Google Accused By Developer of Retaliation For Cooperating With House Antitrust Investigation

Google kicked an email app off its Play Store Friday, just days after its developers revealed they were cooperating with House lawmakers who questioned the tech giants' chief executives during a landmark tech antitrust hearing earlier this week. From a report: The founders of Blix, the maker of the "BlueMail" app, say they believe the move was retaliation for their outspokenness on antitrust issues. They said Google had not previously warned them about the move. "We have been developing for the Google Play Store for more than six years, but we woke up this morning to find ourselves kicked out with no notice," Blix co-founder Ben Volach said in an interview Friday. On Wednesday, the antitrust subcommittee of the House Judiciary committee questioned the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google about new evidence the committee has gathered in an ongoing investigation into allegedly anticompetitive behavior by the four companies. One area of interest for the committee was the power of Apple and Google to act as gatekeepers for app developers, particularly when they compete head-to-head with those developers.

Its possible, but...

[inode_buddha]

Its possible, but... gonna be a hard one to prove, unless your lawyers are more expensive than theirs. Which I highly doubt.

Re:

[Tailhook]

Its possible, but... gonna be a hard one to prove

Congress and subpoena stuff from Google or anyone else they wish. That's not the problem.

The problem is whether they'll stay bought and pretend there are good reasons they shouldn't.

Re:

[Otis B. Dilroy III]

Congress doesn't have to prove anything to pass laws. Just look at the steaming piles of legislation that are passed every session.

The proving does not come until the law is challenged in court. At that time it will be Google's lawyers against the US justice department. And, historically, what the justice department lacks in competence they make up for with volume.

Oh dear

[Tailhook]

Quick! Get some pressure group to claim their app was somehow a "harm" and that we had received "complaints."

Re:Oh dear

[Aighearach]

If they'd actually read Machiavelli, they'd know that all these stupid plots and schemes fail. They all fail. Just do your fucking job already.

Whoever did this obviously has excessive time and they shouldn't just be fired, they should remove the position from the management tree. Flatten that section a little bit, because this shit come from being bloated with executives.

Re:

[Tailhook]

I like my plan better. No unjust termination lawsuits for firing any of our snowflakes, plus we get to discredit the app developer with a black mark from any of a variety of protected classes. That way our bought and paid for Congress persons can treat them with the appropriate disdain and disregard their claims.

Your way means admitting fault. And we are the bestest most righteous fault-free people that have ever existed.

Re:

[Aighearach]

That's the difference, I have a good Congressperson.

Eric Schmidt was "adult supervision"

[Sebby]

You know, with the way Google conducts itself these days, I can only conclude that, as "adult supervision" while Google was growing, Eric Schmidt was a shitty "parent".*

*or "guardian" if you prefer - point is he clearly wasn't a good "moral influence".

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure it's about adult supervision per-se, Sundar Pichai is an adult, the problem is that he's a really, really, evil adult.

He's literally pond scum who is happy to see people die if it boosts his profits. It's not about childishness in his case, that would absolve him of blame, it's about the fact that he's literally just a really really horrible cunt.

Until they cut out the cancer that is Pichai and any cronies he may have poisoning the business they're fucked, they're the next Yahoo. A search engin

Re: Eric Schmidt was "adult supervision"

[junglee_iitk]

That has to be the most stupid shut I have read yet.

Don't Be Evil ..lol

[MOOC_19]

This cant really surprise anyone can it?

I got kicked off a few weeks ago. Happens a lot.

[seoras]

A few ago I was, unexpectedly, kicked off Google Play for a "violation of the rules".
I appealed, asking why, and was re-instated without explanation a week later.
I asked again, what had I done to have my account terminated - so I wouldn't do it again, and the Google rep replied "I can't tell you, just read the rules".
While waiting for a decision on my appeal I got a sleazy email from some east european (included a photo of himself trying to look, I assume, tough and cool) offering to buy my de-listed app. Draw your own conclusions.
Try Googling for "This is a notification that your Google Play Publisher account has been terminated."
It seems to be a regular right of passage for Android Devs.

Re:

[serviscope_minor]

Try Googling for "This is a notification that your Google Play Publisher account has been terminated."

Just did. that's terrifying. I am glad I'm not an android dev that's for sure.

Re:

[Calydor]

"Just read the rules."

Gods, I hate that line so much. I already DID read the rules and the way I understand them doesn't lead to the conclusion that I have done anything that should be punished!

Imagine if we threw people in jail and, instead of a trial or a charge, we just told them to read the law.

Re:

[seoras]

The irony, this week, is that at the anti-trust hearing Tim Cook said
"There's competition for developers just like there's a competition for customers. And so competition for developers, they can write their apps for Android, or Windows, or Xbox, or PlayStation. We have fierce competition at the developer side and the customer side. Essentially, it's so competitive I'd describe it as a street fight for market share in the smartphone business."
Was Googling listening?
From my own experience, and if you google

dependency

[noise-randomizer]

doing business with the mafia ends with blood on the pavement: the apparasites got too greedy, then dicovered their morals, pissed on their criminal godfathers and got shafted. what did they expect?

Don't shit where you eat

[nospam007]

Must be a new thing for them.

Re:

[SvnLyrBrto]

Seriously. You attack and try to destroy your business partner... not even by legitimate competition but by trying to talk politicians into doing your job for you... and you're shocked, SHOCKED I say, when said business partner decides they don't care to be in business with you anymore??? That level of entitlement doesn't surprise me coming from individuals. But from a business? There's supposed to be at least a board of directors there to head off CEOs who are determined to shit where they eat or to bi

But...but!

[Fuzi719]

In the next sentence, angry users complain, "Why didn't Google protect me from this bad app?!?!?"

Misleading summary

[KClaisse]

I like how the summary conveniently omits the fact that the very same day their app was reinstated, which is in the very beginning of the story. You kinda had to go out of your way to omit that information. The line that starts "On Wednesday, the antitrust subcommittee..." is well below the statement that the app was reinstated so you had to of read it but chose not to include it. Or you just copy and pasted someone elses summary with zero effort whatsoever. Who can tell anymore on this site. Quite a bit of dishonest reporting in my opinion. Seems like msmash has a bias against Google or they would have included Google's side of the story in their summary as well out of fairness.