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Google crackdown catches innocent devs in the crossfire

242 points by crm114 14y ago

andybak 14y ago
Once again there is no way to contact a human being. Once again we hope that getting publicity on blogs will catch the attention of someone at Google who can do something about it. This time, I'd like someone to tell me why it was impossible for the dev to remedy this through the normal channels and tell us what Google are going to do to stop this happening again.
- Tichy 14y ago
  Nothing has happened yet, except for a scare. It might still end well - although the scare and stress is of course a problem, too.
- glimcat 14y ago
  I had to can a project recently after spending over a month fruitlessly trying to get a response from Google's support resources. On the up side, I made $70 and learned some interesting stuff. But here's yet another way for Google to run false positives which send you into their black hole of non-support. So one of the things I'm still learning is "don't let Google be a mission-critical part of a project."
  - DanBC 14y ago
    > "don't let Google be a mission-critical part of a project." This can be expanded to "Don't let any single company be a mission critical part of a project".
    - ansgri 14y ago
      Better yet, "Don't let anything over what you have no control whatsoever be a mission critical part of a project". If that single company can be heavily influenced by you, risks are acceptable.
- brador 14y ago
  This is precisely why Google will remain a search company. It's not that they can't create tech for enterprise, it's that no one with a brain cell trusts them with anything important. I know we don't.
  - capo 14y ago
    They offer enterprise support: http://support.google.com/a/bin/request.py http://support.google.com/a/bin/request.py
    - nathanb 14y ago
      Yeah, but not for Android or their Play store or their app ecosystem. brador's comment stands. Would I trust my livelihood to a company with a proven track record of not caring about its own digital sharecroppers?
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
      - ditojim 14y ago
        Google has a team of Developer Advocates to provide developers with support. Search for "google play developer advocate" and the top 4 results are Google+ profiles for people in those positions.
        crag 14y ago
        Oh so you have to join Google +? And then send a message to a few profiles; hoping you get a response? That's now good customer service.
        ori_b 14y ago
        That's not what he said. What he said was that there exist customer advocates. You can see this for yourself by finding them on Google+ and looking at how they chose to advertise their job description.
- blauwbilgorgel 14y ago
  I agree with the poor support channels. But remember the people generating publicity on blogs, because their Google+ account was deleted? Then it turned out they used a company name as their profile name, posted underage nudity, or otherwise violated the rules. The blog assumes the developers are innocent and abiding by the developer rules. But can we take this assumption for a fact? For all we know the developers might have been offering incentives to write reviews. The developers might have send account activation emails from a spammy host. The email they received from Google isn't published, only described as vague. A tweet mentions "repetitive content". Spam and placement in store Do not post repetitive content If you currently search for "RPG" ( https://play.google.com/store/search?q=rpg&c=apps https://play.google.com/store/search?q=rpg&c=apps ) 4 games from the top 9 are by 'Cory Trese'. All have near duplicate descriptions. They have 4 versions of a single game "Star Traders RPG". I wouldn't look at update frequency or an algo fluke as the culprit, but look how I could remedy this apparent repetition, both in game versions and game descriptions.
  - nathanb 14y ago
    He has two version of Templar Assault and Cyber Knights (paid and free) and three versions of Star Traders (paid, free, lite). Many big-name games do this (you can choose between a paid version and a free, ad-supported version). Rovio released an Angry Birds Lite for a while when they were having performance issues on lower-end devices. Assuming this behavior does break the rules (which is not a given), the rules are still enforced very inconsistently, with no recourse.
  - jsnell 14y ago
    If separate free and paid versions (of course with almost identical descriptions) are going to be grounds for banning, the app section of Google Play is about to become very empty. It seems to be a fact of life that you really need to have a free demo version to be able to sell a game (or even a more serious app). Of course developers could change to just a free app + in-app purchases, but in-app purchases seem to have a slightly sleazy reputation. It's easy to see why some would prefer the two app model.
  - huggyface 14y ago
- ajross 14y ago
  It's back up as of right now. I just downloaded Templar Assault. Also, just to be clear: once again, we're responding to a one-sided media story without reference to the app in question or the facts on the ground. And, once again, we're jumping in for or against the side we curently favor in the smart phone wars (I'll bet good money there's an iPhone in your pocket, so let me put down my Galaxy Nexus to respond).
  - DanielBMarkham 14y ago
    Also, just to be clear: once again, we're responding to a one-sided media story without reference to the app in question And just to be clear, the only reason you're responding is because ten thousand other people consumed and shared the story. And the reason they did that is because the narrative that nobody is home at Google is powerful in the development community. It threatens to spread to the rest of the web as well if you guys don't get in gear and start fixing this corporate culture problem.
  - wklauss 14y ago
    It seems you are trying to steer this into a "if you criticize Google you're an Apple fanboy, if you criticize Apple you're a Google fanboy" argument which is not only dangerous in itself but utterly ridiculous. I think the demands he made are pretty reasonable. Both Google and Apple need to improve relations and communications with developers in cases like this and trying to avoid the subject or turn it into a fanboy war wont help the case. So please, put back your Nexus in your holster, cowboy.
    - ajross 14y ago
      It's more "If you make a knee jerk criticism of Google or Apple that we've all heard a thousand times already, based on a single poorly sourced blog post, and bring no new insight to the table" then you're a fanboy and should be posting somewhere else. I'm tired of this.
      - wpietri 14y ago
        Given that both Apple and Google are notorious for not talking to anybody, even the devs they're making money on, I'm not sure what you see as the alternative. If a journalist can only get one side of the story, I think they should print it.
- brown9-2 14y ago
  I'm not an Android developer, but it looks like there are several contact forms at the bottom of http://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=136601&rd=1 http://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/bin/a... When a problem happens with Apple's App Store, is there a guaranteed way to contact and get an answer from a human?
- edkennedy 14y ago
  It's a problem now, but imagine how much of a problem it will be when we all have google driverless cars...
- FixThisPOSSite 14y ago
  Yep, this is standard practice at Google, Facebook, basically anywhere now. Wring what you can out of your customers, then screw them over. Send threats and destroy their work, then hide. Facebook does this too. They'll delete the pages of even PAYING ADVERTISERS with no excuse and no contact information, after no behavior that could possibly warrant such an action. It's disgraceful. It's time for people to realize that your use of Google and other "free" services isn't free. They're SELLING your information, and for that you should demand proper treatment.
jjguy 14y ago
Software isn't a fire and forget transaction anymore There's a lot of insight in that soundbite. I wish more of the "enterprise!" crowd (and in this case, Daddy Google) realized that.
- rmccue 14y ago
  What's ironic (IMO) is that Google has pushed hard for this with Chrome's background updating, yet here is against it. I'm sure it's an inadvertent consequence, but it still seems strange.
  - jarito 14y ago
    Getting flagged because they update too much is a guess. Since they can't get a hold of Google, they can't verify that. I wouldn't make assumptions about what Google likes / doesn't like on updating until we know why they were flagged. Unfortunately, Google has once again made this difficult and reinforced the notion that they are bad at support, right when they want people to buy into Google Fiber. Sigh.
  - muyuu 14y ago
    People will take as much control over their software as they can get. The Firefox vs Debian row also was based on who controls updates. As long as they can get away with it, Google won't simply give you balanced powers on their platform. They will give you the bare minimum they can afford to. Same with Facebook, Twitter, ... and their APIs. There are always real justifications for this, but the problem behind is balance of power. You are stuck with them so they make the rules.
  - deleted 14y ago
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briandear 14y ago
Every time I've had an issue or problem, I've been Apple to correspond with an Apple App Store rep. One tune it was because I needed to expedite and update and another time it was because I was in a copyright dispute with another app. Both times, my emails were answered. My friends who've had App Store rejections have been able to get exact reasons and email actual people at Apple for details. I have zero experience with the Play store, but I have expected developers to be able to get more information by email, at least. Also, I though the Google store was supposed to be 'open' and all that. I feel bad for those devs whose apps are going to be arbitrarily removed without explanation. Perhaps they'll want to join us on the Apple developer side of the fence for awhile! I'd love to see their games on iPhone!
- Tichy 14y ago
  And yet there seem to be countless stories on the web of devs struggling with the Apple App Store and not getting proper information. Your account is merely an anecdote.
  - nmcfarl 14y ago
    As are all the other stories. I've yet to see an sort of comprehensive statistics on app store rejections. (Which would be kind of awesome.) For the time being it's all anecdotes, and we choose to believe based on our personal histories (with apple, the media, the reliabilty of messageboards, etc)
    - csense 14y ago
      Those statistics are probably regarded as proprietary information by Apple. Good luck convincing them it's in their best interest to release them.
jbuzbee 14y ago
My app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.houseblend.instaecho https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.houseblend...) got kicked out of the app store a while back with the reason being: "Violation of the intellectual property and impersonation or deceptive behavior" Pretty vague so I didn't really know what the issue was. I thought my description fo the app was accurate and it was all my own work. I followed the appeal process listed in the email and waited. After a couple of weeks with no response, I emailed again. After another week, I followed up again. Finally after a total of three weeks off the market, it was re-instated. I still don't know what the problem was, but being off the market hurt. I went from nearly 4000 downloads a day when it was suspended to just a few hundred now.
- tedsuo 14y ago
  I have similar anecdote, but with facebook: We had an web application get a huge bump in traffic as we approached the date of a massive live event that was being managed by the app. Suddenly, facebook shut off our access. Luckily, we had written the app in such a way that we could quickly disable the facebook features, and still have a functional app. If it had been critical to have facebook, the event would have been ruined, and our clients would have fired us. We contacted facebook, and our conversation went something like this: FB auto message: our very amazing and awesome malware detector, which uses all this cool machine learning and is amazing, has detected that your site is malware and we are disabling it. Us: Our site is not malware, it's just suddenly very popular. Please turn it back on. 1 week later FB rep: You site appears to be on, please refer to the documentation for how to connect to our services, do not violate the terms of use agreement. Us: Ok, it does appear to be back on now. Why was it shut off? FB rep: You violated the terms of use agreement. Us: How did we do that? Could you explain what term we violated, so we can modify our code appropriately? FB rep: Do not violate the terms of use agreement. Us: Ok, but which term? Are you sure your automated system didn't just shut the site down because it went viral? FB rep: no response, ever again We never changed the code, site continued to work fine. As a result, I live in fear that something like this could happen again, in a situation where facebook was a critical component. Did the ability to contact a human help in this situation? Unclear. They definitely did a good job of making us feel worthless and unimportant.
crag 14y ago
And that is Google's achilles' heel; support and customer service. It's across their entire line of software and services. Try getting a-hold of someone if you a Google Apps member. You damn lucky if you get anything other then a automated response. And isn't Google about to release a tablet soon? Good luck.
- deleted 14y ago
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- antidoh 14y ago
  It's not a bug, it's a feature. As long as they make more by not being human than they lose by pissing people off, they're good. It's on purpose.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
    Amazon makes money, has cheap prices, and runs many of the web's popular sites, yet still manages to have good customer service.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - antidoh 14y ago
      Ah, but now you're talking about the relationship between Amazon and their paying customers. You take care of your paying customers. An occupant of a blog is, as the saying goes, a product, not a customer. EDIT: I re-read the article. I thought they were losing their Blogger account. Never mind.
- X-Istence 14y ago
  I have paid for Google Apps and have in the past called Google. It hasn't been an issue getting someone on the phone to walk me through something or at least help me try to figure out why something wasn't working. Yes you won't get support for their free version, that isn't entirely unexpected.
- deleted 14y ago
chris_wot 14y ago
Can they take their game and host it somewhere else?
- Tichy 14y ago
  Of course, but then they don't get the exposure of the play store. And only people who explicitly allow "other markets" will be able to install from other sources. I for one have not yet dared to tick that checkbox on my phone. Actually I think that option in Android should be more fine grained. There are certain markets I would allow, but I don't want to allow ALL markets. At the moment the choice is only "play only" or "all sources". I wish it would be more like debian, for example, were I could add to a list of enabled sources.
  - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
    It is not like checking that box allows other markets to just push stuff onto your device. It just gives you the ability to get things from other sources. You still have full control of not getting stuff from sources you are worried about.
    - Tichy 14y ago
      See my other reply - I still think it significantly lowers the barrier to installing malware.
  - lnanek2 14y ago
    You still get prompted for every single thing installed...
    - Tichy 14y ago
      I know, but I also know how well that worked on Windows (not at all). What if some apps figure out how to fake that prompt or somehow hide it. Or if I get to the prompt while I am tired or drunk and hit "OK" too fast because I was expecting something else. It is just one barrier less.
deleted 14y ago
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- hackinthebochs 14y ago
  So everyone should wait until after their livelihood is destroyed (obviously an exaggeration) before raising a fuss about what seems to be impending doom? I don't think so.
tedsuo 14y ago
Getting a access to human support is important in general, but absolutely necessary if you are going to mess with people via an automated system. I'm always frustrated when I read articles about a journalist who gets his gmail account hacked or otherwise messed with, and solves it via some back-channel/personal connection.
vacri 14y ago
Looking at the game link for Templar Assault, it's a pretty clear violation of Games Workshop's IP. The art looks exactly like Space Marine Terminators; the character names are evocative of the same as well, along with a passel of other very close imitation. I don't have a horse in this race either way, but as a pretty flagrant violation of IP, perhaps this is why they've drawn fire from Google? Games Workshop is usually pretty assiduous in protecting their IP. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tresebrothers.games.templars&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tresebroth...
- ta12121 14y ago
  The gameplay screens look a lot like Space Hulk. Though I'm not sure I agree with banning such clones, after all game mechanics can be neither copyrighted nor patented.
  - cube13 14y ago
    It's not the gameplay mechanics that raise a flag for me. It's the art. Compare the screenshots of the various units to this: http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/File:Ultramarine_terminator.jpg http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/File:Ultramarine_terminat...
    - debacle 14y ago
      Have you heard of Starcraft?
      - cube13 14y ago
        Aside from the(admittedly very close) similarities between the Zerg and Tyranids, there's not that much that Blizzard copied from GW's IP. However, it's telling that GW's notoriously trigger happy lawyers have left Blizzard alone, so it's pretty much a non-comparison.
      - arkem 14y ago
        I'm not sure what you're getting at exactly but it is well known that Blizzard's titles were directly inspired by the Warhammer and Warhammer 40k universes[1]. While the visual similarities haven't causes Games Workshop to complain about infringement from Blizzard (as far as I know) it doesn't mean that Games Workshop isn't complaining about infringement in this or other cases. [1] http://kotaku.com/5929157/the-making-of-warcraft-part-1 http://kotaku.com/5929157/the-making-of-warcraft-part-1
mozan_sykol 14y ago
Hmm... what I find interesting is that a lot of people complain about the "modern" platforms - lack of support from Google (first Adsense, now this), Apple charging too much or dictating terms, Twitter making it tough for third parties or Facebook trying to kill the competition by acquiring them. There seems to be only ONE platform which has stood by the people - both developers and users - and that is Microsoft Windows. Starting from backwards compatibility to manic devotion to a good experience for the users, Microsoft is the only platform which has been fair. I hope they don't change it with Windows 8.
jack-r-abbit 14y ago
> The notion that update frequency is the trigger for ending up on Google's hit list is just speculation. ... and so they really don't know anything... o_0
- lnanek2 14y ago
  That's par for the course when Google bans someone. They intentionally don't tell people what they did wrong because they feel it helps people learn to cheat the system.
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- swdunlop 14y ago
  False positive with impending loss of market placement, reviews and app presence with their customers. No recourse for flagging Google's attention except for appealing to the court of public opinion? Perhaps it is a "repeating scenario" because these app stores are rolling over in bed and squishing the poor bastards who get into bed with them and stake their business on cooperation?
  - deleted 14y ago
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jiggy2011 14y ago
Is this just not a risk inherent with developing for "app stores"? To you, your application may be something you sunk months of your life and perhaps something you are relying on to pay your mortgage. To the app store owner , your app is simply 1 of hundreds of thousands of apps. Google/Apple etc must receive hundreds of fraudulent or otherwise "dodgy" submissions every day, so it makes sense from their point of view to optimise the process of deleting these. If they end up accidentally burning a few legit indie devs in process because of false positives then it is simply viewed as collateral damage. I can only see this becoming more arbitrary over time as the app store owners begin to sink under the crushing weight of application submissions.
- megablast 14y ago
  The good thing about android is there are lots of stores!
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    Doesn't the "play store" cover about 90% of it though? To be honest , I'm not even sure how I'd set my phone up to use a different store nevermind the average android user.
oscillot 14y ago
I play Cyberknights RPG by the Trese brothers as I fall asleep each night. Just left a comment of support on the game's play store page (while it's still there). We need to escalate this is a way that Google will see it. HN is nice, I will link to this from G+ and see if I can find it to upvote on Reddit as well. Here is the link: http://goo.gl/1MNYv http://goo.gl/1MNYv
corytrese 14y ago
We have tried very hard to abid by the rules and produce and support fun Android games. Dealing with tha automated Google juggernaut is difficult but I am the first to admit that they are the reason we are able to make, distribute and support our games.
mcguire 14y ago
"Google didn't respond to a request for comment from me." And there is Google's major problem in a nutshell.
dpcan 14y ago
I hope he figures this out. I received the same "spam" letter from Google regarding my apps saying I had 7 days to figure it out or possibly have my apps or account shut down. It turned out I had used the word "dice" too many times in a description of my simple "dice" game because I described all the rules in the description. I had to mutilate my description and remove about 80% of the times I used the word "dice". I emailed Google telling them what I had done, and that I fixed that problem, and that I really hoped that WAS the problem, and I begged them not to remove my apps because I was diligently trying to figure out what I had done wrong, and that I WOULD fix it - I'm a reputable developer, and I play by the rules. I did receive 2 real-human emails back from Google in the process saying "thank you" and now months later my apps are all still online, so it appears I found the right problem. I can certainly understand the frustration however. If there is literally nothing throwing up a red flag and you don't know what you have done wrong, and Google doesn't appear to give specifics, it can be scary. The way I approached the problem was that Google probably didn't have a live human poking through my apps to find a violation, and it was most likely a "robot" that found the problem. This means it most likely had to come from a textual description or there was a potential IP situation. The email mentioned "spam", so I looked for the former first and found the over-use of the word "dice". Sure enough, that was it. Or at least I assume that was it, because my apps are still online now - months later.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  This captures the problem: "I emailed Google telling them what I had done, and that I fixed that problem, and that I really hoped that WAS the problem, and I begged them not to remove my apps because I was diligently trying to figure out what I had done wrong, and that I WOULD fix it - I'm a reputable developer, and I play by the rules." That says really really bad things about the eco-system when your target 'developers' are so confused and unclear about what they can and cannot do, and the enforcement of same is not testable a-priori, that they have to resort to begging for understanding.
- vitriolix 14y ago
  how is overusing the word "dice" being spammy?
ekianjo 14y ago
Templar Assaults seems like a massive rip-off of Space Hulk. Even though there is no mention on it on their store page.
kevinalexbrown 14y ago
What strikes me as interesting regarding Google's automated approach to community regulation is the effect of focusing on action rather than intent. Making a perfect intent-detector is difficult: much easier to make an action-detector and penalize actions consistent with malicious behavior. This works as long as those actions are a) necessary for malicious behavior and b) are easy to avoid while making good apps. The experiment is now: how much developers will adjust their behavior to signal clean behavior versus Google perfecting its algorithm to perfectly judge intent. Once Google has a reasonable policy in place, they can sit and wait for developers to conform, and presumably those that can't conform cannot do so precisely because the behavior they would have to change is the behavior that makes their software malicious or undesirable. Humans already do this every day in conversation - I adjust my language and tone to signal non-malicious intent when making a statement I fear might be perceived as threatening or rude. But these are relatively easy fixes that do not affect my communication horribly; I suppose it's still an open question as to whether Google's criteria unreasonably hinder the development process.
- cbs 14y ago
  What strikes me as interesting regarding Google's automated approach to community regulation is the effect of focusing on action rather than intent What's interesting about that? We're all guilty of putting action over intent. Look at A-B testing, the metrics we use have nothing to do with our user's intents. Fuck their intents, I'm optimizing to get as many as possible to give me money. Its the same exact thing, just wearing a different color jacket. This time you just happen to be the subject rather than the administrator.
- matznerd 14y ago
  It's the same with Google Search and SEO. SEOs simply observe what actions the algorithm rewards and optimize for that.
neurotech1 14y ago
A developer could side-step the difficult to contact issue by being a shareholder and contacting Investor Relations. The SEC may get involved if companies ignore IR communications. The IR person would be able to give you a direct contact. Also, pay attention at conferences when you meet Googlers and stay in contact. They may also be able to help you with direct support.
csense 14y ago
This is why it's important to be able to switch vendors. If Google isn't responsive, these guys can switch to offering their product on the Amazon app store [1], for example. Avoiding vendor lock-in is an extremely important part of the business side of technology. [1] http://www.amazon.com/mobile-apps/b/ref=topnav_storetab_mas?ie=UTF8&node=2350149011 http://www.amazon.com/mobile-apps/b/ref=topnav_storetab_mas?... Why http://www.amazon.com/mobile-apps/ http://www.amazon.com/mobile-apps/ 404's is incomprehensible.
notatoad 14y ago
So maybe google is being a little obtuse here, but I think their point is a good one: android developers, please stop updating your apps once a week. It is annoying to open up my app list and have 25 of the 30 apps I've got installed needing to be updated. Roll all your little bug fixes into larger updates and push those out infrequently. Unless you have a real show-stopping security or functionality bug, I don't need the update immediately.
- ansgri 14y ago
  Why open the app list at all? Let them auto-update.
cpunks 14y ago
Honestly, this is why I would never, ever consider using something like Google App Engine for anything other than a toy. Google is not a support organization. Except for ads, you can't count on them for anything B2B.
DigitalSea 14y ago
Sounds like typical Google to me. If you've ever had to wrangle with getting your Adsense account unsuspended you'll know it's near impossible, well in-fact impossible to get a sensible or reasonable person on the phone let alone by email.

242 points by crm114 14y ago

Once again there is no way to contact a human being. Once again we hope that getting publicity on blogs will catch the attention of someone at Google who can do something about it. This time, I'd like someone to tell me why it was impossible for the dev to remedy this through the normal channels and tell us what Google are going to do to stop this happening again.

Tichy 14y ago
Nothing has happened yet, except for a scare. It might still end well - although the scare and stress is of course a problem, too.
glimcat 14y ago
I had to can a project recently after spending over a month fruitlessly trying to get a response from Google's support resources. On the up side, I made $70 and learned some interesting stuff. But here's yet another way for Google to run false positives which send you into their black hole of non-support. So one of the things I'm still learning is "don't let Google be a mission-critical part of a project."
- DanBC 14y ago
  > "don't let Google be a mission-critical part of a project." This can be expanded to "Don't let any single company be a mission critical part of a project".
  - ansgri 14y ago
    Better yet, "Don't let anything over what you have no control whatsoever be a mission critical part of a project". If that single company can be heavily influenced by you, risks are acceptable.
brador 14y ago
This is precisely why Google will remain a search company. It's not that they can't create tech for enterprise, it's that no one with a brain cell trusts them with anything important. I know we don't.
- capo 14y ago
  They offer enterprise support: http://support.google.com/a/bin/request.py http://support.google.com/a/bin/request.py
  - nathanb 14y ago
    Yeah, but not for Android or their Play store or their app ecosystem. brador's comment stands. Would I trust my livelihood to a company with a proven track record of not caring about its own digital sharecroppers?
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - ditojim 14y ago
      Google has a team of Developer Advocates to provide developers with support. Search for "google play developer advocate" and the top 4 results are Google+ profiles for people in those positions.
      - crag 14y ago
        Oh so you have to join Google +? And then send a message to a few profiles; hoping you get a response? That's now good customer service.
        ori_b 14y ago
        That's not what he said. What he said was that there exist customer advocates. You can see this for yourself by finding them on Google+ and looking at how they chose to advertise their job description.
blauwbilgorgel 14y ago
I agree with the poor support channels. But remember the people generating publicity on blogs, because their Google+ account was deleted? Then it turned out they used a company name as their profile name, posted underage nudity, or otherwise violated the rules. The blog assumes the developers are innocent and abiding by the developer rules. But can we take this assumption for a fact? For all we know the developers might have been offering incentives to write reviews. The developers might have send account activation emails from a spammy host. The email they received from Google isn't published, only described as vague. A tweet mentions "repetitive content". Spam and placement in store Do not post repetitive content If you currently search for "RPG" ( https://play.google.com/store/search?q=rpg&c=apps https://play.google.com/store/search?q=rpg&c=apps ) 4 games from the top 9 are by 'Cory Trese'. All have near duplicate descriptions. They have 4 versions of a single game "Star Traders RPG". I wouldn't look at update frequency or an algo fluke as the culprit, but look how I could remedy this apparent repetition, both in game versions and game descriptions.
- nathanb 14y ago
  He has two version of Templar Assault and Cyber Knights (paid and free) and three versions of Star Traders (paid, free, lite). Many big-name games do this (you can choose between a paid version and a free, ad-supported version). Rovio released an Angry Birds Lite for a while when they were having performance issues on lower-end devices. Assuming this behavior does break the rules (which is not a given), the rules are still enforced very inconsistently, with no recourse.
- jsnell 14y ago
  If separate free and paid versions (of course with almost identical descriptions) are going to be grounds for banning, the app section of Google Play is about to become very empty. It seems to be a fact of life that you really need to have a free demo version to be able to sell a game (or even a more serious app). Of course developers could change to just a free app + in-app purchases, but in-app purchases seem to have a slightly sleazy reputation. It's easy to see why some would prefer the two app model.
- huggyface 14y ago
ajross 14y ago
It's back up as of right now. I just downloaded Templar Assault. Also, just to be clear: once again, we're responding to a one-sided media story without reference to the app in question or the facts on the ground. And, once again, we're jumping in for or against the side we curently favor in the smart phone wars (I'll bet good money there's an iPhone in your pocket, so let me put down my Galaxy Nexus to respond).
- DanielBMarkham 14y ago
  Also, just to be clear: once again, we're responding to a one-sided media story without reference to the app in question And just to be clear, the only reason you're responding is because ten thousand other people consumed and shared the story. And the reason they did that is because the narrative that nobody is home at Google is powerful in the development community. It threatens to spread to the rest of the web as well if you guys don't get in gear and start fixing this corporate culture problem.
- wklauss 14y ago
  It seems you are trying to steer this into a "if you criticize Google you're an Apple fanboy, if you criticize Apple you're a Google fanboy" argument which is not only dangerous in itself but utterly ridiculous. I think the demands he made are pretty reasonable. Both Google and Apple need to improve relations and communications with developers in cases like this and trying to avoid the subject or turn it into a fanboy war wont help the case. So please, put back your Nexus in your holster, cowboy.
  - ajross 14y ago
    It's more "If you make a knee jerk criticism of Google or Apple that we've all heard a thousand times already, based on a single poorly sourced blog post, and bring no new insight to the table" then you're a fanboy and should be posting somewhere else. I'm tired of this.
    - wpietri 14y ago
      Given that both Apple and Google are notorious for not talking to anybody, even the devs they're making money on, I'm not sure what you see as the alternative. If a journalist can only get one side of the story, I think they should print it.
brown9-2 14y ago
I'm not an Android developer, but it looks like there are several contact forms at the bottom of http://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=136601&rd=1 http://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/bin/a... When a problem happens with Apple's App Store, is there a guaranteed way to contact and get an answer from a human?
edkennedy 14y ago
It's a problem now, but imagine how much of a problem it will be when we all have google driverless cars...
FixThisPOSSite 14y ago
Yep, this is standard practice at Google, Facebook, basically anywhere now. Wring what you can out of your customers, then screw them over. Send threats and destroy their work, then hide. Facebook does this too. They'll delete the pages of even PAYING ADVERTISERS with no excuse and no contact information, after no behavior that could possibly warrant such an action. It's disgraceful. It's time for people to realize that your use of Google and other "free" services isn't free. They're SELLING your information, and for that you should demand proper treatment.

jjguy 14y ago

Software isn't a fire and forget transaction anymore There's a lot of insight in that soundbite. I wish more of the "enterprise!" crowd (and in this case, Daddy Google) realized that.

rmccue 14y ago
What's ironic (IMO) is that Google has pushed hard for this with Chrome's background updating, yet here is against it. I'm sure it's an inadvertent consequence, but it still seems strange.
- jarito 14y ago
  Getting flagged because they update too much is a guess. Since they can't get a hold of Google, they can't verify that. I wouldn't make assumptions about what Google likes / doesn't like on updating until we know why they were flagged. Unfortunately, Google has once again made this difficult and reinforced the notion that they are bad at support, right when they want people to buy into Google Fiber. Sigh.
- muyuu 14y ago
  People will take as much control over their software as they can get. The Firefox vs Debian row also was based on who controls updates. As long as they can get away with it, Google won't simply give you balanced powers on their platform. They will give you the bare minimum they can afford to. Same with Facebook, Twitter, ... and their APIs. There are always real justifications for this, but the problem behind is balance of power. You are stuck with them so they make the rules.
- deleted 14y ago
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briandear 14y ago

Every time I've had an issue or problem, I've been Apple to correspond with an Apple App Store rep. One tune it was because I needed to expedite and update and another time it was because I was in a copyright dispute with another app. Both times, my emails were answered. My friends who've had App Store rejections have been able to get exact reasons and email actual people at Apple for details. I have zero experience with the Play store, but I have expected developers to be able to get more information by email, at least. Also, I though the Google store was supposed to be 'open' and all that. I feel bad for those devs whose apps are going to be arbitrarily removed without explanation. Perhaps they'll want to join us on the Apple developer side of the fence for awhile! I'd love to see their games on iPhone!

Tichy 14y ago
And yet there seem to be countless stories on the web of devs struggling with the Apple App Store and not getting proper information. Your account is merely an anecdote.
- nmcfarl 14y ago
  As are all the other stories. I've yet to see an sort of comprehensive statistics on app store rejections. (Which would be kind of awesome.) For the time being it's all anecdotes, and we choose to believe based on our personal histories (with apple, the media, the reliabilty of messageboards, etc)
  - csense 14y ago
    Those statistics are probably regarded as proprietary information by Apple. Good luck convincing them it's in their best interest to release them.

jbuzbee 14y ago

My app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.houseblend.instaecho https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.houseblend...) got kicked out of the app store a while back with the reason being: "Violation of the intellectual property and impersonation or deceptive behavior" Pretty vague so I didn't really know what the issue was. I thought my description fo the app was accurate and it was all my own work. I followed the appeal process listed in the email and waited. After a couple of weeks with no response, I emailed again. After another week, I followed up again. Finally after a total of three weeks off the market, it was re-instated. I still don't know what the problem was, but being off the market hurt. I went from nearly 4000 downloads a day when it was suspended to just a few hundred now.

tedsuo 14y ago
I have similar anecdote, but with facebook: We had an web application get a huge bump in traffic as we approached the date of a massive live event that was being managed by the app. Suddenly, facebook shut off our access. Luckily, we had written the app in such a way that we could quickly disable the facebook features, and still have a functional app. If it had been critical to have facebook, the event would have been ruined, and our clients would have fired us. We contacted facebook, and our conversation went something like this: FB auto message: our very amazing and awesome malware detector, which uses all this cool machine learning and is amazing, has detected that your site is malware and we are disabling it. Us: Our site is not malware, it's just suddenly very popular. Please turn it back on. 1 week later FB rep: You site appears to be on, please refer to the documentation for how to connect to our services, do not violate the terms of use agreement. Us: Ok, it does appear to be back on now. Why was it shut off? FB rep: You violated the terms of use agreement. Us: How did we do that? Could you explain what term we violated, so we can modify our code appropriately? FB rep: Do not violate the terms of use agreement. Us: Ok, but which term? Are you sure your automated system didn't just shut the site down because it went viral? FB rep: no response, ever again We never changed the code, site continued to work fine. As a result, I live in fear that something like this could happen again, in a situation where facebook was a critical component. Did the ability to contact a human help in this situation? Unclear. They definitely did a good job of making us feel worthless and unimportant.

crag 14y ago

And that is Google's achilles' heel; support and customer service. It's across their entire line of software and services. Try getting a-hold of someone if you a Google Apps member. You damn lucky if you get anything other then a automated response. And isn't Google about to release a tablet soon? Good luck.

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antidoh 14y ago
It's not a bug, it's a feature. As long as they make more by not being human than they lose by pissing people off, they're good. It's on purpose.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  Amazon makes money, has cheap prices, and runs many of the web's popular sites, yet still manages to have good customer service.
  - deleted 14y ago
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  - antidoh 14y ago
    Ah, but now you're talking about the relationship between Amazon and their paying customers. You take care of your paying customers. An occupant of a blog is, as the saying goes, a product, not a customer. EDIT: I re-read the article. I thought they were losing their Blogger account. Never mind.
X-Istence 14y ago
I have paid for Google Apps and have in the past called Google. It hasn't been an issue getting someone on the phone to walk me through something or at least help me try to figure out why something wasn't working. Yes you won't get support for their free version, that isn't entirely unexpected.
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chris_wot 14y ago

Can they take their game and host it somewhere else?

Tichy 14y ago
Of course, but then they don't get the exposure of the play store. And only people who explicitly allow "other markets" will be able to install from other sources. I for one have not yet dared to tick that checkbox on my phone. Actually I think that option in Android should be more fine grained. There are certain markets I would allow, but I don't want to allow ALL markets. At the moment the choice is only "play only" or "all sources". I wish it would be more like debian, for example, were I could add to a list of enabled sources.
- jack-r-abbit 14y ago
  It is not like checking that box allows other markets to just push stuff onto your device. It just gives you the ability to get things from other sources. You still have full control of not getting stuff from sources you are worried about.
  - Tichy 14y ago
    See my other reply - I still think it significantly lowers the barrier to installing malware.
- lnanek2 14y ago
  You still get prompted for every single thing installed...
  - Tichy 14y ago
    I know, but I also know how well that worked on Windows (not at all). What if some apps figure out how to fake that prompt or somehow hide it. Or if I get to the prompt while I am tired or drunk and hit "OK" too fast because I was expecting something else. It is just one barrier less.

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hackinthebochs 14y ago
So everyone should wait until after their livelihood is destroyed (obviously an exaggeration) before raising a fuss about what seems to be impending doom? I don't think so.

tedsuo 14y ago

Getting a access to human support is important in general, but absolutely necessary if you are going to mess with people via an automated system. I'm always frustrated when I read articles about a journalist who gets his gmail account hacked or otherwise messed with, and solves it via some back-channel/personal connection.

vacri 14y ago

Looking at the game link for Templar Assault, it's a pretty clear violation of Games Workshop's IP. The art looks exactly like Space Marine Terminators; the character names are evocative of the same as well, along with a passel of other very close imitation. I don't have a horse in this race either way, but as a pretty flagrant violation of IP, perhaps this is why they've drawn fire from Google? Games Workshop is usually pretty assiduous in protecting their IP. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tresebrothers.games.templars&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tresebroth...

ta12121 14y ago
The gameplay screens look a lot like Space Hulk. Though I'm not sure I agree with banning such clones, after all game mechanics can be neither copyrighted nor patented.
- cube13 14y ago
  It's not the gameplay mechanics that raise a flag for me. It's the art. Compare the screenshots of the various units to this: http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/File:Ultramarine_terminator.jpg http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/File:Ultramarine_terminat...
  - debacle 14y ago
    Have you heard of Starcraft?
    - cube13 14y ago
      Aside from the(admittedly very close) similarities between the Zerg and Tyranids, there's not that much that Blizzard copied from GW's IP. However, it's telling that GW's notoriously trigger happy lawyers have left Blizzard alone, so it's pretty much a non-comparison.
    - arkem 14y ago
      I'm not sure what you're getting at exactly but it is well known that Blizzard's titles were directly inspired by the Warhammer and Warhammer 40k universes[1]. While the visual similarities haven't causes Games Workshop to complain about infringement from Blizzard (as far as I know) it doesn't mean that Games Workshop isn't complaining about infringement in this or other cases. [1] http://kotaku.com/5929157/the-making-of-warcraft-part-1 http://kotaku.com/5929157/the-making-of-warcraft-part-1

mozan_sykol 14y ago

Hmm... what I find interesting is that a lot of people complain about the "modern" platforms - lack of support from Google (first Adsense, now this), Apple charging too much or dictating terms, Twitter making it tough for third parties or Facebook trying to kill the competition by acquiring them. There seems to be only ONE platform which has stood by the people - both developers and users - and that is Microsoft Windows. Starting from backwards compatibility to manic devotion to a good experience for the users, Microsoft is the only platform which has been fair. I hope they don't change it with Windows 8.

jack-r-abbit 14y ago

> The notion that update frequency is the trigger for ending up on Google's hit list is just speculation. ... and so they really don't know anything... o_0

lnanek2 14y ago
That's par for the course when Google bans someone. They intentionally don't tell people what they did wrong because they feel it helps people learn to cheat the system.

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swdunlop 14y ago
False positive with impending loss of market placement, reviews and app presence with their customers. No recourse for flagging Google's attention except for appealing to the court of public opinion? Perhaps it is a "repeating scenario" because these app stores are rolling over in bed and squishing the poor bastards who get into bed with them and stake their business on cooperation?
- deleted 14y ago
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jiggy2011 14y ago

Is this just not a risk inherent with developing for "app stores"? To you, your application may be something you sunk months of your life and perhaps something you are relying on to pay your mortgage. To the app store owner , your app is simply 1 of hundreds of thousands of apps. Google/Apple etc must receive hundreds of fraudulent or otherwise "dodgy" submissions every day, so it makes sense from their point of view to optimise the process of deleting these. If they end up accidentally burning a few legit indie devs in process because of false positives then it is simply viewed as collateral damage. I can only see this becoming more arbitrary over time as the app store owners begin to sink under the crushing weight of application submissions.

megablast 14y ago
The good thing about android is there are lots of stores!
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Doesn't the "play store" cover about 90% of it though? To be honest , I'm not even sure how I'd set my phone up to use a different store nevermind the average android user.

oscillot 14y ago

I play Cyberknights RPG by the Trese brothers as I fall asleep each night. Just left a comment of support on the game's play store page (while it's still there). We need to escalate this is a way that Google will see it. HN is nice, I will link to this from G+ and see if I can find it to upvote on Reddit as well. Here is the link: http://goo.gl/1MNYv http://goo.gl/1MNYv

corytrese 14y ago

We have tried very hard to abid by the rules and produce and support fun Android games. Dealing with tha automated Google juggernaut is difficult but I am the first to admit that they are the reason we are able to make, distribute and support our games.

mcguire 14y ago

"Google didn't respond to a request for comment from me." And there is Google's major problem in a nutshell.

dpcan 14y ago

I hope he figures this out. I received the same "spam" letter from Google regarding my apps saying I had 7 days to figure it out or possibly have my apps or account shut down. It turned out I had used the word "dice" too many times in a description of my simple "dice" game because I described all the rules in the description. I had to mutilate my description and remove about 80% of the times I used the word "dice". I emailed Google telling them what I had done, and that I fixed that problem, and that I really hoped that WAS the problem, and I begged them not to remove my apps because I was diligently trying to figure out what I had done wrong, and that I WOULD fix it - I'm a reputable developer, and I play by the rules. I did receive 2 real-human emails back from Google in the process saying "thank you" and now months later my apps are all still online, so it appears I found the right problem. I can certainly understand the frustration however. If there is literally nothing throwing up a red flag and you don't know what you have done wrong, and Google doesn't appear to give specifics, it can be scary. The way I approached the problem was that Google probably didn't have a live human poking through my apps to find a violation, and it was most likely a "robot" that found the problem. This means it most likely had to come from a textual description or there was a potential IP situation. The email mentioned "spam", so I looked for the former first and found the over-use of the word "dice". Sure enough, that was it. Or at least I assume that was it, because my apps are still online now - months later.

ChuckMcM 14y ago
This captures the problem: "I emailed Google telling them what I had done, and that I fixed that problem, and that I really hoped that WAS the problem, and I begged them not to remove my apps because I was diligently trying to figure out what I had done wrong, and that I WOULD fix it - I'm a reputable developer, and I play by the rules." That says really really bad things about the eco-system when your target 'developers' are so confused and unclear about what they can and cannot do, and the enforcement of same is not testable a-priori, that they have to resort to begging for understanding.
vitriolix 14y ago
how is overusing the word "dice" being spammy?

ekianjo 14y ago

Templar Assaults seems like a massive rip-off of Space Hulk. Even though there is no mention on it on their store page.

kevinalexbrown 14y ago

What strikes me as interesting regarding Google's automated approach to community regulation is the effect of focusing on action rather than intent. Making a perfect intent-detector is difficult: much easier to make an action-detector and penalize actions consistent with malicious behavior. This works as long as those actions are a) necessary for malicious behavior and b) are easy to avoid while making good apps. The experiment is now: how much developers will adjust their behavior to signal clean behavior versus Google perfecting its algorithm to perfectly judge intent. Once Google has a reasonable policy in place, they can sit and wait for developers to conform, and presumably those that can't conform cannot do so precisely because the behavior they would have to change is the behavior that makes their software malicious or undesirable. Humans already do this every day in conversation - I adjust my language and tone to signal non-malicious intent when making a statement I fear might be perceived as threatening or rude. But these are relatively easy fixes that do not affect my communication horribly; I suppose it's still an open question as to whether Google's criteria unreasonably hinder the development process.

cbs 14y ago
What strikes me as interesting regarding Google's automated approach to community regulation is the effect of focusing on action rather than intent What's interesting about that? We're all guilty of putting action over intent. Look at A-B testing, the metrics we use have nothing to do with our user's intents. Fuck their intents, I'm optimizing to get as many as possible to give me money. Its the same exact thing, just wearing a different color jacket. This time you just happen to be the subject rather than the administrator.
matznerd 14y ago
It's the same with Google Search and SEO. SEOs simply observe what actions the algorithm rewards and optimize for that.

neurotech1 14y ago

A developer could side-step the difficult to contact issue by being a shareholder and contacting Investor Relations. The SEC may get involved if companies ignore IR communications. The IR person would be able to give you a direct contact. Also, pay attention at conferences when you meet Googlers and stay in contact. They may also be able to help you with direct support.

csense 14y ago

This is why it's important to be able to switch vendors. If Google isn't responsive, these guys can switch to offering their product on the Amazon app store [1], for example. Avoiding vendor lock-in is an extremely important part of the business side of technology. [1] http://www.amazon.com/mobile-apps/b/ref=topnav_storetab_mas?ie=UTF8&node=2350149011 http://www.amazon.com/mobile-apps/b/ref=topnav_storetab_mas?... Why http://www.amazon.com/mobile-apps/ http://www.amazon.com/mobile-apps/ 404's is incomprehensible.

notatoad 14y ago

So maybe google is being a little obtuse here, but I think their point is a good one: android developers, please stop updating your apps once a week. It is annoying to open up my app list and have 25 of the 30 apps I've got installed needing to be updated. Roll all your little bug fixes into larger updates and push those out infrequently. Unless you have a real show-stopping security or functionality bug, I don't need the update immediately.

ansgri 14y ago
Why open the app list at all? Let them auto-update.

cpunks 14y ago

Honestly, this is why I would never, ever consider using something like Google App Engine for anything other than a toy. Google is not a support organization. Except for ads, you can't count on them for anything B2B.

DigitalSea 14y ago

Sounds like typical Google to me. If you've ever had to wrangle with getting your Adsense account unsuspended you'll know it's near impossible, well in-fact impossible to get a sensible or reasonable person on the phone let alone by email.