
Google terminated my developer account and started a competing business - pekkasipila
https://medium.com/@pekkasipila/google-terminated-my-developer-account-and-started-a-competing-business-a-case-for-app-neutrality-570750c8a8f
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javagram
The “competing business” seems almost like clickbait.

This is a game developer and he is saying Stadia is a competing business. But
Google will want developers to make games for stadia, not make all the games
themselves.

As far as the termination itself goes, either he actually did have another
account or shared creds with someone who did something shady, or he was just
unlucky enough to share an IP address or some other piece of tracking info
with a person who did. It would be interesting to know the next steps google
might take, for instance if this person became employed by another company
would google terminate the accounts of that company? The email seems to
suggest they could, but I assume that at some point a company might grow big
enough that google would back off.

~~~
johnwheeler
Yes, I didn’t finish the whole article, but it seems akin to saying Wal-mart
kicked my lemonade stand off their property and competed by selling
Countrytime and Newman’s Own.

~~~
ggggtez
Considering they never even launched their game, I think that metaphor is
giving too much credit.

It would be like if your friend was caught stealing from Walmart, and then you
and your friend walk in to Walmart together. Then when Walmart bans you by
association, you write a blog post about how Walmart is trying to shut down
your lemonade brand.

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melan13
They should at least give the subject area related to the violation.

> We’ve reviewed and confirmed this association.

Such a detail...

~~~
tinus_hn
We don’t know what kind of details Google gave, we only have one side of the
story.

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lostmyoldone
Google don't give any details, as far as I have been able to deduce, and
that's absolutely part of the problem.

As far as I know, nobody even knows what the phrase "associated account"
means, it could be anything, maybe someone free-riding on your WiFi?

It's one of the things Google does that I find absolutely appalling. It
patently absurd that you for unknowable reasons might become unable to
continue supporting yourself without any recourse or remedy at the leisure of
these behemoth companies, only because they consider you associated with
someone who has broken the rules.

Since so little is known, it might even affect your possibilities for
employment. Who would want to risk their product getting thrown out of the app
store because your team got 'tainted' by a hire which had a prior app store
termination to his/her name?

~~~
deogeo
> someone who has broken the rules.

 _Google_ 's rules. How long till they decide that making apps to break
Android DRM, or block advertising, is also against their rules? Those rules
aren't written to advance ethical computing, but to make Google money.

~~~
ggggtez
Breaking DRM is against federal law, so... I'm not sure where you are going
with this.

It sounds like you really want to bring that up with the Terms of Service of
your government.

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ducttape12
I feel companies brought this on themselves. Sure, having an app might have
helped early on to differentiate yourself from your competition, but now you
have to have an app if you want to seem legit. Which means you have to get in
bed with Google and Apple.

~~~
lostmyoldone
First time I read some of the different app store terms, I was in disbelief as
to why anyone would want to put serious effort into an app under those terms.

But yeah, not all companies can claim to be only a victim here, as many have
been enablers too. Especially the larger ones, those who could said no, but
choose not to.

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malshe
This is a long rant and I couldn’t finish even half the post because it was
going nowhere. The lead is totally buried.

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ggggtez
>2 followers >no details of what they were even building

Same old game developer narcissism. I bet Nintendo was really worried about
your game coming out too, in case it hurt their Switch sales. How can a person
be so conceited?

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duxup
Hard to know if the claims are true if we don't even know what the original
app ...is / was.

