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To be honest this sounds like some fake story. NewPipe really don't use any Google credentials and even considering how little trust I have in Google I don't buy like they going to buy account this this kind of stuff. Like seriously think on it: why should they ban someone based off IP address alone that can be shared with many devices / accounts.

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I'm inclined to agree because of one contradiction in the issue: they say they got an email when they were banned but then they say they can't access their Gmail to provide proof because they were banned. Either your account stays unbanned for a few minutes so your Gmail can sync in which case it should still be available offline, it's on another email which they can still access, or they're lying.

You can provide alternate email addresses for recovery, etc for google accounts.

True, but the person in question was asked in the thread to provide a screenshot of the email.

To which they replied that they couldn't because the account was locked. That certainly doesn't seem to add up, though it might just be a mis-communication.

Same reaction. I'm skeptical this story is true. I've never heard of Google banning a user over blocking ads before -- frankly, even with the amount of crap I usually give Google, this feels out of character for them.

Lots of people use NewPipe with unrooted phones, so if it is an actual policy, we should see more widespread bans. If we don't, I'm going to dismiss it as, "we don't have the full story, or its made up entirely."

That being said, of course you should take steps to mitigate the impacts of being banned by Google. But you should have been doing that anyway, so I don't think this story changes anything.

But... no, I wouldn't panic over using NewPipe.

I don't know anything about this specific story, and won't comment on it. But, this is actually a common attack vector that people with nefarious purposes use. They come up with a story that makes some company look bad, but leave out important details (like they were trying to hijack accounts, spamming, etc...). Some of these people will do this either to get policies changed in their benefit, or as a form of revenge for getting caught.

It's important to remember that all stories have 2 sides, and to consider other possibilities when you only hear one side of a story.

I used to work with Google's account abuse team. The company will never comment on suspensions, so you are right that you only get 1 side. Every consumer account suspension I ever looked into was due to severe abuse on the part of the account holder: folders full of child porn, account being used to spam or distribute viruses, etc. Every advertiser account that some jerk whined about being "wrongly suspended for no reason omg google is satan" was actually due to either click fraud or advertisers' sites distributing malware. Whenever you see one of these complaints you should reach for a massive, galaxy-scale grain of salt.

In this case however the account holder is being totally up front about their activities: they were using a proxy network to rip off YouTube. This is a bit like Trump committing treason on live TV and then later whining about impeachment on Twitter. What's in question is not the facts but the policy.

Out of curiosity, how did you notice folders were full of child porn? Do operators have access to mail folders and / or use to check randomly on people emails?

They shared it and someone reported it, 100% of the time. Complaints are verified by special contractors whose mental health is sacrificed for child safety.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/reyhan/tech-confessiona...

My understanding is that hosting companies use hashes of known material in combination with automated scanning. Also, that some companies may not want to tell you much about how they do it, because the act of identifying it means looking at it, which is illegal (I have not researched this, I might well be wrong/inaccurate)

I'm pretty sure looking at it isn't the illegal part. Making, possessing, and distributing are the illegal bits. Maybe some other aspects too, like transporting or buying or some form of conspiring? I don't think the government (at least the US gov't) can actually make looking at anything illegal. But it's hard to look at something that's restricted in that way without doing at least one of the illegal things.

If just looking were illegal, you could shove it in someone's face on the sidewalk and they'd instantly be guilty of a serious crime.

I don’t understand, you’re saying this case is believable? That Google treats this the same as folders full of child porn?

This is absolutely nonsense. My colleagues account was suspended for using PayPal and not Google wallet, one startup was suspended because their dev had multi sign-in, my account was suspended because of "app likeness" or whatever bullshit, people were suspended for reselling pixel, wrong credit card info, pseudo names on Google plus, dmca violation, copy right violation on YouTube, competitors hitting report, false copy right and the list goes on.

Some commenters on the thread suggested that Play Protect reports to Google that your device (linked to your account) uses this app. I'm not sure that's true, but I disabled it nonetheless.

They wouldn't. But if there's enough secondary signal for them to determine what account is running the access that is grabbing videos but not ads (i.e. do NewPipe's requests carry the phone IMEI? Can Google correlate that IMEI to a user account?), Google could lock down the account.

What the user describes sounds like an account lockdown, not an IP ban.

>do NewPipe's requests carry the phone IMEI?

It doesn't have the required permissions to get IMEI, so no.

It sounds to me like this user was banned for an entirely different reason. Like for example, someone stole his login credentials, fired up hundreds of VM's on GCloud, and started mining Monero.

User does claim they received a message from Google "saying that I was using 3rd party app outside of Play Store to go around Youtube ads." We haven't seen a copy of that message, but I'm assuming we can take it at face-value.

Why would you assume one sentence of an anonymous person on the Internet should be taken at face value?

'shadowgovt owes me 12.3 BTC.

If we don't assume that on average, we have very little to talk about. ;)

You can't assume it at face-value, because how could he receive the email if he's banned?

I had the same intuition as well. I'm wondering if this is a scare story generated by a google employee to get people to stop using NewPipe.

Or generated by a Google opposer to get people to stop using Google.

or stop using google ?

Good point

The culprit could be Google Play protect. You need to use a google account to use Google Play, and then Google Play periodically scans apps, even if they aren't downloaded from Google Play like F-Droid (even apps I loaded for testing using adb). So that scan, whose results are sent back to google could reveal NewPipe and associate that with your account.

For me it's hard to believe that Google can identify which Google user account is used to run NewPipe.

IP address? But if they really did that, this could be grounds for a serious lawsuit. I have a suspicion that the poster is not being entirely honest.

There are multiple ways for Google to know that NewPipe is installed in a device. Play Protect scanning is one way mentioned in the OP’s github link. Another method I can think is, when I download a mp3 file using newpipe, it adds the text “NewPipe” for the Album mp3 tag. and PlayMusic automatically uploads any new mp3 file downloaded to your device.

Also isn't there another setting to track app usage activity on Android? I'm pretty certain that also keeps a record of opening and using apps outside of just what's on the Play store as well. If anything I'd suspect that was used rather than Play Protect.

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