Our Google Play Account Terminated Once Again — Wrecking a Start-up of 40 Employees
Open letter to Google Play Team and Purnima Kochikar, Director at Google Play, Apps & Games.
Our years of research, hard work, and efforts have been shattered.
Yet again Google Play has terminated our Google Play Developer Account without any prior notice. Our years of hard work, our company and the professional careers of more than 40 people depend on that App.
We received an email from the support team(or bots we must say) of Google Play on 16th July. It said that our account has been terminated due to a violation of ‘Developer Program Policies’ and ‘Developer Distribution Agreement.
We never received any warning or a notice about any breach before. One day, out of the blue our app vanished from the play store, wrecking us and our users.
However, we appealed to them, sent an email, and did everything at Google’s behest. We also gave our reasons why our app should not be terminated but it was all pointless as we were communicating with bots.
We received a vague and disappointing response — “Your Developer Account is sharing information with or is related to, other Developer Accounts that have been terminated from Google Play for violating Google’s policies.”
We assume it has something to do with our other developer account that got terminated in May last year. However, after four weeks of harassment and pestering by bot replies, Google reinstated our app. Later, our while-label apps started disappearing one after another. After much struggle, we managed to bring back our white label apps to the Google Play Store but more than ten apps are yet to be reinstated.
Our old questions are still unanswered…
After getting our TBtrack App back, we did not stop there. We kept looking for answers, we mailed Google for months to give us the reason why these apps were disappearing in the thin air. Thus far, our questions stand unacknowledged:
- The exact reason for our termination once and for all. As we shall know about the loose ends we are leaving, in case we are.
- What exactly do you mean by ‘association with other accounts’? What sort of association?
- Tell us about the associated accounts so that we break ties with them if they are violating codes.
- Even if we are associated with other accounts, what breach have they committed that leads to our termination?
- How can we fix the issue and get everything back on track?
We are a young and dynamic software company, we build new SaaS products that we sell as white labels. We thrive on these white label apps, as they are our source of revenue. If they remain down for long, we’ll drown too. We are purely a product-based IT company. This was our second product and we have more in the pipeline.
We are dwelling in the fear of losing every app that we bring to the Google Play store. If we do not know the root cause for it, this fear will kill our company. Google play store is not just a marketplace for apps anymore, it’s the badge of credibility now. The whole Android community is riding on you.
We understand these are your practices to stay immune to any foul-play and bad-faith developers but we aren’t any of it.
We are a legitimate Private Limited company with a head office in Noida, India and a Corporate office in Dubai, UAE. We have always complied with the legalities and regulations of both the countries and Google too. In the last five years, we never indulged in any frauds and guiles to dodge compliance.
What we don’t understand is why only our apps are targeted when there are a million other companies working on the same model. So many of our competitors have thousands of while-label apps on the play store. Why aren’t their apps on Google’s radar?
To avoid such setbacks the second time We uploaded our new product from our company’s Developer Account this time, yet we have to go through the same drill again. Google reinstated our account when they found no violation from our end as we had obeyed all the terms and policies. We assure you that we have abided by them this time as well.
We have always looked up to Google as an inspiration, example, and idol. Tech start-ups like us count on you for a lot of aid and resources but this is a big letdown!
So many lives and careers are in Jeopardy
Only if, Google Support could realise how many lives rely on that one app. We understand users lay their trust in Google and must uphold their trust, but they also have some responsibility towards us. Taking down the app without any warning will severely impact many lives.
We are HELPLESS. We have tried everything in the last week to get the app reinstated. Here we are now, writing an open letter to the Google Play team to kindly reinstate our Google Play Developers Account.
We are a bootstrap start-up, providing for families of more than 40 employees. We are a five-year-old start-up. In our early years, we had to put up with the jolts of the pandemic. We made sure our employees feel safe and secure, mentally, physically and financially. We kept their interests first, and never imposed pay cuts or laid off people ever as we always believed in our team, work, and potential. But this termination puts us in jeopardy as we feel stranded and lost.
Our IOS App is running smoothly without any compliance issues. None of our IOS apps ever faces any complications. However, this is our second episode with Google Play Store when our app got terminated.
We would request Ms Purnima Kochikar and the Google Play team to look into the matter. Permanent termination of our Google Account means we’ll have to shut down our start-up. Breaking this news to our teammates will shatter them completely.
We request you to connect us with someone from your support team and by that we mean human support and not bots. We have lost so many opportunities already. If this is going to be an eternal and recurring battle, then it will be tough for companies like us to grow.
Looking forward to hearing from the team of Google Play.
Update — 4th August 2022
We were expecting a better and more helpful response this time. Google Play team sent a rephrased version of the same DM we received the last time. They left an apology in our inbox in response to our helpless appeal on Twitter as our emails seem to have met a dead end.
Spot the difference:
