from Hacker News

Google bans my events app for referencing Covid-19, or related terms

by kujaomega on 5/18/20, 12:26 PM with 214 comments

• by mediaman on 5/18/20, 4:44 PM

  Slightly different topic, but Google also suspended our company's adwords account, I believe for using keywords related to COVID-19.

  The business is an American manufacturer that added capacity to manufacture PPE to make up for the lack of Chinese supply. Since we were supplying direct to the market, the prices of the PPE were in-market from before COVID times, or cheaper. We weren't out to make a killing, just to fill up some manufacturing time and help folks out. We had the equipment, the people, the facility.

  However, we didn't have a great way to reach people who needed it - healthcare was not our normal industry - so we decided to put it up on Adwords.

  Within 24 hours, the account was suspended. We appealed it (thinking it must have been a mistake), and a month later, they told us they reviewed it and maintained the suspension. We told them we were only promoting PPE to help people in health care find supply and they didn't care. We've never had suspension issues before.

  The whole experience left a very negative taste for Google. With their extreme dominance in market share for advertising, they no longer need to cater to customers' needs. (Maybe they care if you're a multimillion dollar customer, but certainly not if you're an everyday SME manfuacturer.) And there's not a lot of alternatives to turn to for that type of advertising. There was no recourse, no discussion, no reasoning. Just the Google blank wall.

  We wound up manufacturing lots of it anyway to hospitals in need, but Google actively tried to stop distribution of American-made PPE during the pandemic.

• by timdorr on 5/18/20, 2:30 PM

  One of the most popular podcast apps, Podcast Addict, is dealing with this right now as well: https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/05/18/podcast-addict-pull...

  https://twitter.com/PodcastAddict/status/1261651512947691520

• by leppr on 5/18/20, 2:16 PM

  I've long wished there was a more encompassing alternative to F-Droid, which would include the same payment facilities as Google Play (paid app, in-app payments, subscriptions), allow proprietary apps (but still give FOSS as a search filter and show it as a prominent feature on the app page), and offer plenty of user curation features ala Steam and make filters optional (which would allow communities of independent reviewers to vet apps for child-safety, not being COVID-related, etc... and users to chose whether to restrict themselves to that selection or not).

  It's quite amazing when you think about it, that two US companies have absolute power over deciding what 99% of people in the world can do with a device that many would describe as an extension of themselves.

• by mrtksn on 5/18/20, 3:19 PM

  Apple rejected my update for having COVID-19 related keywords, I removed the keywords and submitted again and it was approved pronto. I wasn't trying to piggyback the pandemic or anything like that, I added the keyword because it's relevant to my app.

  But as I understand it, Apple is not accepting any apps related to COVID-19 that don't come from an authority like a medical institution or a government body. In the face of the reality that there are many people ready to sell their mothers to slavery for profit(and even maybe likes or the LULs), I am O.K. with leaving the pandemic to the monopoly of institutions that can be held responsible for their actions.

  You should try to re-submit your app without referencing to the pandemic in any way. Do not include any keywords that can get you flagged again. After all, the pandemic could have never happened. You are not entitled to profit from it, right?

  Your description looks fairly innocent and I see how it is relevant to mention the quarantine and I wish you luck as your app might actually help people with it but it's not the end of the world not to use the word.

  Unlike you, there are many people looking to rank high in the most popular keywords simply because these are popular keywords at the moment and it's likely that Google and Apple don't have a better way to separate bad apples from the good apples so they go for the crude but safe approach of banning them.

• by cryptoquick on 5/18/20, 2:07 PM

  Google is just such an awful, despicable company, that I've actually moved everything I can from their platform. It wasn't easy, I'd been a Gmail user for nearly 15 years. I'd rather pay Microsoft a hundred bucks a year than support them. That's how much I hate Google.

• by davidg109 on 5/18/20, 2:26 PM

  I have a strong love/hate relationship with all this App Store oligopoly. Love because often they are weeding out apps with security/privacy concerns. On the flip side, cases like this where you are 600 feet buried in red tape trying to talk some sense into someone at the company.

  You can try to talk to someone at Google, but good luck with that. I think you’re doing what’s best now. Shine a spotlight so far up Google’s hooter via publicity about your case that someone higher up catches your attention and remedies the situation.

• by mavsman on 5/18/20, 2:52 PM

  My brother made an app to help people remember to wash their hands when they get home. Simple. Free. No ads. Very minimal. Tracks location locally but doesn't collect it or make any network calls. Google denied him from publishing to the app store until he removed all references to Coronavirus or COVID-19.

  I only downloaded it because he's my brother but I now realize how helpful it is and it's frustrating that potentially helpful apps are getting banned when they're not even attempting to profit.

• by WrtCdEvrydy on 5/18/20, 2:38 PM

  Yeah, google banned mine too (https://medium.com/@lazherrera/that-one-time-google-made-it-...)

• by nocturnial on 5/18/20, 2:09 PM

  Could you post your back-and-forth with google support?

  In the worst case, I doubt it will resolve anything but it could give other developers an idea on how or how not to communicate with google. In the best case, you might restore your app on google and have a template for other developers on how to deal with this issue.

  If you have send a request but didn't get a reply, please post those as well.

• by wodenokoto on 5/18/20, 1:48 PM

  That is rough. I had to read your text several times to find anything related to COVID, but I guess it is the "which will allow you to enjoy this confinement" part.

  I'm no expert, but I guess you need to try and phrase it like it just the thing you need when you are home, and let the users figure out why they are home.

• by Causality1 on 5/18/20, 3:06 PM

  They're doing the same on YouTube. Just mentioning covid will get a video demonetized regardless of content. It's as if Google's position is that we have to deny anything is out of the ordinary, like it isn't touching the lives of every person in the world.

• by nobita on 5/18/20, 3:37 PM

  My app was suspended back in March just before Google updated their policy regarding to COVID. And my app was just being submitted for (my own) internal testing, didn't even made public.

  One would've thought the change in policy back then was to allow Google to offer more clarity and fairness.

  Seems things are going the other way.

  Hacker News Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22462315

  Updated Link to Blog Post: https://flyingnobita.com/mobile/flutter/2020/03/02/coronavir...

• by tzs on 5/18/20, 6:14 PM

  > This is my case, but in a near future, how I can advertise my users or future users that my app behaviour is different due to COVID, I have no chance

  Why do you want to advertise that to your future users?

  From your description, your app appears to be an event finder that started out for only physical events, and you later expanded that to include online events.

  The app itself does not appear to have anything to do with COVID. COVID was simply what personally motivated you to add online events, and so it's not clear to me that including COVID related words in the description will actually help anyone find or understand your app on the store.

• by cwhiz on 5/18/20, 3:29 PM

  With this policy Google should ban Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, every news app, Reddit, etc, etc, etc.

  Of course, they won't, because this policy is absurd and enforced unevenly.

• by Uhrheber on 5/18/20, 2:07 PM

  Artificial intelligence?

  More like dumber than the dumbest human.

• by lytefm on 5/19/20, 6:48 AM

  I've had a similar experience about two months ago. Our app is a simple health and fitness tracker. When corona broke out, we made some adjustments so that people could track their symptoms and export them as Excel file in order to share it with their physician or health authorities. We also adjusted our description accordingly and got banned immediately. We appealed to the ban, removed everything related to corona from the description (I guess the word „quarantine” is the offending word in your case) and got reinstated after a few days. Nowadays it's used by thousands of people participating in a COVID-19 longitudonal study and we haven't had any problems again. Takeaway: Unless you're the WHO, don't mention anything related to COVID-19 in your description. Ask your Chinese friends how to deal with censorship, in Finland they simply make „Kotona” („at home”) instead of „Corona” Videos on YouTube. https://www.millionfriends.de/coronatracker-suspended/

• by yadco on 5/18/20, 3:20 PM

  Maybe a solution for this sort of thing might be progrsive web apps. You won't be subject to the risk of an app store knocking you off.

• by stx on 5/18/20, 8:50 PM

  Youtube also removed several videos from a youtube channel MedCram.com. Its a channel run by a medical doctor who discusses updates from medical journals in technical detail.

  The following videos have been removed from youtube.

  - Coronavirus Epidemic Update 10: New Studies, Transmission, Spread from Wuhan, Prevention (2019-nCoV)

  - Coronavirus Pandemic Update 43: Shortages, Immunity, & Can a TB Vaccine (BCG) Help Prevent COVID-19

  - Coronavirus Pandemic Update 57: Remdesivir Treatment Update and Can Far-UVC Disinfect Public Spaces

  - Coronavirus Pandemic Update 60: Hydroxychloroquine Update; NYC Data; How Widespread is COVID-19

  - Coronavirus Pandemic Update 71: New Data on Adding Zinc to Hydroxychloroquine + Azithromycin

  Watch their latest video to see that they try to stick to the facts and avoid politics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UANgon3Umns

• by Pmop on 5/18/20, 9:13 PM

  I follow some Brazilian YouTubers who are referring to the covid-19 as "Voldemort".

• by hota_mazi on 5/18/20, 4:56 PM

  I believe Google made it clear they will only allow a very small subset of apps related to COVID-19 so they can make sure that

  - The information on their app store regarding the virus is 100% medically and scientifically accurate.

  - Nobody takes advantage of the pandemics to profit.

• by floatingatoll on 5/18/20, 3:45 PM

  "circumstances beyond our control"

  "global circumstances"

  "event restrictions"

• by a3n on 5/18/20, 7:05 PM

  Google pays people hundreds of thousands $ per year so that it acts like a faceless government bureaucracy staffed by lazy drones.

• by mkhpalm on 5/18/20, 4:24 PM

  Simple solution is to just stop writing apps for Google's platform. There are other avenues that aren't dependent on the corp whims of entities you can't really talk to.

• by jimmaswell on 5/18/20, 7:46 PM

  However Google frames it, I see this as nothing more than them grabbing a chance to monopolize a popular search term for their own revenue with plausible deniability.

• by tomaszs on 5/18/20, 6:23 PM

  Google did not behave like a reasonable business partner. Maybe it would be good to ditch it and support independent web

• by generalpass on 5/18/20, 2:17 PM

  And how long before Google decides that all detected side-loaded apps are harmful and automatically removed?

• by rootusrootus on 5/18/20, 2:36 PM

  Since Google is taking such a strong position against what they view as COVID19 misinformation, are they liable if I get sick as a result of some misinformation that managed to get through their filters? I might not try to go after some small time app developer or other rando on the Internet, but if Google is willing to stand behind their guarantee with those wonderfully deep pockets...

• by brenden2 on 5/18/20, 2:37 PM

  I've banned Google from my life, and everyone else should too.

• by kvnnews on 5/19/20, 2:11 AM

  Google is not the benevolent dictator of the internet. They are a profit drive soulless corporation. Not saying that’s good or bad, just saying you should expect zero favors from a sociopathic entity.

• by happppy on 5/20/20, 6:41 AM

  #boycottGoogle

• by VMisTheWay on 5/18/20, 3:41 PM

  I'm not a fan of censorship at any level. But at least you can always have Android users install themselves.

  Sure you don't get their massive advertising platform Play Store. But that's Google's decision.

  You can organically develop users, you don't need Google.

• by calin2k on 5/18/20, 3:00 PM

  stop using COVID-19 as SEO keyword!

• by throwawaysea on 5/18/20, 3:04 PM

  Google (and Facebook and Twitter and Medium....) are turning into absurd comic book level censors. They have too much leverage and influence over society, and moves like this meaningful harm people’s ability to communicate and conduct basic activities. Google is the worst of them, and should be broken up immediately on antitrust grounds. But let’s not ignore that COVID-19 has exposed the hamfisted authoritarian rule of the digital public square by virtually all technology companies.