The Register has asked Google to comment...
but we all know that if they get one at all it'll be a generic and unhelpful response from a PR droid.
Zapped from the Play store: Another developer gets no sense from Google, appeals to the public
Canadian developer Mathieu Méa has gone public about his experience with Google's Play team after they abruptly terminated his publisher account at the end of last week. Méa develops public transport apps and said his application, MonTransit, is installed on over 120,000 devices and used by 17,000 people a day. He has been …
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Thursday 29th August 2019 17:41 GMT Mattmattic
Re: The Register has asked Google to comment...
This is how it works. The Google bots and algorithms run riot taking down developers often for no reason at all.
The developer must then appeal to harassed and overworked unpaid volunteers on a help forum who escalate it to a human who may or may not be able to deal with the situation.
This is how one of the most wealthy companies in the world treats it customers. It is truly pathetic.
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Friday 30th August 2019 08:46 GMT Flywheel
Re: The Register has asked Google to comment...
Google are getting a bit too complacent lately. This kinda sh*t is going to hurt them in the long run, and if you're following the Nest debacle with the potential loss of a lot of angry customers you'll see how little they actually care about what customers think.
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Friday 30th August 2019 12:21 GMT heyrick
Re: The Register has asked Google to comment...
"how little they actually care about what customers think"
Trying to get hold of anybody at Google for any reason at all is nigh on impossible.
I found Maps Navigation directing people down an on ramp and headlong into oncoming high speed traffic on a dual carriageway. Could I tell Google? Nope. It was up to a volunteer to do it, but because of bot censorship he could only change a few road segments at a time.
Google Maps persisted in directing people the wrong way for weeks until the new road layout was built and Maps could use that.
For times when something potentially dangerous is happening, something clearly illegal is happening, or prior to an automatic "you've been a developer for years and now we're closing your account", for all of that it should be imperative that there is a way to contact an actual human being in order to get things sorted out. Not a crowdsourced volunteer but an actual Google employee. That this doesn't appear to be is reprehensible.
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Thursday 29th August 2019 18:33 GMT billdehaan
Re: The Register has asked Google to comment...
I had a friend working on a Windows Phone app. He even got it in their store, except you couldn't find it.
It was a local app for Toronto-based consumers looking for a specific type of arts and crafts, but searching for "Toronto", "arts and crafts", or anything else came back empty. Only if you explicitly entered his app name would it come up.
So, he mentioned this in the feedback form. The result was silence.
A month later, he got a boilerplate "Hi, we've noticed your app in the app store hasn't had any hits. Have you considered that you need to advertise more? Is there anything we can do to help?". And, naturally, he copied back that the problem was that his (free) app couldn't be found unless people already knew it existed. Maybe if their search engine actually looked at, you know, the keywords he'd entered when he submitted the app, people might find it?
People could actually find his app in the Windows Phone Store, but not using the WPS search. If you used Bing or Google outside of the app store, it would point you to the app inside.
"We're sorry", MS said, "we cannot change the search algorithm to give preferential ranking to specific applications".
Of course, he wasn't asking for preferential ranking, just for the search engine to actually work. So, he said thank you, but he wasn't going to bother updating the app, it wasn't worth it.
A month later, MS sent him the "Hi, we've noticed your app in the app store hasn't had any hits recently, is there anything we can do?" email again.
And then they wonder why people bail on them.
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Thursday 29th August 2019 16:02 GMT ArrZarr
Google's policy on matters like this has always been twofold:
1) While our system can be overridden by a human, we trust the system to be right the vast majority of the time and allocate staff accordingly.
2) It's not our job to tell you how you violated the rules we set out. If we give too much information away, that allows people to game the system.
It has always felt to me that Google work really really hard on treating every aspect of their business as if it's a search page and so obfuscate as much as possible to stop people gaming the system. That's all well and good for search results where the advice of "just put out quality content" is pretty close to the best way to improve your SEO in the long term but in the other areas they work on it gets very frustrating in exactly the way this dev has found.
I wish I had a solution, but Google have built their entire business model on having a minimal service desk and it's gone exceedingly well for them so that ain't changing unless something big happens.
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Friday 30th August 2019 12:22 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Paranoia
Not reading the book is treason - and will cause you to be used as reactor shielding.
However the contents of the book are only for those with violet level security clearance. So reading it is treason, and will result in you having to report to the disintegration booths.
Only secret agents have violet level security clearance.
Members of secret organisations are traitors who must be eliminated...
The computer is your friend, and wants you to be happy.
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Tuesday 3rd September 2019 11:54 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: Paranoia
Trust the Computer
Everything else is just Paranoia!
(Best played after a quantity[1] of alcohol and/or smoking unapproved[2] substances..)
[1] Somewhere between "no effect at all" and "can't feel my feet". Quantites may vary.
[2] But if caught using in the student union you'd be most likely to be let off as long as the staff member gets a bit..
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Friday 30th August 2019 06:33 GMT big_D
Yep, one of their servers was misconfigured and DOSed our internet connection (>100mbps down a 10mbps tunnel). It was quicker and easier to get a new IP address from our ISP (or rather swap ISPs, luckily we were in the middle of swapping) than to actually contact Google.
Email to abuse and postmaster: "we get so many emails, that we do not read or process them, they are just deleted."
Telephone: bugger off and look for the relevant category on our website.
Webiste: no information on what do to if Google is actively attacking your servers.
Twitter: no response.
ISP: We'll block their traffic at our perimeter, the first week "trial" of our DOS protection is free, after that you need to pay. That gave us a week to complete the transition to the new ISP. The old line was still active for another 3 months. Out of interest, I tried the connection a month later and it was still being DOSed by the same Google IP address.
ESCape? There is no escape ----------------------------->
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Friday 30th August 2019 10:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
Hmm, now THAT would be a lawyery thing
Google f*cking over your connection is something you can at least bang to their legal department as that can lead to damages (of course, assuming you don't get drained by the lawsuit - after all, it's a US company). They would at least pay some attention to it.
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Thursday 29th August 2019 17:12 GMT nematoad
A cunning plan?
The little bit of me that believes in conspiracies has suggested that Google might have a similar app in the works and does not want competition.
Now that is real tin-foil hat thinking and not to be taken seriously but with this sort of attitude it does get me wondering "What's in it for Google?"
Otherwise why not tell the dev. where he has transgressed and let him do something about it?
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Friday 30th August 2019 06:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re:
It isn't a great solution because it treats everyone as equally guilty with only one punishment.
The real problem is it is identical to contract with hidden clauses, secret laws and secrete court rules, which are something that dictatorship, authoritarian and totalitarian person / rulers would create to oppress those surrounding them. As it is a tool to ensure those surrounding them can be jailed without any reason and always be subjected to fear.
Oh and #Don'tBeEvil
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Friday 30th August 2019 09:23 GMT Cuddles
Re: Top Failure is MS Windows 10.
"If this was a malicious app and the developer knew it while hoping Google wouldn't find out then all they'd have to do is ask what Google found that violates their policies. Then the dev in question can go away and figure out if they can work around that to avoid detection with a new version or another app in the future."
But that's exactly the problem - Google have been asked what the problem was but they refuse to actually tell anyone.
"Perhaps not an accurate analogy but it's like the police treating someone speeding at 31mph in a 30mph zone as if they were doing 100mph. In reality the police might advise the driver to get the speedometer checked and to be careful whereas Google are fining them, banning them from driving again and destroying their car."
It's not like that at all. It's like the police impounding someone's car but refusing to tell them why. The driver asks exactly what they did wrong, says they're very sorry and they'll try not to do it again, and the police respond by telling them to read the Highway Code. It's entirely possible the driver was speeding, but if you won't tell them that then there's no way for them to get their car back or to avoid making the same mistake again in the future.
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Thursday 29th August 2019 18:46 GMT Stuart Castle
Re: A cunning plan?
Google have had an app that helps with public transport for years. It's called "Google Maps". Hell, if you type in anything that even looks like a request for help into the main search site, it'll give you travel directions in the results, whatever device you look at the site on.
Also, they don't seem to have a problem with other travel apps.
I'm not defending Google, as I think they owe him an explanation, even if the decision was made by an AI. Surely it's easy enough to get the AI to log which rule was violated? I'm no AI expert, so not really sure of the ins and outs of it, but the AI records the decision, so logic would suggest it wouldn't be that difficult to record the evidence that led it to make that decision.
That said, I'd be surprised if they didn't already log the evidence. The AI has just banned a relatively small app developer. Imagine the results if it banned something like Candy Crush Saga (I would argue this should be banned, but that's by the by). Google would likely end up being sued for millions.
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Friday 30th August 2019 15:23 GMT jelabarre59
Re: A cunning plan?
I'm not defending Google, as I think they owe him an explanation, even if the decision was made by an AI. Surely it's easy enough to get the AI to log which rule was violated? I'm no AI expert, so not really sure of the ins and outs of it, but the AI records the decision, so logic would suggest it wouldn't be that difficult to record the evidence that led it to make that decision.
But the AI us in a surly mood because it's having to live out it's existence on Google servers, so it's not in a cooperative state of mind.
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Thursday 29th August 2019 17:55 GMT grizewald
Just a glimpse of the future
This is only a taster of what await us.
When "AI" systems make all the decisions, like if you can get credit, if you can rent accommodation, if you can get medical treatment, if you are guilty or innocent of a crime, there will never be an explanation for a decision because nobody knows why the "AI" made the decision.
What will be certain is that the "AI's" decision cannot be contested because it must be right.
Trying to stay off the grid and not live your life through F*book or similar will be counted by the "AI" as a huge black mark.
The days of self-determination, privacy and individuality are now in their winter of old age.
Welcome to your brave new world.
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Friday 30th August 2019 10:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: I hate google's AI, fuck google's Anti Intelligence
Better plan to get that message through to politicians as well then. At the moment AIs get the blockchain treatment: if you have at least a vague association to either, all of a sudden you're saving the world, whereas anyone with actual knowledge will start asking questions instead.
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Thursday 29th August 2019 18:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
Unregulated Markets
This is what happens when you have unregulated markets. The big player screws over everyone else, nothing is done.
With increasing interest being shown from US government regulators into Google's business, and with the EU already all over them, you'd think that Google at some point might twig that continued misuse of their unregulated monopoly position is going to end up with the company being shredded. You might even think that they would use their own effing search engine to look for historical precedents about what's happened to monopolies.
You'd think that, bearing in mind the impact associated with the risk of large scale regulatory intervention by Uncle Sam and the EU, Google would be bending over backwards to prevent and correct cock ups like this, to do everything possible to show that they're a truly honest broker acting primarily for the common good, for only a modest fee.
But no, like almost everything else Google has ever done it's more of the same "we're untouchable because we invent everything and you don't understand it" BS. Break-up can't come fast enough.
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Friday 30th August 2019 10:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Unregulated Markets
Break-up can't come fast enough.
Yeah, keep on dreaming. As I said before, they're following Microsoft's playbook to the letter and are even improving on it, and look how "controlled" Microsoft is these days. They only thing that hasn't happened yet is that any of them have been knighted for their ability to suck school funding dry as Bill G did, but I'm sure that's on the project plan somewhere.
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Thursday 29th August 2019 19:40 GMT DCFusor
Re: The Register has asked Google to comment...
That is the entire point here. All big tech has the business model of eliminating humans and doing it all with algorithms - their entire profit margin lies in that approach. Asking (or demanding) that they use human judgement for anything means they'd need humans - and profits go bye-bye.
This is really basic.
And we let them get away with it, because no one states it as clearly as I just did - we've become afraid to tell ourselves the truth about all too many things, or cover it up some way.
Like these supposedly socialist-leaning companies are actually destroying the working class by eliminating their jobs, and PC-washing it with their rhetoric....not that anyone I know wants some of
those jobs, but some people can't wish for much better - another truth we don't tell ourselves is that unlike those here - we can't all learn to code and make a living at it as I did.
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Thursday 29th August 2019 19:16 GMT Anonymous Coward
Maybe Google won't tell him why his app was "in violation"
Because they simply don't know? If they have an "AI" making decisions for them based on pattern recognition, there might be no way for them to know why this was triggered. If it is a major developer then they will devote a few people to look into it, if it is a small fry it isn't worth their time so buh-bye.
I doubt Google wants to come out and admit this if it is true, so they'd rather ignore him.
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Thursday 29th August 2019 20:04 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Maybe Google won't tell him why his app was "in violation"
I would hazard a guess they do. Faking clicks for add revenue is taken poorly. The developer or a competitor ran through some paid for clicks and bam... banned.
At least very likely. As much so ad the ai just being completely broken and Google trusting it anyhow.
Hard to know either way. But who really thinks Google cannot announce "it was malware/advertising/app duplication/copyright infringement " because of security concerns? Nope. Saying "we cannot say" leaves a broken system or a coverup.
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Friday 30th August 2019 01:41 GMT eldakka
Surely they are legally obligated to provide a reason? Otherwise, they are breaching their contract with him without cause.
In many countries, terms that allow one party to do something unilaterally (such as changing price, or duration, or other terms) are not enforceable, as those terms defeat the whole point of contract law - knowing exactly what you are getting and what your responsibilities are. Usually cancelling a contract, under the law, irrespective of the terms placed in a contract, requires either agreement of all parties, or "for cause", which requires articulating that cause, not just declaring "They broke the terms".
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Friday 30th August 2019 03:19 GMT doublelayer
Google almost certainly spent a few of their billions on a team of attorneys to draw up a contract that lets them do anything they want, as long as it doesn't break the law, but also some things that do break the law because who's going to check, and insulate themselves from any developer action. Meanwhile, they also have the resources to make sure a challenge in court will last long enough for the other party to run out of money, and if someone smallish challenges them on this contract, I fully expect to see that tactic used.
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Friday 30th August 2019 06:25 GMT big_D
I just passed a law...
There is an argument that companies must keep violation algorithms secret, since otherwise it helps the bad guys learn how to bypass them.
I just passed a law, but I won't tell you what it is, because you might find a way to
complycircumvent it. But if you break it, I'll throw your arse in prison.Seriously? We make rules, but we won't tell you what they are, you just have to guess if you are compliant?
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Friday 30th August 2019 09:39 GMT Cederic
Re: I just passed a law...
"Behave"
"I was behaving"
"No, you were shitting in my porridge."
Next morning there's piss in your porridge. Is he behaving?
Google tell you to behave, much as the law does. Trying to enumerate every possible aspect of good behaviour is both impossible and also merely creates loopholes that others will seek to exploit. It makes no sense to Google to even try.
(It doesn't however excuse their inability to tell this impacted developer why they've taken action against him)
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Friday 30th August 2019 10:26 GMT MortimerTheCat
Same with Adsense
Many years ago I signed up for Adsense just to see what it was all about. I placed a couple of adverts on my personal blog and forgot about them. Five years and probably about 20 hits later, I had my account closed for violating. I appealed at the time, but never told what I had done wrong. I remember as part of the appeal they expect you to tell what actions you were taking to stop it happening again. In reality, this meant confessing to all sorts of misdemeanours which may have been the cause.
Recently, I needed an adsense account to use on a professional basis, so I appealed again. I tried to explain I needed my account back as I was now a professional web developer and had a proper customer for them! Still they rejected me. In the end, I just created a new Gmail account.
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Friday 30th August 2019 11:56 GMT Barrie Shepherd
If Google summarily dismissed employees refusing to explain why they would be dragged though the Courts (well at least in the UK while it's in the EU) and their excuse that AI cannot be wrong, and "we cannot disclose the 'infringement' as it would let other employees 'game' the system", would land them with big time damages and fines.
Same should be for people who are working for them at arms length or using their systems as a tool of employment.
The Do No Evil company should start to adopt a Natural Justice approach to business https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_justice
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Friday 30th August 2019 13:56 GMT PapaD
Professional Botherers
So
A long time ago, a friend of mine had an issue with something Blueyonder were doing - they were being fairly unhelpful over the phone and online, and so he took to going down to their head office and waiting to talk to someone, every day. (i suspect he made a moderate, but entirely legal, nuisance of himself). In the end, he got to talk to someone and the problem was fixed.
Is there an opportunity here for someone living near Googles HQ to be hired to go in and 'loiter with intent' to get to speak to an actual person (bonus paid if said professional botherer has actual legal training)
Might not work as well in the USA, but it worked pretty well in the UK
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Friday 30th August 2019 20:39 GMT Brett The Brat 2 U
I decline to acquiesce to your request.
Management reserves the right to suppress your rights whenever we see fit. If a situation arises when management is needed, we will refer you to the sub-basement bottom dweller with Red Swingline Stapler, Coke bottle glasses, suspenders and a pocket protector. You will not pass go, you will NOT get $200! As for the rules, there are no rules come out and fight...And if perchance your inner child gets wounded in the crossfire, we will unequivocally deny, lie and cover-up anything we feel like with fake news and oh look over there its a new AI.
