Comment by jmole
4 years ago
Ad fraud = ban, it’s not much more complicated than that.
It’s trivial to make a new developer account and release similar products, so as an App Store you can do things like looking for similarities between new apps and banned apps to root out simple “change of ownership” schemes like this.
Google can’t afford to take this lightly, games with fraudulent ad clicks can generate (i.e. steal) millions of dollars in ad spend from businesses who think they are getting legitimate impressions.
"It's not much more complicated than that" is the language of the oppressor. It's the view of the indifferent technocrat who would flatten the world into software, and is willing to steamroll over any human bits that stick out. Google's algorithmic reinterpretation of justice is a perversion of justice. The simplicity of its approach signs its abdication of its moral and legal responsibilities.
OP's story isn't remotely okay. Fraud is a complicated issue. Here's what's uncomplicated: OP are not frauds. Here's what uncomplicated: Google reneged on a (very one-sided) contract, and destroyed a business. Here's a really simple one: Google is an abusive monopoly.
> Here's what's uncomplicated: OP are not frauds.
According to OP -- do you have firmer evidence of this than their own say-so?
Yes, and putting the target in the position of having to prove the negative is yet another tool of oppression.
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I like how you've put it..
"the language of the oppressor"
Yeah, the guy who commented on HN is the oppressor. lol
I mean it's the language Google would use. It has a connotation akin to Stockholm syndrome: to accept the argumentative premise of the adversary who is taking advantage of you.
From what I gather, OP is an anonymous voice on the internet. He might as well be Indian, Russian, Bulgarian, etc. pretending to be a US developer. That might have led to the ban.
The blog post says outright they are not an American company, they are not hiding that.
> Ad fraud = ban, it’s not much more complicated than that.
You think it's reasonable to ban an entire company because one of their employees committed ad fraud at a previous job?
In a non-nuanced scenario, yes, because chances are the higher-ups are willfully ignorant on what sort of deals their marketing is doing, and will use the person as a scapegoat if they’re found out.
That would be reasonable if an employee committed ad fraud for the company in question, but not just because they've previously done so for a past employer.
Ad fraud = ban from everything a huge company offers? Seems a tad much when the company literally reaches into your pocket by owning your smartphone and/or livelihood.
Bans should be limited in time and scale.
This really must be regulated, Google and co should not be able to lock you out of your digital identity.
Do you have any example of situations where Google have "locked [anyone] out of [their] digital identity" for ad fraud?
As far as I can tell, this blog post is only mentioning the company's Android developer account being disabled. It in fact shows evidence that other access to the account is still available (e.g. screenshots from the account security checkup tool, which wouldn't be accessible if the whole account was disabled). This does seem limited in scale.
(Disclaimer: I work at Google, but not on anything related to this.)
So, Google is judge, jury, and executioner. How can such an approach justified in this day and age?
Oh no, the attention robbers and psychological manipulators are getting a few million our of their literal billions taken away :(
"Guilt by association" is a bad way to run companies - especially when you don't even know who and how someone is guilty. They also do not apply rules fairly. Bigger companies like Facebook, Uber etc get to have more of a "human" connection to sort out issues while the small developer doesn't even get told what exactly they did wrong.
Which itself reinforces cartel behavior. The small players get the full force of the automated rulings, the large orgs get infinite levels of undo.
"For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law." - Óscar Benavides
Guilt by association is the only way to cope with a world where bad actors can trivially switch pseudonyms whenever they’re caught.
Google doesn't pay you in Bitcoin. Isn't it hard to switch pseudonyms when you need to receive real money?
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> "Guilt by association" is a bad way to run companies
It's frighteningly common in big tech. Amazon is known for banning people for life because someone else with the same address returned too many items. Pick your roommates carefully I guess.
You have no clue what information Google used to reach this decision.
Yeah no one outside of Google does including the developers who got banned, that's kinda the whole problem...
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Google didn't give a reason in this case. Have you heard of a big company getting terminated like this without being given a reason? So as far as I know the rules are unfair.
That's precisely the point. People want to understand what they did wrong.
Isn't that a serious problem, when the final decision withholds information related to the case.
For all we know it could be the virus attack that lead to Googles decision.