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Comment by ZiiS | Hacker News Reader

I really don't see how they can. The business and usage details of their clients are confidential. We have their word that ToS where violated, I don't really think they should say more. This needs to go to arbitration.

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Is there a statement somewhere from Google saying the ToS was violated? I hadn't seen that and can't find one right now.

There's a reason we used to have courts with public records. Public records and transparency are a good thing. Binding arbitration has destroyed all of that.

Yes, court would be better, and totally justified here, but that also seems extremely unlikely given the contracts.

There is something fundmentally undemocratic and unlawful about contracts that basically preclude the ability of the parties to resolve disputes in open courts.

Arbitration is an inefficient and unproductive process. I suppose that may be what the parties chose, but the public will likely never know what happened and the problem will be allowed to reoccur again and again. Things like these are better resolved in courts, with res judicata, precedent, and visibility so that legislators can fix statutes where necessary.

> and the problem will be allowed to reoccur again and again

You're already placing blame here.

We don't know the details other than what Railway has said.

I think that's true regardless of what happened.

If Railway did something wrong, then letting that be known may help other customers avoid the same ~mistake.

If the ToS was actually violated and the suspension was legitimate, they wouldn't have reinstated Railway's account after five hours or whatever it was. Their behaviour is already a mea culpa.

I disagree. They could have done this to themselves and instead of fessing up, are placing the blame on an entity as a scapegoat.

Is that possible? Absolutely.

Has Google also done similar things before? Absolutely.

I certainly wouldn't bet my house on either possiblity.

Given that Railway publicly boasted about running their own infra, revealing that they were completely and totally dependent on GCP is massively damaging to their PR, far more damaging than admitting they had a problem in their own infra. Their customers are using them under the pretense of not using GCP, so if they're just a proxy for GCP, they have no reason to exist. I seriously doubt they concocted such a self-damaging lie.

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