How do big companies avoid Prior Violations

baidovich · Jul 4, 2022

Let’s say I wanna start a big mobile app or games company… how do I COMPLETELY avoid Prior Violations with Google Play?

I’ve seen games/apps from big companies as old as 3-5 years! I wanna do something like that. I’ve had many many accounts closed because of Prior Violations.. and this time I wanna start from 0, investing all of my money, and competing with big companies.

It’d be absolutely stupid to invest my money, without fixing the Prior Violations problem completely! So my question again, is how do they avoid it?

Is it a brand new computer in a brand new place? And how about the IPs… how do they make sure they don’t open google play account using an IP where it was already closed?

I’m tagging @nakamura & @N1ckG2 as they’ve showed a great understanding of the mobile app business in the forum…. But anyone is more than welcomed to share their opinions

Thank you guys!

N1ckG2 · Jul 4, 2022

I don't understand your issue. I have one Google play acc and I don't know why you get troubles. Maybe you are doing shady things.

baidovich · Jul 4, 2022

N1ckG2 said:
I don't understand your issue. I have one Google play acc and I don't know why you get troubles. Maybe you are doing shady things.

Not necessarily shady things.. let me explain

Let’s say Google Play sent you a policy issue that you should fix.. as an example data safety of your apps.This is a new update and they’re sending it to everyone. For some reason or another, you “forgot” to fix them (as an example, I was sick I couldn’t touch a computer for 2 months). Then, they terminated your account because you have Multiple Violations of Google Play policy (aka you didn’t add the data safety to your apps).

Now, you want to start again, and get back to work. You can’t use same computer.. there’s already an account closed there. What would you do?

nakamura · Jul 5, 2022

The only way, you can COMPLETELY get rid of prior violations is to:

- Get a new computer/laptop
- Pay for the developer fee with a credit card you haven't used before (use a legit cc provider/bank, not Revolut)
- Use a phone number you haven't used before (get a new sim card)
- Never use any source code you have used on your "penalized computer/laptop"
- Try not to use Android Studio at all (they are collecting your device information, also hash keys, etc. so they can clearly identify you)
- Never use any Wifi/internet connection you used with your terminated developer account (for this you can get a 4g mobile router and a sim card)
- Never log in to any Google account with the new device that you used with the penalized account

One of the main questions here is:
- how long does Google actually save ALL of your information? I am not sure how long they are allowed to save the information by law. It also might depend on your country/region.

For example, I will soon make a new Admob account (just for the experiment) and use the exact same information I used with my penalized AdMob account from 2020, which I later on deleted. According to the law in the European Union, Google is not allowed to save my data for that long time after my account is deleted. Let's see if they will still terminate my new Admob account. If yes, I could probably sue them and EU will probably be happy about it, cuz they love to mess with Google, Facebook, etc.

In general, I would say: Once your Google account got roasted and your Adsense, Admob, Developer account, etc. got terminated, delete the whole Google account as soon as possible. They are definitely not saving the information of those deleted accounts forever.

Btw. I am currently doing what you are writing. I made a brand new account for my company, currently, I have 6 Android apps online. One of them is in a highly competitive market and it looks pretty good for me at the moment. Still, a lot to do tho.

And do stay completely safe in the Google Play Store:

- NEVER use anything related to any other trademark, app, game, etc. (reskinning is fine, but don't use anything trademarked!)
- Make sure you don't use words such as free, etc. in your app description
- In short: Make sure it FULLY complies with their policies, this also means showing the GDPR consent, etc.

The thing is: Google is trying to push small developers and low quality developers out of their Play Store. They will delete/terminate you for any kind of reason, if they think you are up to something shady such as using words as "free" in the app title, etc.

TL;DR

You have to set up everything new. New computer. New internet connection. New phone number. New credit card. Don't pick up any footprints you left before. Try to be as legit as possible.

baidovich · Jul 5, 2022

nakamura said:
The only way, you can COMPLETELY get rid of prior violations is to:

- Get a new computer/laptop
- Pay for the developer fee with a credit card you haven't used before (use a legit cc provider/bank, not Revolut)
- Use a phone number you haven't used before (get a new sim card)
- Never use any source code you have used on your "penalized computer/laptop"
- Try not to use Android Studio at all (they are collecting your device information, also hash keys, etc. so they can clearly identify you)
- Never use any Wifi/internet connection you used with your terminated developer account (for this you can get a 4g mobile router and a sim card)
- Never log in to any Google account with the new device that you used with the penalized account

One of the main questions here is:
- how long does Google actually save ALL of your information? I am not sure how long they are allowed to save the information by law. It also might depend on your country/region.

For example, I will soon make a new Admob account (just for the experiment) and use the exact same information I used with my penalized AdMob account from 2020, which I later on deleted. According to the law in the European Union, Google is not allowed to save my data for that long time after my account is deleted. Let's see if they will still terminate my new Admob account. If yes, I could probably sue them and EU will probably be happy about it, cuz they love to mess with Google, Facebook, etc.

In general, I would say: Once your Google account got roasted and your Adsense, Admob, Developer account, etc. got terminated, delete the whole Google account as soon as possible. They are definitely not saving the information of those deleted accounts forever.

Btw. I am currently doing what you are writing. I made a brand new account for my company, currently, I have 6 Android apps online. One of them is in a highly competitive market and it looks pretty good for me at the moment. Still, a lot to do tho.

And do stay completely safe in the Google Play Store:

- NEVER use anything related to any other trademark, app, game, etc. (reskinning is fine, but don't use anything trademarked!)
- Make sure you don't use words such as free, etc. in your app description
- In short: Make sure it FULLY complies with their policies, this also means showing the GDPR consent, etc.

The thing is: Google is trying to push small developers and low quality developers out of their Play Store. They will delete/terminate you for any kind of reason, if they think you are up to something shady such as using words as "free" in the app title, etc.

TL;DR

You have to set up everything new. New computer. New internet connection. New phone number. New credit card. Don't pick up any footprints you left before. Try to be as legit as possible.

Thank you bro, this is the kind of answers I was searching for them. I’ve already started implementing this today (bought a new laptop, with new phone and new 4G number phone… all new).

Oh and I forgot to tell you.. I even plan on NEVER using all of these items in my house. I’l literally drive to a specific location to open the account and to publish my games on my laptop with internet from the phone.

Man, I’ve been following your journey from 2020 and if there’s just one thing you could’ve done that would’ve got you x10 results… is changing the way you open up the accounts and investing in laptops specifically for account creation.

You could’ve been in 6 figures monthly mark! The only thing that stopped you from scaling in google play is they terminate your accounts!

Thank you again for the advice you gave me.

N1ckG2 · Jul 5, 2022

nakamura said:
The only way, you can COMPLETELY get rid of prior violations is to:

- Get a new computer/laptop
- Pay for the developer fee with a credit card you haven't used before (use a legit cc provider/bank, not Revolut)
- Use a phone number you haven't used before (get a new sim card)
- Never use any source code you have used on your "penalized computer/laptop"
- Try not to use Android Studio at all (they are collecting your device information, also hash keys, etc. so they can clearly identify you)
- Never use any Wifi/internet connection you used with your terminated developer account (for this you can get a 4g mobile router and a sim card)
- Never log in to any Google account with the new device that you used with the penalized account

One of the main questions here is:
- how long does Google actually save ALL of your information? I am not sure how long they are allowed to save the information by law. It also might depend on your country/region.

For example, I will soon make a new Admob account (just for the experiment) and use the exact same information I used with my penalized AdMob account from 2020, which I later on deleted. According to the law in the European Union, Google is not allowed to save my data for that long time after my account is deleted. Let's see if they will still terminate my new Admob account. If yes, I could probably sue them and EU will probably be happy about it, cuz they love to mess with Google, Facebook, etc.

In general, I would say: Once your Google account got roasted and your Adsense, Admob, Developer account, etc. got terminated, delete the whole Google account as soon as possible. They are definitely not saving the information of those deleted accounts forever.

Btw. I am currently doing what you are writing. I made a brand new account for my company, currently, I have 6 Android apps online. One of them is in a highly competitive market and it looks pretty good for me at the moment. Still, a lot to do tho.

And do stay completely safe in the Google Play Store:

- NEVER use anything related to any other trademark, app, game, etc. (reskinning is fine, but don't use anything trademarked!)
- Make sure you don't use words such as free, etc. in your app description
- In short: Make sure it FULLY complies with their policies, this also means showing the GDPR consent, etc.

The thing is: Google is trying to push small developers and low quality developers out of their Play Store. They will delete/terminate you for any kind of reason, if they think you are up to something shady such as using words as "free" in the app title, etc.

TL;DR

You have to set up everything new. New computer. New internet connection. New phone number. New credit card. Don't pick up any footprints you left before. Try to be as legit as possible.

Then you need new company with new back acc, etc.

nakamura · Jul 5, 2022

baidovich said:
Thank you bro, this is the kind of answers I was searching for them. I’ve already started implementing this today (bought a new laptop, with new phone and new 4G number phone… all new).

Oh and I forgot to tell you.. I even plan on NEVER using all of these items in my house. I’l literally drive to a specific location to open the account and to publish my games on my laptop with internet from the phone.

Man, I’ve been following your journey from 2020 and if there’s just one thing you could’ve done that would’ve got you x10 results… is changing the way you open up the accounts and investing in laptops specifically for account creation.

You could’ve been in 6 figures monthly mark! The only thing that stopped you from scaling in google play is they terminate your accounts!

Thank you again for the advice you gave me.

The problem in my case was how random the accounts got terminated. I literally got the same apps (made with Flutter) on the Apple App Store and they are online until today. The Apple Developer account never got terminated, none of the apps got removed. But at the same time, Google randomly removed apps and terminated the accounts.

I mean, its quite absurd they would suspend my app for things like having one word wrongly translated in the Chinese app description, but they did this. Or another one: Saying I am "hacking" the phone by placing an external link to my privacy policy and justifying it by saying the external link is the opening the phone's browser. And these are just absolutely random things and you have no control over this crap.

But I noticed it already: They will use any reason they want, and they are absolutely not clear about what they are doing. Its intransparent as fuck. I don't want to go on a rant. I mean, I had no problem with Google Play for about 6 months, then they suddenly terminated my account and these ban waves still came.

I have to say: My apps were performing really well and they got 100k organic downloads. This made me become a target of a lot of wankers, reporting my apps for all kinda stupid reasons. So I had to actually block countries like India, Pakistan, Thailand, etc. because there were guys mass reporting my apps and Google didn't review my apps, but just deleted them and terminated the accounts. Its madness.

What's even madder: There is basically no one at Google you can contact. You can write an appeal, but that's it. You don't even know if a real person is reading it. They need to change. I mean, have a look at Medium.com for example....so many articles of guys who randomly got their account terminated....and then there are still fools blaming the developers....lol...until it happens to themselves

Just try to stay safe and legit and i think it will be fine

nakamura · Jul 6, 2022

Btw. I want to add something more, because some guys might think "well, the chinese app description was wrong, why didnt you just change it?" or "almost every app has an outgoing link to their privacy policy, so why did they remove yours?"

Exactly. Why did they do this?

When they removed my app and deleted the account because of the chinese app description, I sent an appeal and wrote "I can just change the word/sentence or remove the chinese app description, why would you remove the whole app?"

When they deleted the app because of the external link and said its "hacking" and I sent them a list of like 50 apps, which had the EXACT SAME button, but had millions of downloads, etc. they just replied "This is their specific case and it has nothing to do with your app and if you think they are violating the policies, you can report them" I mean, wtf?

I think whole Facebook, Google and also Twitter is completely broken because of their AI/algorithm. They are literally banning, removing or restricting accounts without any reason. Happened a lot with Facebook ad accounts recently.

How do big companies avoid Prior Violations

baidovich

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