[mihai_ionic]

Their customer support may be bad, but their developer support is far worse.

If your application is ever suspended from Google Play, you will be greeted with a message directing you to an appeal form which lets you enter a maximum of 1000 characters to make your case. This is without having an exact idea of the reason your application was suspended in the first place. You are also advised that you may not ask any questions about why you have been suspended, or else they will not reply to your appeal.

A few hours later you will invariably receive the following email:

    Hi,

    We have reviewed your appeal and will not be reinstating
    your app. This decision is final and we will not be
    responding to any additional emails regarding this removal.

    If your account is still in good standing and the nature of
    your app allows for republishing you may consider releasing
    a new, policy compliant version of your app to Google Play
    under a new package name. We are unable to comment further
    on the specific policy basis for this removal or provide
    guidance on bringing future versions of your app into policy
    compliance. Instead, please reference the REASON FOR REMOVAL
    in the initial notification email from Google Play.
    Please note that additional violations may result in a
    suspension of your Google Play Developer account.

Sources:

* http://www.bytesinarow.com/2014/04/skyrim-alchemy-advisor-pr...

* http://blog.hutber.com/how-my-google-devlopers-account-got-t...

* http://arduinodroid.blogspot.de/2014/03/arduinodroid-is-temp...

[lazyjones]

Hah!

AdWords customers like me (spending at some point several 100.000 Euro/year) are eternally grateful that they actually bothered to implement an appeal form after many years. We got locked out for more than a year with no way to contact anyone responsible (in good tradition of other Google services I presume) and thus no way to appeal, once the form got added, we got the lock removed within days ... What are you Android developers complaining about! </cynical>

[sentenza]

Thanks for sharing. So screw the Play Store then.

I wonder how long this can continue. At some point, one of those big walled garden providers will run head-on into EU law with this kind of behaviour. If you hold control over a significant part of a market, the law will eventually ( and hopefully) step in and prevent you from playing God.

[mcintyre1994]

I wonder if the app store or play store will ever be considered to have control over a significant part though. I imagine Apple would argue nope on the grounds of smaller market share/install base, Google on the grounds of a smaller revenue share.

[skj]

The Play Store is not a walled garden - you can easily install apps on your phone without it (unlike the Apple Store, which is, and where you can't).