
When Google Decides To Delete Your App - alexanderscott
http://andrewpearson.org/?p=681
======
matthewmacleod
This is presumably the content from the listing in question:
[http://www.androidpit.com/en/android/market/apps/app/com.cod...](http://www.androidpit.com/en/android/market/apps/app/com.code.android.vibevault/Vibe-
Vault) \- expand to see the list of artists.

I have to admit, it does look pretty spammy.

~~~
wreegab
I get "This page was deleted" from here.

~~~
eieio
A cached version is still available[1].

I have to agree that the "artists include" section looks ridiculously spammy.

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.androidpit.com%2Fen%2Fandroid%2Fmarket%2Fapps%2Fapp%2Fcom.code.android.vibevault%2FVibe-
Vault&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a)

------
DEinspanjer
I was more sympathetic before I read the part where he had listed "1 or 2
dozen of the most popular artists available through Vibe Vault so that users
searching for their music could easily find the app on the Google Play store."

If he says 1 or 2 dozen, I hear at least 13, and probably close to 24. Listing
20 popular artist names in your music app's description specifically to
increase the chances of people seeing your app when doing a search for one of
those artist names does sound like excessive keyword usage to me. I could see
naming around three just to point out that music from well known artists is
available as well as indies.

I do still sympathize somewhat because the Play Store process is horrible, and
at the very least, it seems reasonable he should be informed, "Hey, you are
spamming artist names, cut it down to five or less please" then get his app
reinstated rather than the vague "you done bad now you shall PAY".

EDIT: I saw the cache copy of the description made by another commenter. Now I
am _MUCH_ less sympathetic. Maybe he meant 1 or 2 gross instead of dozen?
There are 167 artist names crammed in at the bottom. I doubt many people would
feel that is reasonable.

~~~
tjohns
24 isn't even close. The app listed 167 artists. The list of keywords was
longer than the rest of the listing.

Cached copy of the app:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:w8V67uz...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:w8V67uzFIBoJ:https://play.google.com/store/apps/details%3Fid%3Dcom.code.android.vibevault%26hl%3Den_GB+&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

------
chavesn
I feel like I wasted my time reading that. It amounts to a big "Boo hoo!",
makes tons of unsubstantiated and emotional assertions ("I can guarantee you
that no one ever really gave any consideration to our arguments", the "the
process is bullshit"), and the real solution is to just resubmit the app with
a _non-spammy_ description. How hard is that?

The appeal says "We don't profit from it, and thus have no incentive to spam."
So change the description!

------
AznHisoka
"Don't build your app on Twitter or FB's API. Any change can kill your
business"

"Don't put all your eggs in 1 basket and build a SEO-based startup. 1
algorithm change can flunk your business"

"Don't build your platform on the Apple Store or Play Store. Google can decide
to take away your app anytime"

"Don't base your business on Adsense. They can ban your account anytime"

..what's left?

~~~
bighi
Google is doing a lot of things wrong, but this is not one of them. Look at
the apps's description and decide if it's spammy by yourself.

Artists include: Grateful Dead, moe., Max Creek, Phil Lesh and Friends,
Umphreys McGee, Disco Biscuits, Radiators, String Cheese Incident, Blues
Traveler, 311, Jack Johnson, Smashing Pumpkins, Yonder Mountain String Band,
Tea Leaf Green, Railroad Earth, Furthur, Ratdog, North Mississippi Allstars,
Derek Trucks Band, Perpetual Groove, Drive-By Truckers, Mr. Blotto, Donna the
Buffalo, Strangefolk, Brothers Past, Hot Buttered Rum, Jerry Joseph and the
Jackmormons, Keller Williams, Sound Tribe Sector 9, Little Feat, Guster, Ween,
The Breakfast, New Monsoon, Cornmeal, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, JJ Grey
and MOFRO, Ryan Adams, The Bridge, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Dark Star
Orchestra, Steve Wynn, Ryan Montbleau, Lotus, Greensky Bluegrass, The Dead,
Zero, The Brew, Club d’Elf, Local H, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Of A
Revolution, Jerry Joseph (solo & side projects), Infamous Stringdusters,
Matisyahu, Camper Van Beethoven, Pat McGee Band, Garaj Mahal, Raq,
Benevento/Russo, My Morning Jacket, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Cowboy
Junkies, Animal Liberation Orchestra, Assembly of Dust, God Street Wine,
Soulive, Dopapod, Steve Kimock Band, Moonalice, Mike Mizwinski, The Gourds,
Steve Kimock, Charlie Hunter, Larry Keel, Acoustic Syndicate, Robert Randolph
[and the Family Band], Dumpstaphunk, The New Deal, Toubab Krewe, Nate Wilson
Group, Del McCoury Band, David Nelson Band, John Butler Trio, Karl Denson’s
Tiny Universe, The Codetalkers, Matt Nathanson, New Mastersounds, JGB, Lazlo
Hollyfeld, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, Mickey Hart Band, Zach Deputy,
Mysterytrain, Spin Doctors, The McLovins, Band of Heathens, Particle, Rusted
Root, John Mayer, Low, The Heavy Pets, Mogwai, David Gray, Robert Hunter, Sam
Bush, Mountain Goats, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Godspeed You Black
Emperor!, G. Love and Special Sauce, Glen Phillips, Kung Fu, Trampled by
Turtles, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, The Motet, Lettuce, Gomez Warren Zevon, Big
Daddy Love, Bushwalla, Emmitt Nershi Band, Garcia Birthday Band, Marco
Benevento, Rubblebucket, Carbon Leaf, Elliott Smith, Virginia Coalition,
indobox, Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad, Explosions in the Sky, Papadosio, Tim
Reynolds, Bob Weir, Future Rock, Moon Taxi, Toad The Wet Sprocket, EOTO,
Buckethead, Dubconscious, Rhythm Devils, Addison Groove Project, BoomBox,
Roots Of Creation, Billy Corgan, Death Cab for Cutie, Indecision, John Brown’s
Body, The Pimps of Joytime, Donavon Frankenreiter Band, …And You Will Know Us
By the Trail of Dead, Los Lonely Boys, Hank Williams III, DJ Logic, Zoogma,
Alabama Shakes, Citizen Cope, Greyboy Allstars, Cosmic Dust Bunnies, Vertical
Horizon, Telepath, The Verve Pipe, Pinback, The DJ Williams Projekt, Blind
Melon, Gin Blossoms, Fugazi, 2 Skinnee Js, Tenacious D and many more.

~~~
dhimes
If I were to put out an app that gave you access to research journals, should
I not list the journals that I give you access to? I, honestly, don't see this
as spammy. But I must confess that I don't really know much about Vibe Vault
so maybe there is something I'm missing. Or maybe there is a separate
"contents" page in the app store listing where that would be appropriate.

To me, "spammy" would be listing _unrelated_ or marginally related things, to
show up in edge-case searches. Perhaps "DJ, party, entertainment" etc. would
be spammy. Listing your contents? I respectfully disagree.

~~~
chrismcb
Sure if there were 2 or 3 journals, but if there were 10,000, listing the top
200 journals is just way too much.

------
dpcan
This happened to a small game of mine. I included the instructions of how to
play the game, and those instructions required the use of the same word a lot
of times. I too had my game suspended, but realized that it must have been the
use of the word, and because I couldn't figure out how else to explain the
rules without using the word a lot, I just had to remove the instructions from
the description completely - but that did the trick, and the game did get put
back in Google Play.

However, this did happen before the Dev Center design change and I WAS able to
go in and modify my game's description and that's how I noticed what the
problem must have been. I think they should at least allow read-only access to
the app's info so you can legitimately investigate.

~~~
dpcan
ADDITION:

I didn't include this info above, because what happened and what I did may not
both be agreed with by all.

I think the big difference between how this situation was handled and how I
handled it is that in this situation the author seemed to argue that what he
did was acceptable. They already said they don't think it was.

I wouldn't assume that they would come back with more info about the
violation, and I doubt they would change their interpretation of the
violation.

I believe that when I wrote in, I explained what I thought the problem might
be related to (and a few other possibilities) and agreed to change it to be
compliant. It may not be what's best for my app, but it's kind-of a David and
Goliath situation, so I decided to do what they wanted so my game could stay
in the store.

I pretty much agree with the approach. I don't want to think other developers
are getting special treatment, so I shouldn't either, so they are going to to
be strict with, and stick by their rules.

------
Nemant
Why is this at the top of HN? This app clearly has a spammy description.

[http://www.androidpit.com/en/android/market/apps/app/com.cod...](http://www.androidpit.com/en/android/market/apps/app/com.code.android.vibevault/Vibe-
Vault)

~~~
colinbartlett
People upvoting before coming to the comments.

------
FaisalAbid
Last night at 3am google decided to take my app down.

The best part is, my app was not even live!!

It was in draft mode. My description and screenshot were not final, and were
semi-complete placeholders. Before publishing the app I would have obviously
made sure it complied with everything.

Google found issue with that and took down my app. Now I've been running
around trying to get a hold of someone to look into this.

~~~
bitJericho
Look into it? There's someone at google that cares anymore?

~~~
FaisalAbid
Haven't found anyone yet. Its frustrating because we were 2 days before
launch. The screenshots and description was just being toyed and internally
just tested.

Now we have investors to answer to as well as other people who are annoyed at
us for delaying the launch at the last second.

------
wreegab
Another lesson for developers OP didn't list is: make the description of your
app in the store part of the development tree, so that it can be reviewed by
anybody if ever the app is removed from the store.

~~~
nekopa
This is an excellent idea. Maybe this way you could even A/B test different
copy.

------
sgehrman
Google is not cool at all. Don't trust them.

Banned for life: The hidden danger when developing for Android.

[https://medium.com/p/c62f2404f66](https://medium.com/p/c62f2404f66)

~~~
matthewmacleod
To be fair, this is a terrible example to bring up.

This is somebody who published a whole bunch of apps named after other content
creators, who subsequently ignored Google's warnings that his account would be
terminated, and who seems surprised when his account _was_ terminated.

There's a genuinely important discussion about the "walled-garden" style of
software distribution and the ramifications that this can have on developer
freedom, but I'm not convinced this fellow is a good example to run with.

~~~
scottydelta
Well I totally disagree, Its a very fair example. We are talking about re-
appeal process here and Google's way of handling it. The guy lost his play
store account, wallet account and what not and on top of that his appeal was
not even read(far away from reconsideration) by a human. I remember how google
blocked my Adsense account and all my re-appeal request fell on some deaf ears
of a lousy program which simply denied restoring my account. Its simply
Gangster like behavior!!

------
wjnc
I see his main point as being that the few closed mobile ecosystems (Apple,
Google, Microsoft) do not offer the same checks and balances we have gotten
used to in the public domain. You pretty much sign away your rights (or,
better: expectations of rights) on first use, when you agree to them having
final jurisdiction without (at least affordable) appeal.

But the thing is, I'm unsure what to do. Those massive infrastructures bring
software to the masses for free or little and bring huge opportunities for
developers. It's hard to imagine someone forcing Google and Apple to give
developers some sort of 'due process' within their ecosystem. Who would force
them and why? And 'due process' exists outside the ecosystem, but you signed
the EULA, remember?

Anti-trust would say: alternatives exist. They're small, but they exist. I
really don't know which approach would guarantee user rights better. But my
feeling is that this trend is bad for choice in the long run.

------
DatBear
I like how he says he reads legalese every day, and then puts this in there:

>"...Vibe Vault’s store listing did not 'not use irrelevant, misleading, or
excessive keywords in apps descriptions, titles, or metadata.'..."

With a double negative implying that it did break the policy. Hope he doesn't
write legalese every day as well.

------
chrisBob
Apple gets a lot of crap for censoring their store, but my experience is that
they at least provide good feedback when they have a problem with something.
With iOS you are usually also safe once it is accepted which is better than
finding out later (once you have reviews and downloads).

------
fredgrott
I see Google's point about keywords..as because I could simply list artists
accessible in Amazon's MP3 store for an app which would boost search SEo fro
the app but place an unfair advantage to other music apps

~~~
iBotPeaches
I agree with the keywords list. No one should be allowed to spam artist names
no matter the application. While the ban being permanent over a description is
a bit overboard, I agree with the reason why.

~~~
gress
What if a group of artists get together to create an app featuring their work?
Would they be allowed to use their own names?

~~~
iBotPeaches
Yes. That group wouldn't be 150 though.

~~~
gress
Why not? Who limits the size?

------
pdonis
What caught my attention was this statement in the article:

 _> I suppose now that Android is a lot more popular than it was when we
started developing Vibe Vault, it is no longer a priority for Google to treat
the Android community with a modicum of care or respect._

Oh, there was a time when Google _did_ treat the Android community with a
modicum of care and respect? There was a time when they gave you detailed
reasons why they pulled your app, and would actually give serious
consideration to your arguments for reinstating it? When was that, exactly?

------
tn13
The problem with Google is that their guidelines are just a red herring. The
ban account based on their whims and fancies.

For example consider this app:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eterno](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eterno)

And give me one good reason why it is not yet banned.

For Adsense look at this : [http://khabar.ndtv.com/](http://khabar.ndtv.com/)
(This is a site in Hindi and Adsense does not support Hindi)

------
Namrog84
Is there any cache of it anywhere? Where it could be criticized more deeply to
see if maybe others can help identify the issue.

That is really unfortunate and not sure if there is much you can do about it
now. I do wonder if they secretly discriminate against ad free and free
software for lack of money?

------
jug6ernaut
Does anyone know if DMCA takedowns count to towards the "3 strike policy"?

I had one of my application taken down on a bogus DMCA takedown but do to
having no money/time to fight it i just moved on.

~~~
DanBC
Did you file a counter notice? I understand it's a simple form and doesn't
take too long.

~~~
jug6ernaut
I considered this, but i was under the impression that filing a counter notice
would open you(me) up for actual legal complaints ect.

~~~
DanBC
It was a bogus DMCA complaint. It would have made the peoe claiming content
ownership look again and either proceed with legal action or stop.

If the proceeded with legal action and it was bogus they then have pretty
clearly crossed the boundaries required for the criminal element of bogus DMCA
complaints.

I agree it's a frustrating and sub optimal situation.

(Obviously I am not a lawyer).

------
yaur
"We listed 1 or 2 dozen of the most popular artists available through Vibe
Vault" That seems excessive IMO.

~~~
danmaz74
Especially when they actually listed 167 names

------
UweSchmidt
For me, the only acceptable restriction of what kind of Apps people can make,
sell and run on any device is the restriction set by law (ideally one that
came into place through a democratic process).

App Stores with a specific profile are absolutely fine _IF_ competing App
Stores exist and operate on a level playing field on that platform.

------
sparkie
Please put your app on F-droid

------
bitJericho
I'm getting real tired of Google's shit.

~~~
platz
s/Google/app stores

------
gress
Why don't they just put the app on another store? The whole point of Android
is that it's open and there's no walled garden.

/s

