Is Google Evil?

Okay, to call Google as evil is ridiculous. Google has done much good for the world, and they are still doing more.

Maybe you have a different point-of-view from me on this, and that's fine. There has been much advancement in the human life with Google's help. Self driving smart cars reducing fatalities on road, for example.

But when it comes to apps suspension or banning of developer accounts, Google could really use a human touch.

This is how it goes. An app developer receives a suspension notice from Google, and the app is suspended. The developer can't make any changes to fix the problem anymore, most of the time. Most of the time when an appeal is done, it is almost automatically rejected with a final email from Google.

On rare occasions apps get re-instated. Increase your chances of getting your app re-instated or un-suspended, read on how below.

Why it Matters?

When you look back at the start of the Android world, indie developers were there. Indies, most of them a 1-man (or woman) team made apps after apps that grew the then Android Market to what it is now.

The interest of the market attracted more and more users over to Android. And it also attracted bigger brands. EA, Gameloft, Disney, Zynga and many more started getting involved too. Somehow Nintendo isn't there yet.

Without indies, this success that Google has had with the Play Store would probably not have been possible. The whole ecosystem was what indies have worked hard to grow.

Why it Happens?

Unfortunately, no matter where you look, some people take the wrong advantage of everything. Google has provided a great open system, allowing all developers a chance of publishing their apps, and monetizing the apps.

The system was open to other ad networks. And other analytics companies. Google could have limited these to their own Admob and Analytics tools, but they allowed it to be open.

That's where the abuse of the system started. Developers started using the open-ness for taking advantage of users' innocence, stealing valuable and private details of users. Numerous apps were released which violated trademarks and IPs, and providing illegal downloads of sings and movies. Ad networks started tracking users, sending out ads to the devices via notification and icon ads that suddeny pop up without users' permissions.

While it was fine back then in most cases, the abuse started getting a little out of hand. Thus Google introduced many new policies along the way, and developers had no choice but to comply with it. That's fair, after all, Android is Google's, and giving the end users a fair and enjoyable experience is really fair policy.

To avoid those handful of developers (okay, maybe more than a handful) who abuse the system, Google has resorted to using a very unfair style of handling this issue.

Common Mistakes that Cause Apps Suspension

Developers have often made innocent mistakes with their apps. Just watch out for these common mistakes that developers make that can cause app suspension:

1 - Using a trademarked name in the title.
Watch out for names such as "Flow", "Play", "with friends" and "Candy". Some of these are ridiculous to be trademarked!

Increase Your Chance of Getting App Out of Suspension

Now, if your app has been suspended, what do you do? Often the instinct is to get back to Google, and hope you get a proper response. Unfortunately, its almost guaranteed the response from Google won't help you at all, and they will refuse to further entertain you on this matter.

Instead, a fellow developer has got his app re-instated. He took a while to reply to Google, as he was waiting for response from the copyright holder. From the looks of it, it's like you have 1 chance at appeal, and to do that, you should provide all necessary details in screenshots and links. Give all and every detail you can in your email. And hope for the best.

When releasing a new app, it is understood that it will rank far down the food chain. After all, your app is new and unproven just yet.

What Google has done on the Play store is that they have given new app an opportunity to live, a chance to get to a more respectable place in the world of the unknown, the Google Play ranking algorithm.

Good looks go a long way in getting downloads for your apps. I'm a fan of looking out for beautiful app designs. I've looked at so many apps, gotten so much inspiration, but have yet to achieve anything that I can be proud of.

Blame genetics if you must. I am a developer, and although I play the guitar and love music and beautiful art and images (even tried photography once), I suck in the design area. I can give an idea, a design, but cant execute it. I'm a coder damnit!