create a whole media storm to get them to re-instate the app after 25 days: https://groups.google.com/g/androidscript/c/Mbh5TZ6YYnA https://groups.google.com/g/androidscript/c/Mbh5TZ6YYnA
  - kevingadd 5y ago
    Don't
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    The answer is simple don't make a mobile game. Write a web app or desktop application. It is the same as console games or anywhere someone else controls the platform.
    - terrortrain 5y ago
      I am generally following that advice. IMO the fact that this is the best path is clear evidence that we need mobile app store reform. It's mind boggling to me that people still defend this status quo
      - ipaddr 5y ago
        If control was somehow wrestled from them a second golden age of mobile apps would emerge.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  > I’m amused no one has posted that comment yet. It s probaly because it has become impossible not to put your eggs in the same 2 baskets. How else are people going to make an app / how are they going to launch a startup without an app? (I know it s possible to go web only, but they 'll probably not be taken seriously by investors)
  - busymom0 5y ago
    I am not the author of the article, I just posted it. The article is about game development so webdev isn't a serious option for the author either.
  - VLM 5y ago
    Very handwavy most of these stories seem to revolve around Google tying ad accounts and play store accounts, and having a VERY EXTREMELY heavy hand on ad accounts, which results in the banhammer smashing distantly related play store accounts. The safest way to handle this is probably to not use both google play store and google ads. Going to be pretty hard to make an app without Play Store so I guess that means no using Google Ads. Too dangerous and Google will not support. If you used, say, Facebook "audience network" ads, then no matter how angry Facebook gets, regardless if they're correct or not, at least your app would remain up. Also if you're launching a startup you're probably not making much from ads and as using google ads is a HUGE existential risk for any app developer, you'd best not use ads. Its not like any end user ever used a startup's app because they like how well they implemented the ads.
Eikon 5y ago
Maybe the issue here is making one's business solely dependant on a third party which is well known for that kind of behavior...
- mnahkies 5y ago
  What alternatives would you suggest? F-droid is the only one that comes to mind for me, and I'm not sure that this would be suitable for this company
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    I would suggest pivoting to a different non-mobile ecosystem.
  - 2cb 5y ago
    For their Android apps they can launch on third party app stores besides F-Droid, for example Amazon Appstore, Samsung Galaxy Store, Huawei App Gallery, and I'm sure there's plenty of others... most users are likely to be on Samsung phones or one of the Chinese brands so getting your app on those stores should cover a lot of the customer base already. For customers using other phones just tell them download Amazon Appstore and provide an APK download on the site for the lazy ones (but put a note saying using an app store is best to get updates etc.) While it does damage business to not be in the Play Store, thankfully Android is flexible enough it's not a total killer if you get into other app stores customers are likely to trust, and they are likely to trust the app stores that are preinstalled on their phones. It's also smart to not only be on one platform. Of course if their dev account got canned by Apple they really wouldn't have any alternatives, but it'd be very bad luck for them to genuinely have done nothing wrong but still have both Google and Apple ban them.
    - mnahkies 5y ago
      That's a really fair point - I had forgotten about the various manufacturer stores as I've never used them. Come to think of it, distributing an raw APK isn't even that unreasonable (though more difficult to get exposure) - AFAIK this is how most gambling/bookie apps are distributed.
throw_m239339 5y ago
What can I say... Oh yeah, that Google owes me a lot of money after terminating my adsense account for false reasons and added insult to injury by sending me a 50€ adword voucher to my _physical address_ like it solved anything?... It was like 10/15 years ago, now everytime I have an opportunity to suggest businesses I work with not to use any of Google services, including GCP, I do exactly that. I'd say, unless you signed an actual contract with Google, which agreeing to a bunch of random TOS really isn't, do not ever rely on Google services or SAAS, and certainly do not build your startup on any Google stack.
- ta1234567890 5y ago
  > now everytime I have an opportunity to suggest businesses I work with not to use any of Google services, including GCP, I do exactly that What would you recommend as a good alternative to google (and Facebook) ads?
  - edoceo 5y ago
    Reddit is like the #4 site in the USA. Can get pretty targeted too.
    - ta1234567890 5y ago
      Good suggestion. Unfortunately Reddit is not that popular for the target demographic I have in mind (B2B in a Spanish speaking country).
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    Why do you say "(and Facebook)"? Even if Facebook were this ban-happy, a lifetime ban from them is way, way less disruptive to most people's lives than a lifetime ban from Google is.
    - 2cb 5y ago
      I realise this is an edge case, but if you don't have an FB account but you set one up to create a page for your business and set up ads for it etc, it'll likely get shut down very quickly by FB's algorithms. So basically if you are a non-FB user you cannot use FB ads.
judge2020 5y ago
Might be similar to the last time this came up (i'm looking for it now, edit: found it[0]) where the developer worked with a sizable development-for-hire firm that were themselves associated with many other dev accounts, some of which ended up being suspended for ToS violations (possibly by this firm, possibly by the customer without the firm's knowledge). The anti-ban-evasion technology Google runs then effectively poisoned this firm's Play developer profile so that anyone working with them would be suspended for the potential ban evasion, eventually. Note that, for this specific case, it might not be a firm but one of the developers themselves that has a poisoned account thanks to past dealings that violated ToS. I imagine the system only banning by associate if the $25 developer account itself ever uploads an app so that it doesn't ban associated Google accounts for non-play-developer purposes. 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19124324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19124324 (comment explaining https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19124463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19124463 )
- jmole 5y ago
  Ad fraud = ban, it’s not much more complicated than that. It’s trivial to make a new developer account and release similar products, so as an App Store you can do things like looking for similarities between new apps and banned apps to root out simple “change of ownership” schemes like this. Google can’t afford to take this lightly, games with fraudulent ad clicks can generate (i.e. steal) millions of dollars in ad spend from businesses who think they are getting legitimate impressions.
  - busymom0 5y ago
    "Guilt by association" is a bad way to run companies - especially when you don't even know who and how someone is guilty. They also do not apply rules fairly. Bigger companies like Facebook, Uber etc get to have more of a "human" connection to sort out issues while the small developer doesn't even get told what exactly they did wrong.
    - sitkack 5y ago
      Which itself reinforces cartel behavior. The small players get the full force of the automated rulings, the large orgs get infinite levels of undo.
age_bronze 5y ago
Why is this legal? Why is it legal for Google to completely demolish a business with no human review, no due process and no excuse at all? Why do we keep hearing this without a single developer going forward and suing the hell out of Google? Or Apple by the way.
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  When I was a freelancer, I was warned by my legal help that taking a businesses site offline in response to non-payment was legally risky. There was a chance of being sued for disrupting their business. I wonder if there are grounds for a (reasonable) legal suit here. Anyone in the know that can fill us in?
  - tazjin 5y ago
    > I wonder if there are grounds for a (reasonable) legal suit here. Anyone in the know that can fill us in? If this was this company's only revenue stream, chances are they can't survive until such a lawsuit has dragged out to the end.
    - hollerith 5y ago
      That's OK: then any settlement gets distributed to the ex-company's shareholders. (Of course some entity needs to fund the lawsuit: if the company cannot, and the lawyers will not take it on contingency, then the shareholders would need to.)
  - unyttigfjelltol 5y ago
    You're talking about self-help that isn't in a contract, right? The OP is talking about self-help developer account suspension that presumably is a right listed in the applicable TOS.
- betaby 5y ago
  Because law enforcement is for the rich, that's why.
ourmandave 5y ago
For them it was the end of it all. For google, it was a Tuesday.
sourcecodeplz 5y ago
No real due diligence often leads to “disasters” like this.
ccvannorman 5y ago
1) As you know this is super common and there is no recourse. Abandon Google, read something by Kafka, have some whisky.. life isn't over. 2) Take your IP and rearchitect your games for web or other platforms. Despite losing your user reviews and published applications, you clearly have something of value that was trending up. DO NOT let Google smite your startup by simply banning you. Android phones are not the only place where your IP can continue to thrive. 3) If you don't want to rearchitect, Consider selling your IP to another mobile developer. IP with a track record of positive reviews/downloads/cash flow is pure gold. There are websites where you can list your business and IP such as EmpireFlippers and Flippa. 4) Lastly.. having a team who is competent, you enjoy working together, and has success under your belt is also gold. What else can you do with this team to take the world by storm? I envy your position; I have not a team nor 1M+ users anywhere. Good luck friend.
- bencollier49 5y ago
  Mostly great suggestions but number 3 is hilarious. "We are banning your account as it appears to be associated with a previously banned account".
tw04 5y ago
> As far as policy is concerned they have contacted us previously and we solved all of the issues to their satisfaction. He admits they were in violation of policy previously and fixed it, but then repeatedly states they’ve never violated any policies. Curious what the original violations were for. While I know Google is notorious for things like this, it feels like they’re not telling the whole story.
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  That is like saying.. we got our email blocked because we were sending spam, but we decided to stop sending spam and they still blocked our email.
- kordlessagain 5y ago
  > Also, one of our manager’s PCs was compromised so we have wiped entire hard drives to be sure that there is no virus in the network!
  - 2cb 5y ago
    Yeah this part and the other comments about multiple malware infections makes me think this is an issue they caused with poor security practices. Google support should still be better at this rather than banning with AI and never being flexible, but the developer is not exactly sounding blameless here.
    - mthoms 5y ago
      Don't worry, customer data is safe because it's located on a computer based in the U.S. /s
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      You can have your account temporarily locked due to bad security practices, but you shouldn’t be banned.
- VLM 5y ago
  Actually no, they didn't seem to admit any violations. I've been in this game awhile, dealing with Google is a continuous stream of "we have a new policy and you now have 30 days to provide the URL of your official formal legal privacy policy." or whatever new policy they invent. Usually its not terribly exciting or controversial. For example by next month ALL updated apps must target Android 11 aka API level 30 (AFAIK unless they've recently altered the date, etc). I'm not having a significant problem with that, but historically its been a pain occasionally. AFAIK all in-app subscriptions have to support account hold and restore as of next month, as a policy example, I'm not in that game, but as I understand, its perfectly OK to not support that today; just make sure its all good by Nov 1st. I see there's a new "data safety section" on the play app content page as of next April. I would casually interpret that as being similar but different from the privacy policy requirement in that the priv pol seems to cover all activities of a company whereas the app data safety section will lay out exactly what OS calls your app is making. Which begs the question of why the play store or the OS don't simply automate the whole thing seeing as they have a pretty good idea what the binaries are calling... Anyway the play store list of requirements is in continuous flux and has been for years and probably will continue to change until it closes someday. Just because they haven't announced the official deadline date probably sometime next year when you'll have to upload only Android 12 / API 31 as a minimum doesn't mean that just like clockwork "everyone" knows its coming in a year or two. The legal contract says they only have to give 30 days warning; honestly they're almost always far more generous. On one hand its continuous lifetime work for me until some random bot accidentally inevitably wipes me out; on the other hand its also not productive work and most of the changes Google demands don't really help anyone, not even GOOG. They're so random sometimes.
SteveGerencser 5y ago
The same thing can happen with Google Ads Accounts. I've seen a several ad agencies get totally destroyed when a client does something that violates the TOS and then you get the 'guilt by association' ban. Then this propagated out to all of their other client accounts because, well, guilt by association. Rather than Google taking the time and effort to identify the single issue, it's FAR easier for them to just ban anything that touched those accounts. It is hands down my single biggest worry when working with Google. And why I immediately revoke access for anyone (including me) that does not need direct, active, access to any account. There is simply no way to talk to a real human and say, look, I've been working with you since you launched and this one account way over here that's 'new' did something you don't like and now I'm banned for life?
- smoyer 5y ago
  On the other hand,if all ad agencies were totally destroyed that would eliminate the incentive to collect our personal data and profile our browsing/purchasing information.
- noway421 5y ago
  Would you consider password sharing the same account instead of inviting other people via email as a workaround? I'm thinking if it's only one account, the blast radius of 'guilt by association' is 0. Or does Google associates even if you're logged in into multiple accounts in the same browser?
  - 2cb 5y ago
    > Or does Google associates even if you're logged in into multiple accounts in the same browser? Of course they do. Fingerprinting browsers is extremely easy.
codinghermit 5y ago
Just submit it to the Amazon Appstore. According to Google they are a major competitor, right? Same same? Yes, I’m being sarcastic
- 2cb 5y ago
  Best non-sarcastic option is to submit to the OEM app stores like Samsung Galaxy Store and Huawei App Gallery.
gbajson 5y ago
Yet another similar story. Will your next startup also rely on Google?
barcoder 5y ago
"Competitors using our ad ids and publisher codes inside their policy incompliant apps and violates policy knowingly to trigger associate accounts!" Scary. So it sounds like they were attacked by a competitor and Google is not willing to support.
- pricecomstock 5y ago
  Your quote is a wild guess by them. The malware explanation after that sounds much more likely
heavyset_go 5y ago
This is a good example of how innovation, competition and small businesses are being stifled by the anticompetitive behavior of the mobile app distribution cartel. Consider contacting your state's Attorney General office, and the US Attorney General office. Many states' AG offices have antitrust divisions[1]. The US Dept. of Justice also has an Antitrust Division[2], along with a page that details how and why[3] to get in touch with them: > Information from the public is vital to the work of the Antitrust Division. Your e-mails, letters, and phone calls could be our first alert to a possible violation of antitrust laws and may provide the initial evidence needed to begin an investigation. The FTC has the Bureau of Competition[4], as well. [1] https://www.naag.org/issues/antitrust/ https://www.naag.org/issues/antitrust/ [2] https://www.justice.gov/atr https://www.justice.gov/atr [3] https://www.justice.gov/atr/report-violations https://www.justice.gov/atr/report-violations [4] https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-competition/about-bureau-competition https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-competi...
- pdonis 5y ago
  > This is a good example of how innovation, competition and small businesses are being stifled by the anticompetitive behavior of the mobile app distribution cartel. No, it's an example of how small businesses are foolishly making their business model dependent on a company that is known to be unreliable. What should be happening is that mobile app distributors should not be depending on Google at all; alternate mobile app stores should be out-competing them by providing better service to developers. If there is a "cartel" that is making that difficult, it's not the mobile app store gatekeepers, it's the mobile phone companies that are tilting the playing field sharply in favor of the Android phones they distribute, which are tied to Google Play Store, instead of allowing free and open competition in phone operating systems.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    The manufacturers' hands are tied. People aren't going to buy a phone that they can't run Snapchat and Netflix on.
    - 5y ago
postsantum 5y ago
After reading all these stories it feels like Google has a policy of "sunsetting" a certain amount of projects per year. When the company is out of them, it's gonna be yours
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
benlivengood 5y ago
The September intrusions detected sound pretty suspicious. I am sure there are plenty of bad actors trying to take over existing Google Developer accounts to use for spam/fraud, and it sounds like there was at least one compromised account and compromised device which could easily lead to other compromised accounts or persistent malware.
oblib 5y ago
Google owes me money too. They screwed me back in the early years of this century by billing me for ad "hits" that were clearly bogus and I've never used their services since. I still use their search engine but I always use duckduckgo first and I won't click on any of the advertised links the offer. Never. If anyone hasn't figured out by now that Google is a predator who'll screw them out of everything they can, including their startup ideas, they will sooner or later.
mchusma 5y ago
Googles process here is fundamentally broken, and so easily improved. I have had issues with them before and there should be: - a portal to see your status (it's often impossible to know if they even got your comment) - all comments and next steps clearly listed - send warnings before bans in all cases unless there is some kind of extreme safety thing - let developers respond to accusations before banning them These would be minimal technical effort on googles part, negligible safety impact, but dramatically improve the developer perspective of them.
ksec 5y ago
Normally I would have blame Google for it. But the whole post doesn't rhyme with me for some reason. The tone, the lack of information about themselves. I had to google it and found 6AceGames [1], all of their games are gambling games. Email address, Facebook and Twitter registered in May 2021. Lots of other small things. [1] http://www.6acegames.com/#contact-section http://www.6acegames.com/#contact-section
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  A million downloads for a company founded in May is pretty good, right? Is that be typical?
  - judge2020 5y ago
    Maybe, but a gambling app with localized listings for the top markets (India, US, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, Mexico[0]) can get you to 1 million with very little effort. 0: https://apptweak-blog.imgix.net/images/2019/08/18/total%20downloads%20both%20stores.png?auto=format https://apptweak-blog.imgix.net/images/2019/08/18/total%20do... (from https://www.apptweak.com/en/aso-blog/infographic-countries-with-most-app-downloads#:~:text=the%20Internet%20blocking.-,1.%20India%20is%20the%20most%20popular%20country%20in%20terms%20of%20app%20installs,-Across%20all%20countries https://www.apptweak.com/en/aso-blog/infographic-countries-w... )
- ricardobeat 5y ago
  Looks pretty sketchy indeed. The post says 15 developers, their website 65+. The reviews are written in the same broken English as their website. Their flagship game, “Tonk”, is nowhere to be found in the Apple App Store, but there are two other games with a very similar logo, published by other India-based companies. The same on Play store, where a bunch of identical looking games, with different publisher names, share similar logos [1]. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tonk.board.card&hl=en&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tonk.board.car...
  - MichaelZuo 5y ago
everyone 5y ago
Just out of curiosity can they not just upload all the games again with a new account?
- 2cb 5y ago
  They could but Google's AI would likely pick it up instantly and they actually would have broken the ban evasion rule at that point so they wouldn't have a leg to stand on when accusing Google of being unfair.
Terretta 5y ago
Little bit confused as I thought being open Android App Store instead of closed iOS App Store was supposed to mean this is totally not a problem? That’s the gist in the anti-Apple anti-walled-garden threads common during the Epic tussle; though some less popular comments have sounded skeptical, referencing stories like this. From this thread, sounds like Android gets you 15% of the consumer wallet share for app spend compared to iOS 85% wallet share of app spend, but still has enough distribution curation woes to “destroy our startup”? What’s the attraction then? Or is this melodramatic?
- 2cb 5y ago
  15% of the consumers is, I'm guessing, based on US marketshare? The company in the OP here is not American, and outside of the US, Android has the majority of the smartphone marketshare in most of the world. Despite what Americans often think this is not only true for "poor countries" either. In the UK it is pretty much 50/50 between iOS and Android. Most people have either an iPhone or Samsung. Usually the flagship models. So there's very good reasons to target Android and it is very possible OP's company is simply in a country where Android smartphones dominate the market, not iPhones. But yes regarding the Epic thing, you can indeed submit your apps to third party app stores including ones that come preinstalled on the major brands. Samsung Galaxy Store for example.
  - Terretta 5y ago
    Thanks. Note that share of handsets carried by consumers is very different from total and share of wallet spent on platform in U.K. too. Put another way, when iOS was carried by 20% of consumers, it accounted for 80% of mobile app spend. As a paid app dev, the second number is important. As an ad-ware app dev, the first number matters more. For advertising conversions… it depends.
bastardoperator 5y ago
It's this type of behavior that caused me to drop google for everything except search long ago. You are not the customer, you are the product or in many cases a vessel for the product which is ads and nothing more.
jeroenhd 5y ago
My guess, assuming the company is innocent and that this wasn't just a thinly veiled attempt by Google to purge the developers' gambling apps: Google bans accounts by association. One of their accounts was logged into during a hack. They blocked the device, but the notification usually comes only after the login has already succeeded. Assuming this wasn't the criminal's first hack, their device probably got flagged before by Google. If Google applied their logic to that device, they flagged this company's account (and probably all of these people's own Google accounts by association). Google won't comment on this so I suppose we'll never know for sure. However, when the next company that the people behind this startup joins also gets banned, I'd consider the viral properties of Google bans proven and these developers could be considered "tainted" by our tech overlords.
helloguillecl 5y ago
A way to think about this is to see Google (or Apple) as a De-Facto State which governs a very important "ecosystem" in which customers and other businesses rely almost exclusively on. Its very existence depends on businesses and people relaying for important aspects of their existence on them. This is how they stay big and relevant. In this environment they must make decisions for the sake of their their own interests and sometimes to protect other users. The problem is that like any non-democratic state there's no balance in power between the executive power (the company and its algorithms) and their stakeholders, so I would expect this to get worst and more damaging over time. Is it possible that they put their actions under the inspection of another entity? Can we expect that every government and legislation put their own rules to govern Google and protect its users from them?
JesusRobotics 5y ago
I’ve noticed a lot mobile games that are also on steam.
_hao 5y ago
Google are horrendous (business partner), but at least you can publish and install .apk files without a store. Whether that's a sustainable business model is another thing entirely, but at least you can do it. Not even going to talk about Apple since that's just a more extreme example of the same problem. From my POV, if you have a business and you rely entirely (or for the majority) of your income from these platforms, then your business is not sustainable and is not competitive. You're playing at a rigged game and you will most likely lose. I stopped using 3rd party game engines for the same reason. I want to control my source and the potential income I get (if any). A lot of people won't agree with that. That's fine. Google and Apple's duopoly and their respective ecosystems are not good for the future of software. People have to take a stand at some point. These companies want to control every part of the tech stack (and our lives to extent), you should fight against that. We should all fight against that.
- danuker 5y ago
  > You're playing at a rigged game and you will most likely lose. Then the whole smartphone market is rigged. This is why I as a consumer will not buy a new smartphone anymore. I went for a year or so without a smartphone at all. What I missed the most was maps, but you'd be surprised to learn how better off you are without social media pinging you 24/7. I now use a second-hand smartphone without a Google account, and I use OsmAnd for maps.
  - _hao 5y ago
    > Then the whole smartphone market is rigged. Yes, it is rigged. I've had Android, WP (which I liked the most because of the tiles) and now I'm on iOS. I don't have social media on my phone. I use it for banking and maps mostly, but I also communicate with family through WhatsApp :/ I wish I could just get rid of it, but it's not possible for me to just use e-mail... At least not yet.
  - 2cb 5y ago
    It genuinely does wonders for mental health to disable notifications for social media apps. Definitely agree there.
- 5y ago
ObamaBinSpying 5y ago
This is one reason why I was hoping web apps would be more popular then jail-apps... I'm still hoping for an open future but I'm not holding my breath... why even block linux native apps on android?
vuln 5y ago
Just build your own phone/App Store/Bank/social media platform/hosting company It’s not hard /s
cronix 5y ago
I've talked to too many people who staunchly state that "it's a private company" when it comes to not caring about censorship in one sentence, but decry actions like this in the next, to really think there is an adequately beneficial solution to these types of problems.
iJohnDoe 5y ago
I have a feeling these things are caused by jealous Google engineers. Once they see an app or company being successful they will find ways to mess up the business. Either through their store account or their Google rankings. We’ve seen these stories too many times.
- throwaway982j 5y ago
  Disclaimer: I work for Google, not involved with app moderation. I am pretty sure most engineers don't have access to do such things. And certain that doing something like that is an effective way to terminate ones career. I'm also pretty sure no lawyers at Google want anyone to get manually involved with search rankings. If anyone did that it would open a massive can of worms, one the smart lawyers knows should never be opened.
  - iJohnDoe 5y ago
    Obviously, I cannot say for certain if what you’re saying is correct or incorrect. However, if you’ve read HN for any length of time, you would have seen that Google clearly manipulates search results to control competition or to punish certain companies. Furthermore, no company would be asinine enough to allow bots, AI, or ML make decisions without a way to undo those changes. This tells me that Google employees are doing these things or your contractors are.
    - 2cb 5y ago
      > Furthermore, no company would be asinine enough to allow bots, AI, or ML make decisions without a way to undo those changes. Sadly this is actually the norm across all these big tech platforms these days. Algorithm bans an account, humans might give it a look later if a big enough fuss is kicked up about it, else there is no appeals. Of course there is a button a human can press to undo these things, but the trouble is getting a human to bother looking at it in the first place. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Discord all do the same thing.
viktorcode 5y ago
Based on the author withholding some key details, my take is they know more than they say on why the account was terminated. The whole post was written assuming (correctly) that Google is too big to respond publicly and tell their side of the story, which would undoubtedly garner some support.
dave333 5y ago
This is par for the course with Google. Many Adsense accounts have been terminated for similarly vague policy violations. I am sure they catch a lot of bad actors, but they also catch a lot of folks who have no clue what they have done wrong, in many cases losing a large part of their income. Google does send warning emails, but they are so vague as to be useless in figuring out the violation.
jschveibinz 5y ago
I haven’t read all of the comments, but I would like to add this note of caution to all startup founders: if your startup innovation, technology or business model is largely based on someone else’s capability and that capability alone, then you have designed a single point of failure into your business and a high degree of risk to your future business viability. Using capabilities like Google or Amazon have to offer is a great way to prototype your solution and to get initial customer feedback. But you can’t depend upon these services always being available. For example, just look at the number of products and interfaces that Google has changed or canceled in the past 15 years. So if you do decide to take this approach, just go into it knowing the risk you are taking.
karaterobot 5y ago
It must be said that, to the extent Google destroyed their startup, it also created it by launching an app store. This developer built their apps on top of Google's ecosystem, in a world where these kinds of executions have happened before, many times, to many frustrated developers. It is true that developers cannot make their own operating system and marketplace to compete with Google's, but it's also true that they do not need to get into the business of selling games on Google's Play Store in the first place. Equally true is the fact that Google is known to be an unfair, capricious, uncommunicative, and disinterested landlord.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mrtweetyhack 5y ago
10 games in 3 years...yeah, that's not sketchy at all
noway421 5y ago
As a mobile apps developer, this is extremely concerning to me. Google has a big crisis of trust. I no longer feel safe to even have personal apps connected to my real Google account - what if the Developer Account gets banned and my main email, Google Drive and all my life along with it? There were instances of people's entire Google accounts gone. That is catastrophic. I now believe it is my duty to detract anyone from using Google Play-serviced Android devices. With the way Google treats their developers they should pay the price of shrinking market share. I hope a change comes and Google starts being a more customer focused company. But they are notorious for providing bad customer support, and I just can't count on it.
Trias11 5y ago
This never ends. People never learn. Someone bets success of their business solely on grace of someone else's private platform and then disaster strikes. You been booted for whatever reason they felt like. What were you thinking? Generocity and grace of FAANG's will never end?
argvargc 5y ago
This somehow inspired me to type "google destroyed" into HN search. Didn't disappoint.
missedthecue 5y ago
About 5 years ago I made a little app as a side project when I was learning to program. My play developer account was terminated without warning for breaking intellectual copyright rules. I appealed and received an (automated?) response that my account would not be reinstated because I violated the publisher rules. The rule they said I broke? I integrated Spotify's API, which has a login page with the Spotify logo in it, and you're not allowed to use another company's logo inside your app. Ridiculous, yes but it was more of a bummer than anything. This wasn't a startup, I didn't have investors or a lot at stake. I lost about $50 and a few hours time (and a Google Play Developer account). The silliest thing was that if I could just get on the phone with a real human at a Google for five minutes they would have seen how ridiculous my ban was and the issue would have been resolved, no big deal. But alas, no human to be had, only an algorithm with too much power. I did some research on dev forums and found that several people had successfully sued Google and got their account back over wrongful terminations, (Didn't sound too expensive or difficult, most of the time Google didn't even show up in court) but according to the ToS you agree to, you have sue them in Mountain View if you bring legal action over anything. I get why app stores ban publishers, I get why they don't just let everyone publish whatever they want. I bet for every false positive ban like mine, they ban 1000 Russian bot accounts spamming malware. We don't see the mountains of avoided malware, just the auto-banhammer going rogue from time to time. But if Apple and Google just had the slightest bit of customer support this would be much less of an issue.
6AceGames 5y ago
Hello there, I'm the OP here! First of all sorry for my bad English. It is not my first language so. Thanks for the open discussion and your support! It's my bad i should have mentioned more stuff to our medium post so that it won't leave readers with any confusions. Please pardon me as this was my first post. I've never had written anything before. You might got some questions like Q: Who are we? A: We are simply a india based gaming startup. We had 8-10 games published on our plays store account. Q:Why do we mentions address of UK on our tweeter handle? A:. According to google policy we have to provide a physical address if we want to use in-app-purchases. This physical address is visible publicly on our games pages. Reason providing our uk address is we have a representative living there who can reply to any type of physical communications such as letters on behalf of us. He also can reply to various other stuffs like GDPR and different other policies. For ex. You can send a latter to the given address to get in touch with us!Please note that google asks for communication address not the business registered address to show it publicly. Our business registration address already submitted to them but it's not just public. Q: Where can i find your games incase i want to see them? A: You can find it on apk pure. You can search "tonk" you'be able to see our account "6Ace Games", also we had added the link in our medium post in bottom. Please check! Q:How me monetized our games? A: Through admob and in-app products. Nothing shady! Q: Does the games targeting children? A: No not at all, all our games are rated 18+ adult category Q:Our games was providing gambling? A: No, It's just simulations. You can't win money or bet money, Not at all! Q: what about your domain 6acegames.com? A: Yes, our domain 6acegames.com is new. The reason behind it is very silly you may find it funny but still let me tell you!, at first we have bought domain sixacegames.com(you can check reg. details) thinking it will help in seo and all because we didn't want to include a number "6" in our domain. But later after our games got popular user started searching for 6Acegames that's why we bought this domain as well in may 2021 just to build the presence on google search. Q:Why no presence on LinkedIn? A: Try searching "Whyphy Infotech". 6Acegames is just business name we use! Q: What about social media? A:we are not very active in social media. As you can see in our tweeter handle we have 0 followers. The reason is simple we never promoted it to our users. Although we have some followers on our Instagram handle, but they follow us because we provide free perks occasionally to our audience. Please read to my updated post on medium!
howardg 5y ago
Huge kudos to Google for stopping a shady studio that can hardly secure its own network from releasing possibly security compromised apps to Android users!

477 points by busymom0 5y ago

This happens so many times and some people posted it on HN before. The most common reply is that you should not put all your eggs in someone else’s basket. I’m amused no one has posted that comment yet. By the way, Google will most probably not restore the account, but I’d be interested to know whether it does because our startup is also similar to yours, and half of our eggs are in Google’s basket too. Please keep us (the community) updated.

ourmandave 5y ago
"You should not put all your eggs in someone else’s basket."
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
josephcsible 5y ago
So if you want to write a mobile app, what are you supposed to do? Aren't your only choices to put all of your eggs in Google/Apple's baskets?
- ant6n 5y ago
  To what extend could one use a website instead of an app?
  - 2cb 5y ago
    Depends on the app in question. OP is about a gaming company so using a website isn't a serious option.
- techrat 5y ago
  > So if you want to write a mobile app, what are you supposed to do? Not hire someone who had been banned before due to ad fraud.
  - busymom0 5y ago
    Google isn't even telling you that that's what happened. Also as a developer who used to use ads until 5 years ago, I got a wrongful 1 month suspension claiming I was clicking my own ads even though I never did. It's obviously my words vs theirs but I know what my truth is. Yet Google claimed I was clicking my own ads and therefore gave me a 1 month suspension. That convinced me to stop using ads all together and since then, I have become even more reluctant to build Android apps. I just work on iOS apps instead. I hadn't built any android apps for past 5 years except last month when I finally built one because I was getting many user requests to have one.
    - techrat 5y ago
      I guess you missed all those stories of Apple doing the same thing to developers... even going as far as to shut down accounts when they want to use the features from their apps in the next version of iOS.
      - busymom0 5y ago
        I have been making apps for both iOS and Android for past 10 years (I did take a 4 year break from Android though). While there's small bit of truth to your statement, I find dealing with Apple on pretty much every issue to be much better than dealing with Google. Maybe this is because of Apple charging the annual developer license fee. With Apple, I always get to deal with an actual human when they reject an app or update and while their descriptions can be a bit vague, it seems to direct me in the right direction to fix the issue. With Google, it's a nightmare. For example, recently they banned DroidScript, one of the most popular IDE on Android accusing them of committing Ad Fraud, and the developer had to create a whole media storm to get them to re-instate the app after 25 days: https://groups.google.com/g/androidscript/c/Mbh5TZ6YYnA https://groups.google.com/g/androidscript/c/Mbh5TZ6YYnA
- kevingadd 5y ago
  Don't
- ipaddr 5y ago
  The answer is simple don't make a mobile game. Write a web app or desktop application. It is the same as console games or anywhere someone else controls the platform.
  - terrortrain 5y ago
    I am generally following that advice. IMO the fact that this is the best path is clear evidence that we need mobile app store reform. It's mind boggling to me that people still defend this status quo
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      If control was somehow wrestled from them a second golden age of mobile apps would emerge.
cblconfederate 5y ago
> I’m amused no one has posted that comment yet. It s probaly because it has become impossible not to put your eggs in the same 2 baskets. How else are people going to make an app / how are they going to launch a startup without an app? (I know it s possible to go web only, but they 'll probably not be taken seriously by investors)
- busymom0 5y ago
  I am not the author of the article, I just posted it. The article is about game development so webdev isn't a serious option for the author either.
- VLM 5y ago
  Very handwavy most of these stories seem to revolve around Google tying ad accounts and play store accounts, and having a VERY EXTREMELY heavy hand on ad accounts, which results in the banhammer smashing distantly related play store accounts. The safest way to handle this is probably to not use both google play store and google ads. Going to be pretty hard to make an app without Play Store so I guess that means no using Google Ads. Too dangerous and Google will not support. If you used, say, Facebook "audience network" ads, then no matter how angry Facebook gets, regardless if they're correct or not, at least your app would remain up. Also if you're launching a startup you're probably not making much from ads and as using google ads is a HUGE existential risk for any app developer, you'd best not use ads. Its not like any end user ever used a startup's app because they like how well they implemented the ads.

Eikon 5y ago

Maybe the issue here is making one's business solely dependant on a third party which is well known for that kind of behavior...

mnahkies 5y ago
What alternatives would you suggest? F-droid is the only one that comes to mind for me, and I'm not sure that this would be suitable for this company
- ipaddr 5y ago
  I would suggest pivoting to a different non-mobile ecosystem.
- 2cb 5y ago
  For their Android apps they can launch on third party app stores besides F-Droid, for example Amazon Appstore, Samsung Galaxy Store, Huawei App Gallery, and I'm sure there's plenty of others... most users are likely to be on Samsung phones or one of the Chinese brands so getting your app on those stores should cover a lot of the customer base already. For customers using other phones just tell them download Amazon Appstore and provide an APK download on the site for the lazy ones (but put a note saying using an app store is best to get updates etc.) While it does damage business to not be in the Play Store, thankfully Android is flexible enough it's not a total killer if you get into other app stores customers are likely to trust, and they are likely to trust the app stores that are preinstalled on their phones. It's also smart to not only be on one platform. Of course if their dev account got canned by Apple they really wouldn't have any alternatives, but it'd be very bad luck for them to genuinely have done nothing wrong but still have both Google and Apple ban them.
  - mnahkies 5y ago
    That's a really fair point - I had forgotten about the various manufacturer stores as I've never used them. Come to think of it, distributing an raw APK isn't even that unreasonable (though more difficult to get exposure) - AFAIK this is how most gambling/bookie apps are distributed.

throw_m239339 5y ago

What can I say... Oh yeah, that Google owes me a lot of money after terminating my adsense account for false reasons and added insult to injury by sending me a 50€ adword voucher to my _physical address_ like it solved anything?... It was like 10/15 years ago, now everytime I have an opportunity to suggest businesses I work with not to use any of Google services, including GCP, I do exactly that. I'd say, unless you signed an actual contract with Google, which agreeing to a bunch of random TOS really isn't, do not ever rely on Google services or SAAS, and certainly do not build your startup on any Google stack.

ta1234567890 5y ago
> now everytime I have an opportunity to suggest businesses I work with not to use any of Google services, including GCP, I do exactly that What would you recommend as a good alternative to google (and Facebook) ads?
- edoceo 5y ago
  Reddit is like the #4 site in the USA. Can get pretty targeted too.
  - ta1234567890 5y ago
    Good suggestion. Unfortunately Reddit is not that popular for the target demographic I have in mind (B2B in a Spanish speaking country).
- josephcsible 5y ago
  Why do you say "(and Facebook)"? Even if Facebook were this ban-happy, a lifetime ban from them is way, way less disruptive to most people's lives than a lifetime ban from Google is.
  - 2cb 5y ago
    I realise this is an edge case, but if you don't have an FB account but you set one up to create a page for your business and set up ads for it etc, it'll likely get shut down very quickly by FB's algorithms. So basically if you are a non-FB user you cannot use FB ads.

judge2020 5y ago

Might be similar to the last time this came up (i'm looking for it now, edit: found it[0]) where the developer worked with a sizable development-for-hire firm that were themselves associated with many other dev accounts, some of which ended up being suspended for ToS violations (possibly by this firm, possibly by the customer without the firm's knowledge). The anti-ban-evasion technology Google runs then effectively poisoned this firm's Play developer profile so that anyone working with them would be suspended for the potential ban evasion, eventually. Note that, for this specific case, it might not be a firm but one of the developers themselves that has a poisoned account thanks to past dealings that violated ToS. I imagine the system only banning by associate if the $25 developer account itself ever uploads an app so that it doesn't ban associated Google accounts for non-play-developer purposes. 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19124324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19124324 (comment explaining https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19124463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19124463 )

jmole 5y ago
Ad fraud = ban, it’s not much more complicated than that. It’s trivial to make a new developer account and release similar products, so as an App Store you can do things like looking for similarities between new apps and banned apps to root out simple “change of ownership” schemes like this. Google can’t afford to take this lightly, games with fraudulent ad clicks can generate (i.e. steal) millions of dollars in ad spend from businesses who think they are getting legitimate impressions.
- busymom0 5y ago
  "Guilt by association" is a bad way to run companies - especially when you don't even know who and how someone is guilty. They also do not apply rules fairly. Bigger companies like Facebook, Uber etc get to have more of a "human" connection to sort out issues while the small developer doesn't even get told what exactly they did wrong.
  - sitkack 5y ago
    Which itself reinforces cartel behavior. The small players get the full force of the automated rulings, the large orgs get infinite levels of undo.

age_bronze 5y ago

Why is this legal? Why is it legal for Google to completely demolish a business with no human review, no due process and no excuse at all? Why do we keep hearing this without a single developer going forward and suing the hell out of Google? Or Apple by the way.

vorpalhex 5y ago
When I was a freelancer, I was warned by my legal help that taking a businesses site offline in response to non-payment was legally risky. There was a chance of being sued for disrupting their business. I wonder if there are grounds for a (reasonable) legal suit here. Anyone in the know that can fill us in?
- tazjin 5y ago
  > I wonder if there are grounds for a (reasonable) legal suit here. Anyone in the know that can fill us in? If this was this company's only revenue stream, chances are they can't survive until such a lawsuit has dragged out to the end.
  - hollerith 5y ago
    That's OK: then any settlement gets distributed to the ex-company's shareholders. (Of course some entity needs to fund the lawsuit: if the company cannot, and the lawyers will not take it on contingency, then the shareholders would need to.)
- unyttigfjelltol 5y ago
  You're talking about self-help that isn't in a contract, right? The OP is talking about self-help developer account suspension that presumably is a right listed in the applicable TOS.
betaby 5y ago
Because law enforcement is for the rich, that's why.

ourmandave 5y ago

For them it was the end of it all. For google, it was a Tuesday.

sourcecodeplz 5y ago

No real due diligence often leads to “disasters” like this.

ccvannorman 5y ago

1) As you know this is super common and there is no recourse. Abandon Google, read something by Kafka, have some whisky.. life isn't over. 2) Take your IP and rearchitect your games for web or other platforms. Despite losing your user reviews and published applications, you clearly have something of value that was trending up. DO NOT let Google smite your startup by simply banning you. Android phones are not the only place where your IP can continue to thrive. 3) If you don't want to rearchitect, Consider selling your IP to another mobile developer. IP with a track record of positive reviews/downloads/cash flow is pure gold. There are websites where you can list your business and IP such as EmpireFlippers and Flippa. 4) Lastly.. having a team who is competent, you enjoy working together, and has success under your belt is also gold. What else can you do with this team to take the world by storm? I envy your position; I have not a team nor 1M+ users anywhere. Good luck friend.

bencollier49 5y ago
Mostly great suggestions but number 3 is hilarious. "We are banning your account as it appears to be associated with a previously banned account".

tw04 5y ago

> As far as policy is concerned they have contacted us previously and we solved all of the issues to their satisfaction. He admits they were in violation of policy previously and fixed it, but then repeatedly states they’ve never violated any policies. Curious what the original violations were for. While I know Google is notorious for things like this, it feels like they’re not telling the whole story.

encryptluks2 5y ago
That is like saying.. we got our email blocked because we were sending spam, but we decided to stop sending spam and they still blocked our email.
kordlessagain 5y ago
> Also, one of our manager’s PCs was compromised so we have wiped entire hard drives to be sure that there is no virus in the network!
- 2cb 5y ago
  Yeah this part and the other comments about multiple malware infections makes me think this is an issue they caused with poor security practices. Google support should still be better at this rather than banning with AI and never being flexible, but the developer is not exactly sounding blameless here.
  - mthoms 5y ago
    Don't worry, customer data is safe because it's located on a computer based in the U.S. /s
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    You can have your account temporarily locked due to bad security practices, but you shouldn’t be banned.
VLM 5y ago
Actually no, they didn't seem to admit any violations. I've been in this game awhile, dealing with Google is a continuous stream of "we have a new policy and you now have 30 days to provide the URL of your official formal legal privacy policy." or whatever new policy they invent. Usually its not terribly exciting or controversial. For example by next month ALL updated apps must target Android 11 aka API level 30 (AFAIK unless they've recently altered the date, etc). I'm not having a significant problem with that, but historically its been a pain occasionally. AFAIK all in-app subscriptions have to support account hold and restore as of next month, as a policy example, I'm not in that game, but as I understand, its perfectly OK to not support that today; just make sure its all good by Nov 1st. I see there's a new "data safety section" on the play app content page as of next April. I would casually interpret that as being similar but different from the privacy policy requirement in that the priv pol seems to cover all activities of a company whereas the app data safety section will lay out exactly what OS calls your app is making. Which begs the question of why the play store or the OS don't simply automate the whole thing seeing as they have a pretty good idea what the binaries are calling... Anyway the play store list of requirements is in continuous flux and has been for years and probably will continue to change until it closes someday. Just because they haven't announced the official deadline date probably sometime next year when you'll have to upload only Android 12 / API 31 as a minimum doesn't mean that just like clockwork "everyone" knows its coming in a year or two. The legal contract says they only have to give 30 days warning; honestly they're almost always far more generous. On one hand its continuous lifetime work for me until some random bot accidentally inevitably wipes me out; on the other hand its also not productive work and most of the changes Google demands don't really help anyone, not even GOOG. They're so random sometimes.

SteveGerencser 5y ago

The same thing can happen with Google Ads Accounts. I've seen a several ad agencies get totally destroyed when a client does something that violates the TOS and then you get the 'guilt by association' ban. Then this propagated out to all of their other client accounts because, well, guilt by association. Rather than Google taking the time and effort to identify the single issue, it's FAR easier for them to just ban anything that touched those accounts. It is hands down my single biggest worry when working with Google. And why I immediately revoke access for anyone (including me) that does not need direct, active, access to any account. There is simply no way to talk to a real human and say, look, I've been working with you since you launched and this one account way over here that's 'new' did something you don't like and now I'm banned for life?

smoyer 5y ago
On the other hand,if all ad agencies were totally destroyed that would eliminate the incentive to collect our personal data and profile our browsing/purchasing information.
noway421 5y ago
Would you consider password sharing the same account instead of inviting other people via email as a workaround? I'm thinking if it's only one account, the blast radius of 'guilt by association' is 0. Or does Google associates even if you're logged in into multiple accounts in the same browser?
- 2cb 5y ago
  > Or does Google associates even if you're logged in into multiple accounts in the same browser? Of course they do. Fingerprinting browsers is extremely easy.

codinghermit 5y ago

Just submit it to the Amazon Appstore. According to Google they are a major competitor, right? Same same? Yes, I’m being sarcastic

2cb 5y ago
Best non-sarcastic option is to submit to the OEM app stores like Samsung Galaxy Store and Huawei App Gallery.

gbajson 5y ago

Yet another similar story. Will your next startup also rely on Google?

barcoder 5y ago

"Competitors using our ad ids and publisher codes inside their policy incompliant apps and violates policy knowingly to trigger associate accounts!" Scary. So it sounds like they were attacked by a competitor and Google is not willing to support.

pricecomstock 5y ago
Your quote is a wild guess by them. The malware explanation after that sounds much more likely

heavyset_go 5y ago

This is a good example of how innovation, competition and small businesses are being stifled by the anticompetitive behavior of the mobile app distribution cartel. Consider contacting your state's Attorney General office, and the US Attorney General office. Many states' AG offices have antitrust divisions[1]. The US Dept. of Justice also has an Antitrust Division[2], along with a page that details how and why[3] to get in touch with them: > Information from the public is vital to the work of the Antitrust Division. Your e-mails, letters, and phone calls could be our first alert to a possible violation of antitrust laws and may provide the initial evidence needed to begin an investigation. The FTC has the Bureau of Competition[4], as well. [1] https://www.naag.org/issues/antitrust/ https://www.naag.org/issues/antitrust/ [2] https://www.justice.gov/atr https://www.justice.gov/atr [3] https://www.justice.gov/atr/report-violations https://www.justice.gov/atr/report-violations [4] https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-competition/about-bureau-competition https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-competi...

pdonis 5y ago
> This is a good example of how innovation, competition and small businesses are being stifled by the anticompetitive behavior of the mobile app distribution cartel. No, it's an example of how small businesses are foolishly making their business model dependent on a company that is known to be unreliable. What should be happening is that mobile app distributors should not be depending on Google at all; alternate mobile app stores should be out-competing them by providing better service to developers. If there is a "cartel" that is making that difficult, it's not the mobile app store gatekeepers, it's the mobile phone companies that are tilting the playing field sharply in favor of the Android phones they distribute, which are tied to Google Play Store, instead of allowing free and open competition in phone operating systems.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  The manufacturers' hands are tied. People aren't going to buy a phone that they can't run Snapchat and Netflix on.
  - 5y ago

postsantum 5y ago

After reading all these stories it feels like Google has a policy of "sunsetting" a certain amount of projects per year. When the company is out of them, it's gonna be yours

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

benlivengood 5y ago

The September intrusions detected sound pretty suspicious. I am sure there are plenty of bad actors trying to take over existing Google Developer accounts to use for spam/fraud, and it sounds like there was at least one compromised account and compromised device which could easily lead to other compromised accounts or persistent malware.

oblib 5y ago

Google owes me money too. They screwed me back in the early years of this century by billing me for ad "hits" that were clearly bogus and I've never used their services since. I still use their search engine but I always use duckduckgo first and I won't click on any of the advertised links the offer. Never. If anyone hasn't figured out by now that Google is a predator who'll screw them out of everything they can, including their startup ideas, they will sooner or later.

mchusma 5y ago

Googles process here is fundamentally broken, and so easily improved. I have had issues with them before and there should be: - a portal to see your status (it's often impossible to know if they even got your comment) - all comments and next steps clearly listed - send warnings before bans in all cases unless there is some kind of extreme safety thing - let developers respond to accusations before banning them These would be minimal technical effort on googles part, negligible safety impact, but dramatically improve the developer perspective of them.

ksec 5y ago

Normally I would have blame Google for it. But the whole post doesn't rhyme with me for some reason. The tone, the lack of information about themselves. I had to google it and found 6AceGames [1], all of their games are gambling games. Email address, Facebook and Twitter registered in May 2021. Lots of other small things. [1] http://www.6acegames.com/#contact-section http://www.6acegames.com/#contact-section

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
A million downloads for a company founded in May is pretty good, right? Is that be typical?
- judge2020 5y ago
  Maybe, but a gambling app with localized listings for the top markets (India, US, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, Mexico[0]) can get you to 1 million with very little effort. 0: https://apptweak-blog.imgix.net/images/2019/08/18/total%20downloads%20both%20stores.png?auto=format https://apptweak-blog.imgix.net/images/2019/08/18/total%20do... (from https://www.apptweak.com/en/aso-blog/infographic-countries-with-most-app-downloads#:~:text=the%20Internet%20blocking.-,1.%20India%20is%20the%20most%20popular%20country%20in%20terms%20of%20app%20installs,-Across%20all%20countries https://www.apptweak.com/en/aso-blog/infographic-countries-w... )
ricardobeat 5y ago
Looks pretty sketchy indeed. The post says 15 developers, their website 65+. The reviews are written in the same broken English as their website. Their flagship game, “Tonk”, is nowhere to be found in the Apple App Store, but there are two other games with a very similar logo, published by other India-based companies. The same on Play store, where a bunch of identical looking games, with different publisher names, share similar logos [1]. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tonk.board.card&hl=en&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tonk.board.car...
- MichaelZuo 5y ago

everyone 5y ago

Just out of curiosity can they not just upload all the games again with a new account?

2cb 5y ago
They could but Google's AI would likely pick it up instantly and they actually would have broken the ban evasion rule at that point so they wouldn't have a leg to stand on when accusing Google of being unfair.

Terretta 5y ago

Little bit confused as I thought being open Android App Store instead of closed iOS App Store was supposed to mean this is totally not a problem? That’s the gist in the anti-Apple anti-walled-garden threads common during the Epic tussle; though some less popular comments have sounded skeptical, referencing stories like this. From this thread, sounds like Android gets you 15% of the consumer wallet share for app spend compared to iOS 85% wallet share of app spend, but still has enough distribution curation woes to “destroy our startup”? What’s the attraction then? Or is this melodramatic?

2cb 5y ago
15% of the consumers is, I'm guessing, based on US marketshare? The company in the OP here is not American, and outside of the US, Android has the majority of the smartphone marketshare in most of the world. Despite what Americans often think this is not only true for "poor countries" either. In the UK it is pretty much 50/50 between iOS and Android. Most people have either an iPhone or Samsung. Usually the flagship models. So there's very good reasons to target Android and it is very possible OP's company is simply in a country where Android smartphones dominate the market, not iPhones. But yes regarding the Epic thing, you can indeed submit your apps to third party app stores including ones that come preinstalled on the major brands. Samsung Galaxy Store for example.
- Terretta 5y ago
  Thanks. Note that share of handsets carried by consumers is very different from total and share of wallet spent on platform in U.K. too. Put another way, when iOS was carried by 20% of consumers, it accounted for 80% of mobile app spend. As a paid app dev, the second number is important. As an ad-ware app dev, the first number matters more. For advertising conversions… it depends.

bastardoperator 5y ago

It's this type of behavior that caused me to drop google for everything except search long ago. You are not the customer, you are the product or in many cases a vessel for the product which is ads and nothing more.

jeroenhd 5y ago

My guess, assuming the company is innocent and that this wasn't just a thinly veiled attempt by Google to purge the developers' gambling apps: Google bans accounts by association. One of their accounts was logged into during a hack. They blocked the device, but the notification usually comes only after the login has already succeeded. Assuming this wasn't the criminal's first hack, their device probably got flagged before by Google. If Google applied their logic to that device, they flagged this company's account (and probably all of these people's own Google accounts by association). Google won't comment on this so I suppose we'll never know for sure. However, when the next company that the people behind this startup joins also gets banned, I'd consider the viral properties of Google bans proven and these developers could be considered "tainted" by our tech overlords.

helloguillecl 5y ago

A way to think about this is to see Google (or Apple) as a De-Facto State which governs a very important "ecosystem" in which customers and other businesses rely almost exclusively on. Its very existence depends on businesses and people relaying for important aspects of their existence on them. This is how they stay big and relevant. In this environment they must make decisions for the sake of their their own interests and sometimes to protect other users. The problem is that like any non-democratic state there's no balance in power between the executive power (the company and its algorithms) and their stakeholders, so I would expect this to get worst and more damaging over time. Is it possible that they put their actions under the inspection of another entity? Can we expect that every government and legislation put their own rules to govern Google and protect its users from them?

JesusRobotics 5y ago

I’ve noticed a lot mobile games that are also on steam.

_hao 5y ago

Google are horrendous (business partner), but at least you can publish and install .apk files without a store. Whether that's a sustainable business model is another thing entirely, but at least you can do it. Not even going to talk about Apple since that's just a more extreme example of the same problem. From my POV, if you have a business and you rely entirely (or for the majority) of your income from these platforms, then your business is not sustainable and is not competitive. You're playing at a rigged game and you will most likely lose. I stopped using 3rd party game engines for the same reason. I want to control my source and the potential income I get (if any). A lot of people won't agree with that. That's fine. Google and Apple's duopoly and their respective ecosystems are not good for the future of software. People have to take a stand at some point. These companies want to control every part of the tech stack (and our lives to extent), you should fight against that. We should all fight against that.

danuker 5y ago
> You're playing at a rigged game and you will most likely lose. Then the whole smartphone market is rigged. This is why I as a consumer will not buy a new smartphone anymore. I went for a year or so without a smartphone at all. What I missed the most was maps, but you'd be surprised to learn how better off you are without social media pinging you 24/7. I now use a second-hand smartphone without a Google account, and I use OsmAnd for maps.
- _hao 5y ago
  > Then the whole smartphone market is rigged. Yes, it is rigged. I've had Android, WP (which I liked the most because of the tiles) and now I'm on iOS. I don't have social media on my phone. I use it for banking and maps mostly, but I also communicate with family through WhatsApp :/ I wish I could just get rid of it, but it's not possible for me to just use e-mail... At least not yet.
- 2cb 5y ago
  It genuinely does wonders for mental health to disable notifications for social media apps. Definitely agree there.
5y ago

ObamaBinSpying 5y ago

This is one reason why I was hoping web apps would be more popular then jail-apps... I'm still hoping for an open future but I'm not holding my breath... why even block linux native apps on android?

vuln 5y ago

Just build your own phone/App Store/Bank/social media platform/hosting company It’s not hard /s

cronix 5y ago

I've talked to too many people who staunchly state that "it's a private company" when it comes to not caring about censorship in one sentence, but decry actions like this in the next, to really think there is an adequately beneficial solution to these types of problems.

iJohnDoe 5y ago

I have a feeling these things are caused by jealous Google engineers. Once they see an app or company being successful they will find ways to mess up the business. Either through their store account or their Google rankings. We’ve seen these stories too many times.

throwaway982j 5y ago
Disclaimer: I work for Google, not involved with app moderation. I am pretty sure most engineers don't have access to do such things. And certain that doing something like that is an effective way to terminate ones career. I'm also pretty sure no lawyers at Google want anyone to get manually involved with search rankings. If anyone did that it would open a massive can of worms, one the smart lawyers knows should never be opened.
- iJohnDoe 5y ago
  Obviously, I cannot say for certain if what you’re saying is correct or incorrect. However, if you’ve read HN for any length of time, you would have seen that Google clearly manipulates search results to control competition or to punish certain companies. Furthermore, no company would be asinine enough to allow bots, AI, or ML make decisions without a way to undo those changes. This tells me that Google employees are doing these things or your contractors are.
  - 2cb 5y ago
    > Furthermore, no company would be asinine enough to allow bots, AI, or ML make decisions without a way to undo those changes. Sadly this is actually the norm across all these big tech platforms these days. Algorithm bans an account, humans might give it a look later if a big enough fuss is kicked up about it, else there is no appeals. Of course there is a button a human can press to undo these things, but the trouble is getting a human to bother looking at it in the first place. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Discord all do the same thing.

viktorcode 5y ago

Based on the author withholding some key details, my take is they know more than they say on why the account was terminated. The whole post was written assuming (correctly) that Google is too big to respond publicly and tell their side of the story, which would undoubtedly garner some support.

dave333 5y ago

This is par for the course with Google. Many Adsense accounts have been terminated for similarly vague policy violations. I am sure they catch a lot of bad actors, but they also catch a lot of folks who have no clue what they have done wrong, in many cases losing a large part of their income. Google does send warning emails, but they are so vague as to be useless in figuring out the violation.

jschveibinz 5y ago

I haven’t read all of the comments, but I would like to add this note of caution to all startup founders: if your startup innovation, technology or business model is largely based on someone else’s capability and that capability alone, then you have designed a single point of failure into your business and a high degree of risk to your future business viability. Using capabilities like Google or Amazon have to offer is a great way to prototype your solution and to get initial customer feedback. But you can’t depend upon these services always being available. For example, just look at the number of products and interfaces that Google has changed or canceled in the past 15 years. So if you do decide to take this approach, just go into it knowing the risk you are taking.

karaterobot 5y ago

It must be said that, to the extent Google destroyed their startup, it also created it by launching an app store. This developer built their apps on top of Google's ecosystem, in a world where these kinds of executions have happened before, many times, to many frustrated developers. It is true that developers cannot make their own operating system and marketplace to compete with Google's, but it's also true that they do not need to get into the business of selling games on Google's Play Store in the first place. Equally true is the fact that Google is known to be an unfair, capricious, uncommunicative, and disinterested landlord.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mrtweetyhack 5y ago

10 games in 3 years...yeah, that's not sketchy at all

noway421 5y ago

As a mobile apps developer, this is extremely concerning to me. Google has a big crisis of trust. I no longer feel safe to even have personal apps connected to my real Google account - what if the Developer Account gets banned and my main email, Google Drive and all my life along with it? There were instances of people's entire Google accounts gone. That is catastrophic. I now believe it is my duty to detract anyone from using Google Play-serviced Android devices. With the way Google treats their developers they should pay the price of shrinking market share. I hope a change comes and Google starts being a more customer focused company. But they are notorious for providing bad customer support, and I just can't count on it.

Trias11 5y ago

This never ends. People never learn. Someone bets success of their business solely on grace of someone else's private platform and then disaster strikes. You been booted for whatever reason they felt like. What were you thinking? Generocity and grace of FAANG's will never end?

argvargc 5y ago

This somehow inspired me to type "google destroyed" into HN search. Didn't disappoint.

missedthecue 5y ago

About 5 years ago I made a little app as a side project when I was learning to program. My play developer account was terminated without warning for breaking intellectual copyright rules. I appealed and received an (automated?) response that my account would not be reinstated because I violated the publisher rules. The rule they said I broke? I integrated Spotify's API, which has a login page with the Spotify logo in it, and you're not allowed to use another company's logo inside your app. Ridiculous, yes but it was more of a bummer than anything. This wasn't a startup, I didn't have investors or a lot at stake. I lost about $50 and a few hours time (and a Google Play Developer account). The silliest thing was that if I could just get on the phone with a real human at a Google for five minutes they would have seen how ridiculous my ban was and the issue would have been resolved, no big deal. But alas, no human to be had, only an algorithm with too much power. I did some research on dev forums and found that several people had successfully sued Google and got their account back over wrongful terminations, (Didn't sound too expensive or difficult, most of the time Google didn't even show up in court) but according to the ToS you agree to, you have sue them in Mountain View if you bring legal action over anything. I get why app stores ban publishers, I get why they don't just let everyone publish whatever they want. I bet for every false positive ban like mine, they ban 1000 Russian bot accounts spamming malware. We don't see the mountains of avoided malware, just the auto-banhammer going rogue from time to time. But if Apple and Google just had the slightest bit of customer support this would be much less of an issue.

6AceGames 5y ago

Hello there, I'm the OP here! First of all sorry for my bad English. It is not my first language so. Thanks for the open discussion and your support! It's my bad i should have mentioned more stuff to our medium post so that it won't leave readers with any confusions. Please pardon me as this was my first post. I've never had written anything before. You might got some questions like Q: Who are we? A: We are simply a india based gaming startup. We had 8-10 games published on our plays store account. Q:Why do we mentions address of UK on our tweeter handle? A:. According to google policy we have to provide a physical address if we want to use in-app-purchases. This physical address is visible publicly on our games pages. Reason providing our uk address is we have a representative living there who can reply to any type of physical communications such as letters on behalf of us. He also can reply to various other stuffs like GDPR and different other policies. For ex. You can send a latter to the given address to get in touch with us!Please note that google asks for communication address not the business registered address to show it publicly. Our business registration address already submitted to them but it's not just public. Q: Where can i find your games incase i want to see them? A: You can find it on apk pure. You can search "tonk" you'be able to see our account "6Ace Games", also we had added the link in our medium post in bottom. Please check! Q:How me monetized our games? A: Through admob and in-app products. Nothing shady! Q: Does the games targeting children? A: No not at all, all our games are rated 18+ adult category Q:Our games was providing gambling? A: No, It's just simulations. You can't win money or bet money, Not at all! Q: what about your domain 6acegames.com? A: Yes, our domain 6acegames.com is new. The reason behind it is very silly you may find it funny but still let me tell you!, at first we have bought domain sixacegames.com(you can check reg. details) thinking it will help in seo and all because we didn't want to include a number "6" in our domain. But later after our games got popular user started searching for 6Acegames that's why we bought this domain as well in may 2021 just to build the presence on google search. Q:Why no presence on LinkedIn? A: Try searching "Whyphy Infotech". 6Acegames is just business name we use! Q: What about social media? A:we are not very active in social media. As you can see in our tweeter handle we have 0 followers. The reason is simple we never promoted it to our users. Although we have some followers on our Instagram handle, but they follow us because we provide free perks occasionally to our audience. Please read to my updated post on medium!

howardg 5y ago

Huge kudos to Google for stopping a shady studio that can hardly secure its own network from releasing possibly security compromised apps to Android users!