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by msandford 4341 days ago
If I sue someone for something I don't get to just say "your honor, look at the law and this contract, they're clearly violating it!" and blammo get a judgement against them. I have to enumerate my claims as to what they did wrong. I have to CITE things.

Should we hold Google to the same standard that we hold the criminal justice system? No obviously not.

But if it's so obvious what portion of the T&C he's breaking surely a hyperlink to that portion of the document should take only a second to generate. And if it's not obvious and requires some nuanced thought then perhaps a paragraph explaining would be warranted. And some links.

But to suggest that Google explaining itself would prove some kind of undue burden on Google for their actions is ridiculous! They've already hired people to police this kind of stuff. To suggest that Google couldn't have these human reviewers take a second to explain their decisions (at a fairly lost cost) boggles the mind.

1 comments

"The suspension email stated that I was trying to impersonate another company, and that this was forbidden."

Impersonation or Deceptive Behavior: Don't pretend to be someone else, and don't represent that your app is authorized by or produced by another company or organization. .. Apps must not have names or icons that appear confusingly similar to existing products

I don't know how Google can be any more clear about that. By the authors own admission, the email used the exact same words as the T&C he violated. If I had to bet, there was a link in there to page. You're arguing here without actually reviewing the underlying documents.

"Apps must not have names or icons that appear confusingly similar to existing products"

Okay so then a single extra sentence stating "The icon and name you have chosen are unacceptable because you are not X, Y or Z and constitute impersonation in our opinion" would have cleared up all the problems.

But that didn't happen did it? Nope!

That is not a satisfactory response.

From the OP:

I emailed Google back and asked them to tell me exactly what I need to change to be compliant with the rules. Is it the icon? The name? The disclaimer? What?

Repeating the T&C verbiage alone is not good enough.