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Ask HN: App Removed from Google Play

3 points by bitonomics ↗ HN
Has anyone had experience with Google taking their app down from the Play store?

We were told via email: "REASON FOR REMOVAL: Alleged trademark infringement."

I thought it was odd that we were not given the opportunity to represent ourselves prior to the app being taken down.

This happen to anyone else?

4 comments

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shon
Yes, my app, TEXT BOMB was removed. During its short time online, we were selling a copy every 6 minutes. That lasted for about 4 days. It was hard to get specific information as to why it was removed. Google pointed us to TOS several times.

We were sad it was removed and Google was not very specific nor responsive to my inquiries. But in truth we knew why it did not last. TEXT BOMB was simply too awesome, too powerful and too annoying to last. It would send up to 1 million SMS messages to one or multiple targets at a preset time. An option called Super Annoy Mode allowed the texts to be spaced out using a random interval with a settable max delay. It was devious. It was dangerous.

Here's one of the ads I made for it: http://youtu.be/6a0QzS0PqBY

RIP TEXT BOMB.

In my experience, Google had good reason. If you feel they do not, keep fighting. Good luck.

Liongadev
Do not expect that google will read your email when you try to make your point. You will only get a template email answer, zero fucks given.
bitonomics
The tough thing for us is that it seems we are not only against Google who quite possibly removed it with out proper cause. Or due diligence. But more than Google, we are having to work with another company who made the allegations. Google says they have to sign off on an agreement before we will be put back on the store.

And they haven't made themselves available to speak with us after our initial attempts.

msh
yes, they removed a app of mine that provided skype status information for your account as a widget. Apparently skype did not like that it contained skype in the name of the app (They attached the complaint from skype).

I removed it, it was not worth for me to fight it as it was just my first android app, mostly made as a proof of concept. I sounded like they would have accepted it back if I removed skype from the name.