Google destroyed my Play Developer Account and my work for the last 2 years

Lots of people like and use Google. For me, I've moved away from their services for email and communication. Their tendency to launch a new project with tremendous momentum and support only to suddenly and without warning cancel the whole project (looking at you Google Wave) combined with their Orwellian level of control over the internet as a whole was the one-two punch that put me off entirely.

The duopoly of having Apple and Google control the entire mobile universe is gut wrenching. This developer is now unable to develop for millions of phones based on an algorithm deciding they were a bad actor and Google likely won't be compelled to care, a drop in the vast ocean of their concerns.

There aren't any alternatives for commercial or monetary apps. I've taken to using finds on f-droid for mission critical mobile applications but that's just not viable for most people.

I've been working on a Chrome extension for a few years now.

I just embarked on it full time when i got a message from google saying it would be removed as it was in violation of one of their policies. It wasn't, so i appealed — then they said it was in violation of a different policy. Again it wasn't so I appealed. Eventually I got to keep it on the chrome store — without making any changes.

Although I got to keep the extension on the store, because of this interaction I've decided to abandon the project. My plan was to build it to be cross platform. But it's just not worth the effort when Google or Apple can just pull the rug from under you.

So, I'm sticking with web based projects now.

I really feel for this developer.

Usually when you read a “Big Tech company mistreated me and won’t respond” article like this, you’ll identify one or more things the author did wrong and realize the story isn’t as one-sided as the headline would suggest. But this case is as clear as can be: Andrey followed the rules and lost everything, while Google broke their own and failed to offer any kind of meaningful support.

> To cut a long story short — due to moving to another country, I wanted to update my developer account to follow all the rules related to taxes in that country, but with Google, it’s not so easy, you can’t change the country for an existing payment profile (and also create a new payment profile), you need to create a new Google account, then pay for a new developer account and only then create a new payment profile and transfer your app to that new account.

These don't seem like the right steps. You can definitely have multiple payments profiles for one account, including from different countries (I do). There's no need to create a second account.

The instructions the author links to aren't suggesting creating a new account either.

I've moved my email and calendar off Google, stakes are just too fucking high. Also ditched Chrome for trusty Firefox. The only reason I have a Google account is just for Android and Youtube

Edit: also DDG for search

When people say they move off gmail because the stakes are too high, I've kind of bought into that line -- the stakes are very high in terms of having e-mail be the main way recover all sorts of other accounts. But then I've tried to get myself to switch email providers and it doesn't actually make any sense to me.

Do I really believe, say, protonmail is less likely to screw me than gmail? Why?

What are the actual odds of gmail screwing me? They're huge, a few horror stories don't indicate much. And protonmail is small, the fact that I haven't heard horror stories doesn't mean much. (Not trying to pick on protonmail specifically, I think this all applies to any other provider I've seen suggested.)

Maybe the alternatives are in fact less likely to screw me due to some bullshit reason, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure with most other providers I'm more likely to get screwed for a technical reason, or because the company goes under, or because the company changes hands, or, if it's a paid service, because I fail to pay for some reason and the service doesn't degrade to free nicely.

I think switching to hotmail might make sense. They're a similar size to gmail, but I haven't heard the horror stories. And they're similar in all the other ways, unlikely to have a major technical problem, unlikely to change hands or go under, and I can't forget to pay them because it's free.

I'm just not convinced there's other better alternatives. If the stakes are too high the solution is probably just to make the stakes less high.

For decades, a foundational principle requiring frequent reminders was, ALWAYS back up your work. We have another just like it these days: NEVER rely on Google.

Sadly its cases like these that reinforce basic life concepts. Does developing Android apps really hold enough value for someone to wrap their entire livelihoods around? I realize people can make big money doing this, but is this really something worthwhile spending your life doing? Maby from an ecosystem standpoint it's no different than developing on some other environment. But the Google pool is simply too small to put years of your life into something that can be canceled at the drop of a hat by an uncaring robotic overlord. Or maby I'm making too big of a deal out of it, maby this was just a side-project that only received 10 hours a week of their time. It still sucks as it was a fun passion project. The same question rises up though. If you are making money with a project, try to not to give too much value away to the landlord. If one landlord can with a single robotic keystroke wipe you out rethink what you are doing from the ground up.

It's not dissimilar from others in the FAANG ecosystem. Someone that's all in on Apple: uses Apple Pay, @mac.com email, etc. They change the credit card they have tied to Apple pay, some mistake happens, and then a month later they lose access to their email and other majorly important services they rely on. Very inconvenient, if it happens when you are traveling abroad you could be screwed pretty bad. People are learning slowly: never keep all your technology eggs in one landlords basket. Some day, some how, you will make a mistake. Whether it's your fault or not, or you expressed an unpopular opinion, your project/livelihood/life/etc. will get deactivated with no remorse.

For anyone wondering, this appears to be the app: https://steprimo.com/android/us/app/io.linga/Linga-Read-book... (it's been instantly deleted from the google play store, which is just hilarious Google "minimum viable everything" behavior).

Google is the same as: Here is some free co-working space that you can set up your office in; lots of tools and free coffee. But no contracts either way.

Maybe a good place to set up and get started, but always think that it could be boarded up tomorrow.

When the hell is Google going to realise the irreparable damage stories like this are doing to their brand? You want to challenge AWS & Azure in the cloud? Then fix this ASAP. Allow additional appeals; no automated bans; provide human responses. Honestly, it isn't that hard.

I wish every damn company would stop requiring an email and phone number for signups... I probably have hundreds of account using my gmail address and many probably don't even allow you to change it.

I won't update all those accounts, instead I forward all gmail emails to my new email address and use my new email for new accounts that I create.

The fundamental problem is that everyone accepts these centralized distribution systems.

It's absolutely not a requirement these days.

It's as if Walmart owned the freeway and has a toll booth with an ID check and everyone just shrugged and went with it.

I wonder if "do not use Google services" may become accepted wisdom among IT people.

In the opinions of many, Google is a monster. We know it and they know it too. Problem is, what can we do about it? Until then, expect Google to kick dirt in users faces. They will continue to terminate, ban, shadow ban, blacklist, violate privacy, sell your info, etc... at will and when convenient, for them.

Until a true challenger or their replacement arrives, don't be surprised at having to keep wiping the dirt out of your eye.

So Google assumed that there

* People do not move to other countries * People do not have double citizenships * Even if they have double citizenhip their full name must be same * Goole is always correct

Posts like this keep showing up here. My own Twitter account was deleted a few days ago and I never really even posted. I just used it to follow some accounts talking about the war.

If someone wanted my advice I might say:

1 - Be the change. Don't find it acceptable that some corporation kicks someone off their service / cancels them just because they're a republican, or vocal, or otherwise believes something you disagree with. Speech is free or it isn't. Elon Musk had a great tweet on this a couple of weeks ago concerning people asking him to censor Russian sources of information.

2 - Don't patronize those that censor. And it's no coincidence that those that censor are so often those that don't charge for their services. If you're getting it for free (money) it's not free (freedom). Sometimes paying a few bucks a month is worth it.

How does transfer works in case application is sold to another company/developer? I guess process should be similar? anyone has any idea?

this is why people should be developing more desktop apps imo, but not surprised at this, have seen it and will see more of it in the future. google is final authority on this and they just don't like the author (for whatever reason)

While I agree that they have hurt your account, and I hope that you find some resolution on the matter because it looks like you did things correctly without knowing the specifics, how have they destroyed your work for the last 2 years?

As one who has no faith in human nature, I think:

1. These controllers are being paid off by companies who builds similar apps but not as good.

2. These controllers are stealing the code and selling it to other developers who will republish under a different name.

Why hasn't Google been split up yet?

Make web apps.

This could have been avoided by not having your entire business be at the mercy of a single company and whether any of its one million agents makes a mistake.

no repo, no backups?