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Comment by aenis | Hacker News Reader

This can't work for long. Translate is a profit center for google, and this also shows others that they can disregard google's monetization model for translate.

Commercial use of those APIs is common, despite translate being pretty expensive. Also, GCP current leadership is so hell bent on nickel-and-diming their customers, and their compensation packages are so dependent on value share growth, that they simply can't afford anyone openly violating their pricing models. Especially a popular app. My guess is this will be down within the first week of January.

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I'm curious what techniques they will use to differentiate between Telegram and non-Telegram users. If I were them, I'd simply use my power leverage and threaten them to remove the app from the Play store unless they remove/fix the offending code - it's much simpler than an eternal mouse-and-cat game, with possible collateral damage.

Ah, you're suggesting Google uses its position on the Play Store to fend of abusers of an unrelated service, that happens to be owned by Google as well? I don't think that will work in Google's favor when they try to defend any anti-trust cases slung their way, or being active right now. Google has many other subtle ways that garner less attention to ward of any misuses. Subtly downrank in the search index, throttle any traffic heading their way, suggest other applications in the play store on top, accidentelly flag Telegram as a "risky" platform, etc.

I see what you mean but surely there must be precedents of apps being pulled from the Play Store because they abused 3rd party APIs, be it Google's or somebody else's?

I mean why even bother obfuscating the URL otherwise, surely the expected that it could be caught in the review process.

Well, Apple has no qualms about it[0] so why should Google?

[0] https://dcurt.is/apple-card-can-disable-your-icloud-account

stop giving them ideas.

I don't think you're serious as most of these ideas aren't that novel / intricate, but in general I'd rather publicise these ideas so they're general knowledge and everything would be aware of the absurd amount of power Google levies.

;-) Happy New year!

You too =D

Given that Google runs ReCapcha - which is almost certainly the world's most widely used browser fingerprinting system - they have ample experience with is-it-a-real-browser cat and mouse games.

In fact if you use this API constantly, you are presented with a recaptcha.

In this case, Telegram may just display the captcha and let the user solve it.

That's likely also why Telegram doesn't proxy every translation request over their server: so that it is users individually requesting small number of translations, from their phone, getting around quota of free APIs "naturally".

Honestly those are so easy to circumvent. I built translation functionality into an IRC bot in the past and it was so easy to avoid recaptcha if you did stuff in a clean way.

I think they will look for a legal solution. I doubt they will change the API; my guess it it exists to support some other services google sells -- and adding heuristics to detect freeloaders may impact legitimate customers. Nope, they will get a cease and desist letter, and if they happen to use any other GCP services, or rely on Google to do business, this will likely be pretty persuasive.

> I'm curious what techniques they will use to differentiate between Telegram and non-Telegram users.

A cease-and-desist letter from Google legal tends to work pretty well as a technique in these cases.

I'm pretty sure Telegram is outside of US jurisdiction and can trivially respond with a middle finger.

Google's only real option here is to either engage in cat & mouse trying to block this usage or threaten a Play Store removal which comes with its own drawbacks (Telegram has significant marketshare).

Ummm, the UK has legal system too. I sure would love it if we could "trivially respond with a middle finger" to legal issues. This isn't Russia we are talking about here.

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