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Please don't fulminate or call names on HN, regardless of how you feel about app store policies. Instead, please make your substantive points thoughtfully. All this is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

> But as I've said on HN before this thread will eventually disappear in a few hours until next time.

HN has had tons of threads on these general topics. They are heavily discussed in this forum and spend plenty of time on the front page.

Maybe some such threads have been flagged—most likely that would be because users get tired of repetition. If you've developed the impression that the topic is somehow being suppressed, that's probably because you've overgeneralized from a few data points (or one) that you saw on some occasion(s).

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

I'm sorry for being nitpicky but have you even skimmed the article? It has nothing to do with AI: a human visited their website and decided asking for donations there violates the Play Store ToS. I mean your comment is perfectly fine, it simply has nothing to do with the article.

Could still have been an AI that automatically visits all sites and subsites in an App and scans for certain keyword and makes screenshots

I bet most of the people reading these comments could actually write such a script in under 30 minutes, it has nothing to do with AI.

Edit: To be fair I can't imagine a situation where it would ever make sense. The link-depth in this case was 2. This is just bad behavior on the part of Google.

This is completely speculative.

Just like the claim that a human visited the site and found a donation subsite. What's more likely? That someone at google checked the links in a small relatively unknown app or that an automatic process scanned the links in the app, something what is the main business of Google next to advertising?

If I was in charge of monitoring compliance I would write the Paypal link checker bot in my first day of work.

> This is absolutely outrageous and disgusting from Google

This is Google. At this point this is expected behaviour from one of the Big Tech Tyrants, Over [0] and over [1] and over [2] again [3] multiple [4] times [5]. Unless we seriously break it up, they will never change and the suspensions will continue.

Like Facebook, when you are banned by their AI moderation tools, there is little redemption and it's unlikely they will give the account back; since you don't even own it.

Once again, these tyrants are NOT your friends.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26488655

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25693679

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22334537

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24984408

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24304275

[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25964226

tyrants

That old saying about patriots and tyrants comes to mind...

I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted -- the top comment and highest rated replies are bikeshedding about AI, you're actually showing that this is a pattern of shitty behaviour by Google.

Why are you assuming this is an AI-driven decision? It looks like human intervention to me.

Isn't it safer to assume it is until proven otherwise?

A developer has their app removed, perhaps their livelihood, and Google can't be fucked to sign off who made the decision?

If it was a human I expect to know who, and who I can write to so it can be reviewed, by another human. I want to know how I can contact a human for support and not some useless AI chat bot that seem to be all the rage these days (looking at you Amazon...)

But yes, it's happened so much by AI you just assume these days...like a YouTube takedown for example by a bot.

How do you know Phrodo_00 isn't an AI?

How do you know you aren't an AI?

Ask yourself a tricky question, if you can answer you're an AI. AI's don't actually know when they don't know something. It's called the "softmax curse", causes them to have Dunning–Kruger.

A human did this. See the screenshots on the post - there's a screenshot of the home page, followed by a screenshot of the donation page, followed by a screenshot of PayPal. Quoting TFA:

> That's right; someone at Google reviewed this app, visited the LT website, scrolled to the very bottom of the page, and clicked through twice to find a way to contribute funds to the project. Our app isn't allowed to link to the homepage of the project's own website unless we completely remove our users' ability to discover a way to give us money."

So that's the answer to your question. AI is irrelevant here because existing processes that are performed by humans are unaccountable or unjust, too.

(This is my problem with "AI foom" doomsaying, by the way: we've clearly gotten to a point without AI where groups of humans, acting in individually rational ways, have built a monstrous system that nobody can either understand in its entirety or effectively oppose. We got there centuries ago, for that matter, at least as far back as when the phrase "invisible hand" was invented. The problem here is not that we have moved accountability from a human to an AI, it's that we've moved accountability from a human to a corporation, and it is quite obviously unjust to hold the individual anonymous Google reviewer responsible for accurately following the instructions of their minimum-wage job, but we also have no way to find the PM or exec who wrote these policies and they probably don't even know what the impact of those policies is.)

How about we just stop 100% trusting Google?

> How many more times must threads like this be posted to HN before we DEMAND action be taken?

I completely agree with you, but do realize that the majority of hacker newses are coders (not even programmers) who would never take responsibility for their shoddy work. Heavens forbid they, or their management, be held personally liable for their mistakes. They won't even call defects, "defects"--they're just "bugs"! Whoopsies!

What could they be hiding in all that proprietary code--incompetence, malice, or both?

The word bug has nothing to do with someone's stance on "defects". This term has been in use (with the same meaning) for longer than computers exist. It also has no connection to bugs as in animals. But what do I know, I'm just a shoddy coder.

Can you please elaborate why you would think this is a mistake and Google should side step the app store rules applied to all businesses? This income is clearly taxable. The play store offers a 50% discount for small apps.

Is it because the payment is optional (and doesn't unlock new features) that make you think this should be except from Google's rules (and potentially taxes?)?

> Can you please elaborate why you would think this is a mistake and Google should side step the app store rules applied to all businesses?

I don't think anyone is arguing for this app in particular to get an exception from the rules. People are arguing that this rule is ridiculous and that nobody should have to follow it as it's currently written.

Apparently this isn't how Google sees it, but I'd say yes, giving people a way to donate on your website where your website is linked to from the app under "About" or "More Information" is clearly different from offering an app for purchase, or with in-app purchase, on multiple fronts.

The first is that it's a donation, not a purchase, and changes nothing about the app. The second is that there's no mention of donation anywhere in the app, and the website/about/more info link does go to a website with more info.

If you instead, like Google, decide that this still counts, you end up the in the (in my opinion, clearly wrong) situation where Google either controls what you put on your independent website, or Google disallows you from linking to your website/portfolio in the app you made.

That sounds quite draconian to me. I wonder if adding an in-app purchase that says "donate w/cut to Google" would appease them.

it seems you're spiritually correct but google is trying to remove the payment loophole that apple enforces as well so I'm curious if we can pressure them both to allow donation links even if normal payment options are banned...

Correct me if I'm wrong. From the screenshot[1] it looks like the donation is made through Paypal, not Google's merchant services. My understanding is the app just links to a website. If there's any tax evasion going on it has nothing to do with Google.

[1] https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1474671/129396236-...

Taxes are entirely beside the issue - that's between the original developer and the IRS. The Play Store policy has always been about in-app purchases, and few people would describe a donation as "purchasing" anything.

I agree with you on the taxes issue (and can’t imagine how the opposing argument would go).

I disagree with you on the funding the app developer angle. If you seek funding in a way supported, even indirectly, by the app’s availability in the Play Store, Google wants its cut. If you don’t want that support, you’re free to go it alone without the store.

As mentioned in TFA, Google does not allow non-taxable donations through Play, and requires that you use a 3rd-party processor for those.

What does Google have to do with taxes related to Patreon?

This clearly isn't Ubisoft.

"Purchases that require Google Play's billing system: Digital items, Subscription services, App functionality or content, Cloud software and services"

https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...

"Developers charging for apps and downloads from Google Play must use Google Play's billing system as the method of payment. Play-distributed apps must use Google Play's billing system as the method of payment if they require or accept payment for access to features or services, including any app functionality, digital content or goods."

https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...

Can you explain which of those categories this payment ("The app doesn't provide any special features to people who donate; it's just a way to help support the project.") falls under?

While I understand what you're saying here, I would guess that it's seen as bypassing the intent of the rules, if not their specific wording.

If I put an app up on the app store for free, then link to my site and ask for donations, I am effectively using the app store for free. The app in question is effectively setup to say "you don't need to pay for this app, but we would really like you too"... and then the payment is handled outside the play store. Arguing over whether it should be called payment or a donation doesn't really change the fact that is it the user giving money to the developer because of the app; the app they got on the play store. That's the behavior that the rule in intended to avoid.

If Google's intent is to ban donations to an app creator, then why does it explicitly say "if they require or accept payment for access to features or services, including any app functionality, digital content or goods"?

Frankly it seems to me that the intent of the rules is to specifically allow asking for payment/"donation" outside of Play so long as nothing in your app is affected by it.

I read the intent as disallowing the use of the app store to distribute an app that you make money on, without paying for the use of the app store. It seems as simple as that. And "this app is free, but please come give me money for it" is a way of doing just that.

Again, "if they require or accept payment for access to features or services"

The screenshot says that the violation is on the other part of the policy:

"Google Play's billing system must not be used in cases where:... payments include peer-to-peer payments, online auctions, and tax exempt donations;"

That is, according to the screenshot in the GitHub PR, the app was removed for using the Google Play billing system when they shouldn't be using it. It was not removed for failing to use the Google Play Billing system when they should have been.

I have no idea how they might have been using Google Play billing. There is no billing code on GitHub that I see. Maybe they turned on billing on the Play Store accidentally, or maybe the screenshot has the wrong policy violation.

I don't think anyone is saying this has anything to do with the payment being optional or the app being Open Source. Google's interpretation of its rules (assuming that this isn't just a mistake) is that an app can't link in-app to any source or page if there's a way to get from that page to a payment processor.

Imagine if you went into Walmart, bought an Android phone, and then when you turned the phone on Google wasn't allowed to show you any links in the Android OS to their support pages because technically you can navigate from the support pages to the online Google store and then buy another phone from them directly without giving Walmart a cut.

I don't think Google would call that a reasonable restriction, I think Google would call that anticompetitive.

> Imagine if you went into Walmart, bought an Android phone, and then when you turned the phone on Google wasn't allowed to show you any links in the Android OS to their support pages because technically you can navigate from the support pages to the online Google store and then buy another phone from them directly without giving Walmart a cut.

No, imagine if you went into Walmart, picked up an item for free and then used PayPal to sidestep Walmarts margin. And then threw a giant fuss because Walmart stopped stocking that free item.

That would be a problem if that was what was happening here. But it's not what's happening here, so it's not a problem :)

Google is listing the app as free. Separately, on a website via a page that is not linked from the main app in any location, you can donate to the developer. The developer is not linking to or steering the user towards that donation page in the app or in the app description, they're just linking to their code repository, which is clearly important for an Open Source app to do. If Walmart gave me a product for free, and separately I donated some money to the person who originally made that product, Walmart wouldn't really have much justification to complain.

The analogy you're proposing doesn't really make sense to me. Are you arguing that any method of donating to the developer at all outside of the Play Store is intrinsically stealing from Google? Are you arguing that the developer is stealing from Google by not hiding their donation pages on other platforms that exist outside of the app?