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> They will have to respond to this Why? If they think they have the right to terminate your account, and you have no standing, why would you expect them not t

> They will have to respond to this Why? If they think they have the right to terminate your account, and you have no standing, why would you expect them not to ignore your lawyer in the very same way they ignore you? Taking this to court might get their attention, but you also have to show grounds for why you get to override their decision. IANAL, but I don't see why Google isn't allowed to just say "nope, you're outta here" to anyone it damned well wants. Sucks, but it's their reputation to ruin.

lisper 5y ago
> > They will have to respond to this > Why? They don't have to respond to the demand letter, but they do have to respond if a lawsuit if one is filed. If they don't, it's a default judgement for the plaintiff. (This is one of the things that is broken in the American legal system. You can force someone to spend a lot of money by suing them even if your complaint has no merit.) So while they don't have to respond to a credible threat of a lawsuit, it would be prudent for them to do so because otherwise there is a real risk for them of having it cost a lot more.
- tiahura 5y ago
  How is it broken to require a defendant to respond to a lawsuit?
  - BeetleB 5y ago
    Because an innocent person can be bankrupted by repeatedly having to respond to frivolous lawsuits.
    - tiahura 5y ago
      Can anyone find an example of that actually happening?
      - BeetleB 5y ago
        Not bankruptcy but this type of abuse? Sure: https://dailyillini.com/news-stories/2013/04/26/suburban-express-lawsuits-reach-125-this-year-conversation-continues-on-reddit/ https://dailyillini.com/news-stories/2013/04/26/suburban-exp... He would intentionally file lawsuits in another county because he knew it's too much of a burden for many students to travel there for court hearings. Students just settle even if they think they're completely innocent.
    - swat535 5y ago
      I discussed this very particular issue with my friend who is an attorney, he mentioned that you can't actually abuse the system with frivolous lawsuits. Judges will start throwing your cases out and you can be disciplined by the BAR.
      - tannedNerd 5y ago
        At the same you don’t think google is big enough to hire lawyers to file n-1 the amount to get fined or punished frivolous lawsuits against you and keep rotating lawyers?
        tiahura 5y ago
        No, because at n=3 the the judge will say “if you file another one of these, I’ll fine you $1,000,000, and Sundar better be here at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow so I can explain it to him personally.” Courts and judges aren’t something to be truffled with.
        tannedNerd 5y ago
        So then a different google subsidiary with no clear connections will file the suit next. Also if google wants to do something or ruin someone a few million dollar fine isn't going to deter them one bit
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - margalabargala 5y ago
    Not that concept, just our specific implementation. If person A decides they don't like you, they can sue you over and over and cost you tens of thousands of dollars and never get that back. If you don't reply to each with a lawyer and spend time and money fighting, you lose even more money. There are some bandaids like having someone declared a vexatious litigant, but that also requires time and money. If you owned some small business, someone could certainly bankrupt you before you could stop them. I don't know exactly what a solution looks like, but I do see this as a problem.
    - tiahura 5y ago
      If person A decides they don't like you, they can sue you over and over and cost you tens of thousands of dollars and never get that back. As an attorney, I’ve never even heard of that actually happening - other than prisoner litigation. Moreover, a judge will order someone to stop filing cases if they are bringing frivolous claims, and can hold them in contempt if they do.
  - ajdude 5y ago
    IANAL but my guess is that it costs money for the defendant to respond to a lawsuit, so if company A wants person B to stop doing something, even if person B is within their legal right to do so, company A can still force person B to stop, because either person B goes bankrupt fighting it or person B ignores it and company A has the judgement in their favor.
  - Rexxar 5y ago
    Because (if I understand correctly) the judge side with the plaintiff without looking at the case : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_judgment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_judgment.
- oliwarner 5y ago
  It's not prudent unless it's likely to both happen and succeed. Not only is "I'll sue you" often just bluster, if they already think they're in the right —and I'm yet to understand that they're not— they'll be betting that you're not actually going to risk paying their legal fees to make a faulty argument in court. In making that bet, only lose out by having their legal team engage with you. That's expensive. In a low risk scenario, it's easier and cheaper to wait until it actually counts.
  - lisper 5y ago
    > you're not actually going to risk paying their legal fees to make a faulty argument in court. In the U.S. a losing plaintiff does not pay the defendant's legal fees unless the lawsuit is deemed to be frivolous, which hardly ever happens.
    - chii 5y ago
      Which i think is a failure of the system - it makes some court cases that would be ruled in favour of the "small guy" to not take place instead, which makes the "big guy" win by default. The US should adopt a small claims courts system which costs less (like a copyright small claims etc), which would admit frivolous DMCA take downs etc, as well as cases like these. And amend the damages awarded to include fees incurred as part of the case.
      - lisper 5y ago
        There are small-claims courts, but the limit on what you can sue for there is typically <$10k. Not enough if your entire livelihood is at stake, as it is in this case.
  - rsync 5y ago
    "It's not prudent unless it's likely to both happen and succeed." No, that is incorrect - there is an asymmetry here which is (oddly) in the ops favor. Paying my lawyer (for instance) to create and send a letter like this, etc., might cost me $3-800. Properly responding to it and covering all the bases and carrying out ones legal duties vis a vis google might cost 5x that. ... and the letter writer will be dealing with an entirely different operation at google. Real people will be considering the case.
- pdonis 5y ago
  > they do have to respond if a lawsuit if one is filed. If they don't, it's a default judgement for the plaintiff. Google's response will be very cheap for them, compared to the cost for the plaintiff (meaning, as a percentage of their respective incomes): that they have no legal obligation to provide the plaintiff any services whatever, and that the terms of service for the Google service the plaintiff was using clearly state that Google can terminate the account whenever it wants. Google's lawyers probably have a template for such a response all ready to go. The cost of this to Google won't even be rounding error in their financials.
  - oliwarner 5y ago
    I agree. These aren't the first people Google has denied service to. They have defended this right before. They're not going up lose. And Google has a salaried team of lawyers. This is a sunk cost. This case will cost them no more.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
TomSwirly 5y ago
> and you have no standing, How - how! - can you justify the statement that you have "no standing" when your income stream was arbitrarily cut off with no explanation? > IANAL, but I don't see why Google isn't allowed to just say "nope, you're outta here" to anyone it damned well wants. Because it's wildly unfair and morally abhorrent?
- oliwarner 5y ago
  Google isn't an employer or a landlord here, they were the developers' agent (according to the distribution agreement). They simply exercised their rights to stop representing them. The developers have no expectation of representation or service when it's directly against Google's express will. There are so many transferable analogies here, but your wild and moral handwaving aside, I'm yet to hear why Google should have to let these developers sell through Google's marketplace, on Google's dime. If you put all your eggs into one big Google-shaped basket, your livelihood exists (and ends) at the whim of Google. Same applies to all the Apple devs this has happened to. And that's the developers' fault. I think you might argue that's unfair, you might argue that Google and Apple's and Valve's (etc) marketplaces should be classed as public utility services, and that the public should have access —and I might agree with you— but that's not currently the case. It's Google's ball and they're taking it home.

lisper 5y ago

> > They will have to respond to this > Why? They don't have to respond to the demand letter, but they do have to respond if a lawsuit if one is filed. If they don't, it's a default judgement for the plaintiff. (This is one of the things that is broken in the American legal system. You can force someone to spend a lot of money by suing them even if your complaint has no merit.) So while they don't have to respond to a credible threat of a lawsuit, it would be prudent for them to do so because otherwise there is a real risk for them of having it cost a lot more.

tiahura 5y ago
How is it broken to require a defendant to respond to a lawsuit?
- BeetleB 5y ago
  Because an innocent person can be bankrupted by repeatedly having to respond to frivolous lawsuits.
  - tiahura 5y ago
    Can anyone find an example of that actually happening?
    - BeetleB 5y ago
      Not bankruptcy but this type of abuse? Sure: https://dailyillini.com/news-stories/2013/04/26/suburban-express-lawsuits-reach-125-this-year-conversation-continues-on-reddit/ https://dailyillini.com/news-stories/2013/04/26/suburban-exp... He would intentionally file lawsuits in another county because he knew it's too much of a burden for many students to travel there for court hearings. Students just settle even if they think they're completely innocent.
  - swat535 5y ago
    I discussed this very particular issue with my friend who is an attorney, he mentioned that you can't actually abuse the system with frivolous lawsuits. Judges will start throwing your cases out and you can be disciplined by the BAR.
    - tannedNerd 5y ago
      At the same you don’t think google is big enough to hire lawyers to file n-1 the amount to get fined or punished frivolous lawsuits against you and keep rotating lawyers?
      - tiahura 5y ago
        No, because at n=3 the the judge will say “if you file another one of these, I’ll fine you $1,000,000, and Sundar better be here at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow so I can explain it to him personally.” Courts and judges aren’t something to be truffled with.
        tannedNerd 5y ago
        So then a different google subsidiary with no clear connections will file the suit next. Also if google wants to do something or ruin someone a few million dollar fine isn't going to deter them one bit
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- margalabargala 5y ago
  Not that concept, just our specific implementation. If person A decides they don't like you, they can sue you over and over and cost you tens of thousands of dollars and never get that back. If you don't reply to each with a lawyer and spend time and money fighting, you lose even more money. There are some bandaids like having someone declared a vexatious litigant, but that also requires time and money. If you owned some small business, someone could certainly bankrupt you before you could stop them. I don't know exactly what a solution looks like, but I do see this as a problem.
  - tiahura 5y ago
    If person A decides they don't like you, they can sue you over and over and cost you tens of thousands of dollars and never get that back. As an attorney, I’ve never even heard of that actually happening - other than prisoner litigation. Moreover, a judge will order someone to stop filing cases if they are bringing frivolous claims, and can hold them in contempt if they do.
- ajdude 5y ago
  IANAL but my guess is that it costs money for the defendant to respond to a lawsuit, so if company A wants person B to stop doing something, even if person B is within their legal right to do so, company A can still force person B to stop, because either person B goes bankrupt fighting it or person B ignores it and company A has the judgement in their favor.
- Rexxar 5y ago
  Because (if I understand correctly) the judge side with the plaintiff without looking at the case : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_judgment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_judgment.
oliwarner 5y ago
It's not prudent unless it's likely to both happen and succeed. Not only is "I'll sue you" often just bluster, if they already think they're in the right —and I'm yet to understand that they're not— they'll be betting that you're not actually going to risk paying their legal fees to make a faulty argument in court. In making that bet, only lose out by having their legal team engage with you. That's expensive. In a low risk scenario, it's easier and cheaper to wait until it actually counts.
- lisper 5y ago
  > you're not actually going to risk paying their legal fees to make a faulty argument in court. In the U.S. a losing plaintiff does not pay the defendant's legal fees unless the lawsuit is deemed to be frivolous, which hardly ever happens.
  - chii 5y ago
    Which i think is a failure of the system - it makes some court cases that would be ruled in favour of the "small guy" to not take place instead, which makes the "big guy" win by default. The US should adopt a small claims courts system which costs less (like a copyright small claims etc), which would admit frivolous DMCA take downs etc, as well as cases like these. And amend the damages awarded to include fees incurred as part of the case.
    - lisper 5y ago
      There are small-claims courts, but the limit on what you can sue for there is typically <$10k. Not enough if your entire livelihood is at stake, as it is in this case.
- rsync 5y ago
  "It's not prudent unless it's likely to both happen and succeed." No, that is incorrect - there is an asymmetry here which is (oddly) in the ops favor. Paying my lawyer (for instance) to create and send a letter like this, etc., might cost me $3-800. Properly responding to it and covering all the bases and carrying out ones legal duties vis a vis google might cost 5x that. ... and the letter writer will be dealing with an entirely different operation at google. Real people will be considering the case.
pdonis 5y ago
> they do have to respond if a lawsuit if one is filed. If they don't, it's a default judgement for the plaintiff. Google's response will be very cheap for them, compared to the cost for the plaintiff (meaning, as a percentage of their respective incomes): that they have no legal obligation to provide the plaintiff any services whatever, and that the terms of service for the Google service the plaintiff was using clearly state that Google can terminate the account whenever it wants. Google's lawyers probably have a template for such a response all ready to go. The cost of this to Google won't even be rounding error in their financials.
- oliwarner 5y ago
  I agree. These aren't the first people Google has denied service to. They have defended this right before. They're not going up lose. And Google has a salaried team of lawyers. This is a sunk cost. This case will cost them no more.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

TomSwirly 5y ago

> and you have no standing, How - how! - can you justify the statement that you have "no standing" when your income stream was arbitrarily cut off with no explanation? > IANAL, but I don't see why Google isn't allowed to just say "nope, you're outta here" to anyone it damned well wants. Because it's wildly unfair and morally abhorrent?

oliwarner 5y ago
Google isn't an employer or a landlord here, they were the developers' agent (according to the distribution agreement). They simply exercised their rights to stop representing them. The developers have no expectation of representation or service when it's directly against Google's express will. There are so many transferable analogies here, but your wild and moral handwaving aside, I'm yet to hear why Google should have to let these developers sell through Google's marketplace, on Google's dime. If you put all your eggs into one big Google-shaped basket, your livelihood exists (and ends) at the whim of Google. Same applies to all the Apple devs this has happened to. And that's the developers' fault. I think you might argue that's unfair, you might argue that Google and Apple's and Valve's (etc) marketplaces should be classed as public utility services, and that the public should have access —and I might agree with you— but that's not currently the case. It's Google's ball and they're taking it home.