
Facebook Disables All LOLapps Games and Apps - nathanlrivera
http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2010/10/16/facebook-bans-lolapps/
======
tdfx
The standard operating procedure for working on the FB platform is "do as much
as you can get away with". The FB compliance team seems to enforce their rules
pretty unevenly and with varying aggressiveness, which makes breaking their
rules pretty profitable.

They've done a decent job getting rid of the absolute worst offenders, mainly
the display ad networks, but when there's people grossing $100k/day on IQ quiz
scams it's hard to find people who WONT look to make an easy buck. I know of
at least handful of people who have become millionaires tricking (admittedly
rather dumb) teens into signing up for these offers.

I don't know any specifics about what LOLApps was doing, but I would assume
they're just the most visible offender of whatever scammy tactic was being
employed.

~~~
owyn
The SOP is definitely to get away with anything until you get caught but
everyone was looking at what everyone else was doing as an example of what
could be done. I worked (past tense) for a much smaller FB game company. The
two compliance warnings we got were both on Friday afternoons, which is kinda
interesting. It always seemed like they were that kind of 24/7 startup, and
you had to be too just to keep up. Anyway, LOLApps was one of the companies
that a lot of the smaller guys seemed to look up to, so this sends some kind
of message. I'm just not sure what it is yet. :)

------
DanielBMarkham
It seems to me that what we're seeing is the slow consolidation of technology
into a few dozen monopolies: Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, now Facebook.

These monopolies allow other small business to exist at their pleasure in sort
of a symbiotic relationship. Sometimes there are clear guidelines, but mostly
there's a lot of room for interpretation and fudging. People push the limits,
then every now and then the Lord of the Fiefdom takes a few out and shoots
them (economically, of course) for misbehavior.

If we had this same situation in real life it would be obvious that there is a
problem going on. But somehow because it's all digital it seems to be okay.
For now.

It will be very interesting to see how this all plays out over the next couple
of decades.

~~~
andrewljohnson
People use the word monopoly very casually and rhetorically, but never
correctly.

~~~
lacker
I blame the board game Monopoly. You get Board Walk and Park Place, and they
call it a monopoly. Linguistic injustice!

------
pseudonym
And this is why the thought of developing solely for a locked-in platform
scares the crap out of me. I'm interested in the specifics, of course, but
seeing repeats of both the Facebook and Apple random-dev-bans makes me wonder
how anyone could justify staking their livelihood on something like this.

~~~
patio11
As many of my SEO friends say, it is easy to love Google when you aren't one
penalty away from homelessness.

------
maxklein
Microsoft may have had a closed environment, but they never had a controlled
environment

~~~
konad
Microsoft's David Cole emailed Phil Barrett on September 30 1991: "It's pretty
clear we need to make sure Windows 3.1 only runs on top of MS DOS or an OEM
version of it," and "The approach we will take is to detect DR DOS 6 and
refuse to load. The error message should be something like 'Invalid device
driver interface."

~~~
tbrownaw
MicroSoft wasn't exercising control over what you _did_ with your Windows 3.1
there, they were just being a (anti-competitive) dick about what you ran it
_on_. Having a controlled environment in this context is, controlling what can
run in the environment that you provide, rather than controlling what
environment the stuff you provide can run it.

------
bl4k
and we all used to hate on Microsoft so much, but they never 'pulled' a
windows app

~~~
code_duck
No, but occasionally they chose to create a detailed duplicate of your app and
give it away for free, especially if you had turned down a buy out offer.

~~~
twidlit
So does Facebook. :)

~~~
code_duck
Urgh.. gurgle... believe me, I know all about that.

