It's a constant fear, and there's no way to avoid using these companies. I'm currently dealing with a bakery business that was suddenly suspended from Google Maps. This is a big deal because it's the main way, by far, that people find us.
7 days ago, boom. Your account has been suspended for not following the business guidelines. The only thing I've updated recently was our hours. It's been listed without problems for about two years.
Of course they don't tell you what the issue is. They just tell you to fix it and then beg them to reinstate you. It takes up to two weeks apparently (7 days so far). And if they decide not to, the only thing you can do is delete the listing, and two years worth of hard earned reviews go up in smoke.
A few days ago one of our staff told me a Korean tourist came in the day before we were suspended and accused us of being fake. I don't know exactly what happened but due to the tourist's limited English nobody could persuade them we were the real location. Or maybe they were looking for somewhere else entirely? Who knows. Apparently they left a negative review, which I can't see while the account is suspended. Probably they reported the location as fake.
So that's it. Two years, over 100 positive reviews sitting at 4.9 stars. Gone because of one confused tourist. Or maybe because I updated the hours. Or maybe an automatic spam check didn't like us.
I sincerely hope that the next round of EU laws tackles this instead of privacy. It's just as big an issue, especially if you're running a small business.
My wife's floristry business has been blocked from being able to access facebook advertising and permanently restricted in how she is able to interact with her customers in part because a bot flagged and suspended her for trading in trading exotic animals. The exotic animal she was accused of trading? Aphelandra Squarrosa - The zebra leaf plant.
There's no way of getting this ban reversed, there's no way of invoking any human to perform a manual review on the ban. It is a permanent restriction that impacts her ability to communicate with her customer base.
Getting lawyers involved is one guaranteed way to talk to a human at Facebook. It won't be easy or cheap though, so I can understand why a business like a flower shop wouldn't want to do that.
Is there a specific type of attorney?
Depends on the country. In the UK I'd probably go to the Law Society website and search for a B2B lawyer under "Business -> Dispute Resolution" or "Media IT and intellectual property" (https://solicitors.lawsociety.org.uk/). Having used lawyers like this at start up companies in the past they are not cheap. However in the first instance you'd probably just want them to send a letter on headed notepaper, which might be enough to get someone's attention at Facebook and get the matter resolved.
Is it possible to leverage another case filing, to reduce lawyer fees? Or some sort of Nola Press DIY process? Since it seems so common.
Odds are you won't need to involve any judiciary institution, just lawyers. On that case, there's no case and no filling required.
If your country has a working small-cases court system, there are good odds you can achieve the same result without any lawyer involvement at all. But if you are discovering this from a random internet comment, you are almost certainly better talking with a lawyer about it anyway.
Take Facebook to small claims court. They can't bring a lawyer, it will cost them a small fortune and they'll lose.
What exactly is the claim you would sue for?
Finding that out is why I'd consult a lawyer.
if you're based in Europe, try framing it as a GDPR issue. Article 16 says that data processors have to rectify data that is inaccurate or incomplete within 1 month. If they don't do that, you can raise it to your national privacy ombudsman as an incident. This being Facebook, there is a chance that they'll act on it.
Be sure to CC privacy@facebook.com and legal@facebook.com
Only issue: not sure that the GDPR applies to companies. And it's a 'pro' account I guess?
Maybe article 22 (“automated individual decision-making, including profiling”) can be useful here, too. This will not work if the account is not nominative though.
GDPR protects individuals 'natural persons' and not businesses 'legal persons'
Recital 14 - The protection afforded by this Regulation should apply to natural persons, whatever their nationality or place of residence, in relation to the processing of their personal data. This Regulation does not cover the processing of personal data which concerns legal persons and in particular undertakings established as legal persons, including the name and the form of the legal person and the contact details of the legal person.
At least in German juristiction there is the viewpoint that a law should also be applicable to a legal person if it indirectly affects a natural person behind it (so-called "Durchgriffstheorie"). In other words, the GDPR applies when it comes to protecting the natural persons behind the legal person, including their economic existence.
> There's no way of getting this ban reversed, there's no way of invoking any human to perform a manual review on the ban. It is a permanent restriction that impacts her ability to communicate with her customer base.
You know you're doing it wrong when the the Ministry of Information in the movie Brazil has better customer service than you do.
Edit: add "the movie" to remove ambiguity.
> You know you're doing it wrong when the the Ministry of Information in Brazil has better customer service than you do.
Care to explain?
They mean the film “Brazil”
It is a reference to the Terry Gilliam movie Brazil.
chinathrow said that tivert said "> You know you're doing it wrong when the the Ministry of Information in Brazil has better customer service than you do."
But tivert didn't say that! tivert instead said "...the Ministry of Information in the movie Brazil ..."
chinathrow should read more carefully.
giardini said "But tivert didn't say that! tivert instead said '...the Ministry of Information in the movie Brazil ...'"
giardini said "> chinathrow should read more carefully."
tivert said "I will direct you to other thing I added when I edited what I said: tivert said 'Edit: add "the movie" to remove ambiguity.'"
Such a fantastic film
Such a realistic film (2026)
Every time someone complains about being kicked off of Facebook or Youtube or some other such service for political reasons, the response from just about everyone is "they're a private business, they have a right to kick you off for any reason they want to with no explanation".
How isnt that also true here? They're a private business, they have a right to kick you off by automated systems if they think it's cheaper to have a couple of errors in the automatic system than to pay for manual reviewers. Hey, they're a private business and don't have to justify themselves, right?
Not sure if you were responding to the right comment, but yeah, this is a pretty major argument for who unchecked private centralization is very dangerous. The main solutions to this contradiction are website keeping healthy competition between firms to have a rich ecosystem of competition or to place everything in a centralized location controlled by the govt where things like access are intensely regulated (i.e why every subway and post office is ACA accessible)
This is a political problem manifesting as a legal one.
Call your US Senators and Representative. Explain the problem.
Call your State Senators and Representative. Explain the problem.
Contact the FTC and file a complaint.
Sorry to hear this. Floristry is pretty cut throat with all the shipped direct sites that undercut prices. (Used to work at FTD.com, which bought ProFlowers, a very large flowers-in-a box operation.}
> I sincerely hope that the next round of EU laws tackles this instead of privacy. It's just as big an issue, especially if you're running a small business.
This! Couldn't agree more. I believe this is a much more bigger, huge problem compared to privacy, which is preventable (users can choose not to use a service) but this can take down entire businesses because of data giants' crappy/false alerting systems.
It should be illegal for Google, say, to remove listing without proving, or if that's not possible, if they remove they should legally be forced to compensate for the damage done. (Of course Google is just an example here, applies to any large enough platform)
Maybe then they will take this serious.
> users can choose not to use a service
By that logic you can just not use Google. But that's ridiculous, as ridiculous as the statement that users can choose not to use a service. I believe it's impossible to live in modern society without having an account in FAANG, even harder than a business not having a google maps listing.
People get along fine without accounts in FAANG. You don't even need an account to use many Google services.
Who lives fine without a smartphone today? See your sibling comment for an example.
I do in the UK (use a desktop for digital services), but I will need a phone next year after my current contract ends since employers like to have a chat via phone after applications.
I do.
What do you do when you need it? Banking or CC app for mandatory 2FA? gvmt Covid mandatory app to travel anywhere? QR code for restaurants? Places that require an app in general?
This is ofc locale-dependent, but if before the pandemic you could barely live without a smartphone, today is just impossible (at least in the 2 countries I visit often).
> Banking or CC app for mandatory 2FA?
Switched banks.
> gvmt Covid mandatory app to travel anywhere?
There wasn't one, thank $DEITY (Germany).
> QR code for restaurants?
Never encountered one without a menu yet, but I'd just go to another one.
> Places that require an app in general?
Never encountered those, either. There was one on my offline backpacking trip which required digital payment. It was sad, but I had to forfeit.
Thanks, and indeed.
Some places do require an app and while there are alternatives, there may not be another choice in the future. But not today, most of my elderly neighbours also don't own a smartphone and yet they survive in this city (Antwerp).
Life without a smartphone is possible, and imho calmer and more relaxed.
To be fair even the surveillance-obsessed UK offered a paper alternative to the vaccine passport scheme, although Partygate completely crippled the government's political capital for keeping restrictions around anyway not long after if I remember correctly.
Banks tend to have some back up, such as a TAN generator. I have used those for Euro bank accounts that require 2FA. US bank accounts are usually fine with a phone number, which can be a dumb phone. There were no real covid restrictions where I live, and no app, so that was not a problem (but that is definitely something people should push back against, as it's horrifying). I would never, ever eat in a restaurant that required you to use a QR code. They can simply go to hell. It's mostly trendy places that do that, anyway, and I prefer hole-in- the-wall restaurants anyway. I understand this stuff is a lot more advanced in some countries, but even in the US it's pretty easy to get by without any of it.
> Banking or CC app for mandatory 2FA?
The easiest way to avoid this is by going physically to your bank branch.
> gvmt Covid mandatory app to travel anywhere?
Don't live in a country that does this, so I don't know.
> QR code for restaurants?
I ask for a menu.
> Places that require an app in general?
Haven't seen that happen yet. There are some parking lots that require an app to park in them, but I just park elsewhere. The laundry room in my apartment complex requires an app to pay, so I just go to the laundromat down the street instead.
I do have a smartphone, although I'll switch to the dumbest phone I can find when this one dies. I do not use any apps for doing any commerce or the like, though. It's far too risky for my taste.
Aside, one of the best hacks for networking without a smartphone is a small notepad and a pen in your pocket. Write things down for yourself and others e.g. phone numbers, addresses, email addresses, reminders.
I do. I am beginning to feel the costs though. Even telling people that I don't have one is getting a bit awkward. Imagine the look of incomprehension.
A lot of people talk about 'needing' a smartphone for services/stuff I have never used, and probably would never use. I suppose I just kept living my life as I did before the 2010s, while everyone else changed. I was already in my 30s at that time, so not subject to the same social pressures a younger person would have felt, so perhaps it was easier.
When I tell people that, sorry, I don't have WhatsApp, they either look at me like I have a screw loose, or offer to help me install it (I am a middle-aged lady, so technical incompetence must be my excuse). I'd love to see the reaction to pulling out an old-school flip-phone, or providing an obvious land-line number!
That and my avoidance of Facebook didn't really matter until I had a kid and he started nursery school. I somehow got myself elected head of the Parents' Council, but it's been tough dealing with the mental block the slightly-younger generation has for email, and Signal is apparently a little too out there for non-techy 20/30-somethings of either gender.
I'm not as privacy-conscious as you, as I have a fairly recent iPhone; I'd probably be better described as social-media-skeptical, but your right to live a normal life without a smartphone is tied to my right to live a normal life without intrusive social media.
I've encountered the WhatsApp issue too. It's the communication tool in some parts of the world, but not others. In some circles people cannot imagine that you are a living breathing person who does not have it.
I use a bottom tier flip phone in the US, and a 13 year old Nokia with a pay-as-you go SIM in Europe.
I've noticed that there has been a generational shift towards smartphone-only communications, but I haven't really had to deal with it. I'd like to hear more about that. Oddly I use some of the same communication tools that young kids use, namely Discord, as it doesn't require a phone number. Linking online accounts and communications to a phone number has always put me off.
In Germany, WhatsApp is ubiquitous, possibly because when it hit the app stores, a lot of people were still paying per SMS, but had adequate data plans, and offered easy-enough group chats early on that at least felt private.
Also, even a lot of Facebook skeptics have no idea they’re owned and run by the same company…
I think the shift to smartphone-based communication is part of a vicious cycle of people giving up personal use of “real” computers, making a letter-replacement email something more comfortable to conduct as a bunch of short texts, which also have the “benefit” of quicker feedback before having to reveal the next thought.
Even I spent awhile when I first got a smartphone (ca. 2010) feeling like what I typed into or read on the device in an app was more confidential than what I did on a full computer, even though I intellectually understood what an API was and that apps that communicated outside the phone were essentially very niche web browsers. These little devices that fit in our pockets, have cute cases that we picked out, and are cradled in our hands just feel less scary than a desktop or even laptop that can get viruses and throw up cryptic errors and chime accusingly at us when they don’t like something we did.
So now we all have these little tethers that started out being a lot cheaper than a new laptop (but now easily cost $500+)
Early motherhood is particularly good at providing compelling use cases for a smartphone. Baby spending 45 minutes every 2-3 hours leisurely feeding, frantically reaching out to more experienced friends (or your various moms’ groups) for help with a small but urgent problem - much easier to pick up the little device with your free hand than to break out the laptop.
So once the kid is in nursery school at 12-18 months, even if you used to be a laptop user at home, your communications habits have been thoroughly changed.
And since mothers are the main social organizers, their preferred means of communication will dominate. Absolutely no one was interested when I offered to set up a website for the nursery school Parents’ Council, and from the perspective of people mostly ok with Facebook and WhatsApp, I understand the many reasons why.
Here, desktop for online services, flip phone when traveling, VOIP for most phone usage.
You can't download apps on your phone without logging into a FAANG account in the app store.
This is patently false.
I've been using GrapheneOS with F-droid and Aurora Store without logging into a Google account for years.
I've yet to run into a single thing I either couldn't use or couldn't work around.
Does that include banking and credit card apps? Most of my bank and card accounts require their own phone app to authorise transactions from time to time, and several accounts require their phone app to authenticate login to online banking, even if I'm opening it in a regular desktop browser on another computer. Three of those accounts don't have any other way of being managed than online, so their phone app (or tablet app) is mandatory to do anything with the account.
I had to buy a replacement phone in a hurry last year when my old phone's screen stopped working, just so I could login to make an urgent bank transfer. I would have preferred to take my time over what to buy, but so many financial things I use are blocked without a smartphone now.
Yes, it does. Even my podunk little credit union's app works absolutely fine.
Yes, every banking and financial app I have tried runs just fine on GrapheneOS.
The digital ID app in Sweden (BankID) recently started requiring google play services.
99.999% of businesses don't publish APKs or upload them to F-Droid. Expecting people to use third party distribution mechanisms like Aurora store is entirely unreasonable.
As for "working around" it, it's ridiculous to impose that expectation on the general population. Sure, you and I will always be able to find a way to hack around restrictions, but it's inaccessible to the overwhelming majority of the population.
What is unreasonable about showing people there's another interface to access all the apps in the Google Play Store, where you can download and use all of them without signing into a Google account?
Because Google could flip a switch and stop that at any moment. There is a systemic problem with how society is becoming more and more reliant upon a few large tech firms. Work arounds will work whilst they're small enough and fly under the radar, but if they get larger they'll be stopped by the holders of the binaries.
We're increasingly like animals that become dependent on a single source of food or a single watering hole. It's really risky. You could hardly design more fragile systems (or business models) that depend in these very narrow bottlenecks.
So we should...submit to the binary already, in case the binary closes the loophole? How is that a solution?
Such a HN comment lmao
Aurora store does not work anymore without a google account, at least for now. Google blocked their proxy accounts, I think. So curently there is no secure way to install apps from the play store without an account.
This isn't true either. I'm still actively using Aurora Store without signing into a Google account.
See https://gitlab.com/AuroraOSS/AuroraStore/-/issues/912#note_1... and https://gitlab.com/AuroraOSS/AuroraStore/-/issues/917. But right, this seems to have moved from "not working at all" to "being flaky", though it absolutely did not work for me.
Does Foobar national park publish their app to F-droid?
The exception does not disprove the rule.
Most people use phones they bought at their local electronics store, with default Android OS and default settings.
You can use android without logging into a google account with the default ROM and settings, just don't log in. I'm surprised more people don't do this, the app store is the only thing you "need" a google account for, and before they banned Aurora it was trivial to use it too.
The claim was "You can't."
The exception establishes that you can.
The exception very specifically and precisely does disprove the rule.
If you use aurora store you use google accounts. Someone else made them for you, but you're still using them.
Does it work for Lyft / Uber?
I can use Lyft with no issue. I prefer it to Uber, so haven't tries Uber.
Increasingly, even public agencies require/assume people to have a smartphone now, either an iPhone or an Android.
At that point, you literally cannot live as an adult in the society without FAANG dependence, even if it's a third party Android phone, at least not legally.
I just visited family in California and I was surprised at how many things needs an app now, and there is no alternative.
For example, I went to visit the beach, which is on a national park. Parking required an app. There were park rangers there, the location was staffed, but they did not accept cash or credit card. Just an app. And there are two phone operating systems now, Apple and Android. So no. Can’t live without FAANG. I ended up downloading the app on the spot and purchasing a pass.
I’m sure the park service does this for their convenience. And it’s so populated near the coasts that if anyone doesn’t comply, they still have plenty of people who would gladly use the app. They can get away with demanding smartphone use. You can certainly get away with not having a smartphone further inland, and not needing to depend on FAANG explicitly. But I know this expectation is going to creep into the continent over time. In 5 years, if you say “I don’t have a smart phone” you’ll just be denied service. Period. No questions asked. And you will be considered the unreasonable party by most.
> They can get away with demanding smartphone use.
> In 5 years, if you say “I don’t have a smart phone” you’ll just be denied service. Period. No questions asked.
IANAL, but I feel like that should be illegal.
Sure, they can set up an app and those who want to use it may do so, but for things things like parking there ought to be an alternate. Beach, national park etc is a predominantly offline service for which it's absurd to insist on using an app.
Especially for something that's on a "national park" — I don't really know what the "national" part indicates (not from USA) but I'm assuming that the govt is involved.
Somebody should go to court.
If you can't pay the government using cash they printed, thar be problems in dem thar hills.
It should definitely be illegal. There are so many other options for charging these kinds of fees, all of which were used by public bodies in the US in the past, from dropping envelopes of money in a box to paying a person at a kiosk or using a vending machine to buy passes. Many of these payment methods are still in use at some parks/facilities.
The noose is tightening around the necks of those few of us who do not use smartphones. I hope a future wave of 'tech minimalism' gains enough traction to ensure that there are alternatives, but for now, as we ride the wave of tech-optimism and the mass adoption of intrusive technologies in the name of convenience or cost cutting, most people seem to see asking for alternatives as unreasonable.
There is an element of innate freedom in anonymous, analogue processes, even if they are not entirely 'anonymous' - such as writing a car license plate number on an envelope of cash for a drop box - it might as well be if the information is never entered into a searchable digital database where it will presumably be stored for eternity.
I few years ago I went camping at a state park in a system that had recently introduced usage fees (having always been free in the past). The state apparently partnered with some obscure parking app company to collect the fees. The use of the state park required submitting a considerable amount of information to a third party, with little or no information on how that data might be used, stored, or sold - in essence you had no choice but to submit to a third party's TOS in order to use public facilities at all. I did not like this at all, and having no smartphone, I paid cash at the manned office - only to have them collect my information and enter it into the parking app database.
A few months ago someone here made a comment in another discussion about having a pervasive sense that things are not quite as they should be. That stuck with me.
In my country the religious eschew smartphones, so every service has an alternative. I often have to pretend that I am of that group to avoid "just installing an app" for something as simple as taking a place in a line at a physical location.
Guessing by your name that you're Israeli, and you're speaking of the more Orthodox communities there...
In the US, there are still large groups of Mennonites whose choices to avoid most post-19th century technology are generally well-accepted by the rest of the population, the best known of which are the Amish. They do travel around to varying extents, because not every Mennonite community agrees to what degree to avoid technology and under what circumstances - some have a community cellphone, some even have family cars (with a preference for less showy models); many are fine with taking public transit or hiring an "English" (non-Amish) driver. Individual smartphone ownership and use would conflict very strongly with what I understand of even the most "liberal" Amish communities, though.
There's got to be some sort of alliance that privacy-conscious techies can form with technology-skeptical religious communities, despite radically different worldviews.
This is pretty much the only thing stopping me from throwing my smartphone in the sea and never looking back, it's actually quite hard to avoid needing one to interact with society.
Half of NZ's EV charging networks require an apps which are only available in NZ's app store...
No you can't just use a web app.
Hell, in five years you won't be able to transact without an iris scan and social credit linked to your digital money.
> I’m sure the park service does this for their convenience.
Nooooo...this is dark UX to artificially increase the number of violators and collect more revenue.
I expected better from the park service but around here they've started making people enter their license plate number on parking lot passes too to prevent the time-honored tradition of sharing day passes. They're in revenue-generating mode these days.
Case in point:
I had to drop off a cashier's check at a landlord's office. Same deal-- paid streetside parking, but didn't realize it was app-only. I struggled with downloading the app on a crappy connection and couldn't successfully pay for parking after 45 minutes of fucking with it.
What am I going to do, leave? I drove an hour to get there and had 3 minutes' worth of business there. In the end I just ended up parking illegally.
To be any scummier, they'd have to implement paid parking at rest stops and ticket anybody who dashes past the meter trying to get to the bathroom before they piss themselves.
> I believe it's impossible to live in modern society without having an account in FAANG
Oh, this is completely possible -- I do it.
But it won't stop them from getting your personal data.
What smartphone do you use?
Given that Google handles a tremendous amount of email (not all to gmail.com domains either), and that other companies maintain "shadow profiles" of non-members, or simply track vast numbers of people (credit bureaux and other data-brokers), let alone the vast levels of surveillance baked into the present-day Internet, saying people can simply opt out of services is ... profoundly untrue.
There's not need to pit fairness in business dealings against privacy. Both are wins for the average person.
But then we will face the original problem: prevalence of fake location spam
Not if you have to provide proof of your identity to register. Such proof could then also be a prerequisite to have government protection against arbitrary bans.
The problem is that such large platforms work like utilities, but are governed as services
For example it is illegal for the water utility companies where I live to cut off water supply, even if someone does not pay the bills. It should be illegal for payment processors, search engines and other large internet platforms to take away people's business. We need utilities, not services.
1000%, the ISPs need to be treated just like a power company, not privatized at all.
Privacy is a choice? That's a new one, I didn't know people had the choice of their data not being leaked or sold by small and big businesses.
We can chew gum and walk at the same time, no need to throw privacy under the bus.
Of course privacy is not a choice, it's a fundamental right.
Giving your personal data to private companies, however, is a choice. You can simply not use their services.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36567329
You really can't.
If you don't want to be homeless, you're either renting or buying, and in either case people are going to be processing your personal data. You're also probably going to need a bank account, which you also can't open without handing over personal data.
If you want electricity, you're then dealing with another company that is processing your data. Same for water and gas and internet.
Sure, some things are optional, some things can be worked around by buying in person and using cash instead of buying online. But a lot of things are just not practically optional.
Wow, never heard someone ask me to cancel all services if I want privacy. That's new.
"Man who boycotts all privacy-violating companies now alone in cave with his Goya beans and copy of Stallman's GNU manifesto"
There are a lot of businesses for which life would be much harder choosing not to use their services, and more services are digitised each year. Gov online services, essential utilities (water, gas etc), mobile phone providers, private health and so on.
It’s not as simple as “don’t use them”
> You can simply not use their services
Good luck with that. I get that you can refuse to email anybody with a gmail.com address, but lots of people use Google to host email. You may not be willing to upload your address book to Facebook, but the people who also have you in their phone book have likely shared that with FB through Instagram.
These companies get to know you pretty well even if you never directly use their services.
> You can simply not use their services.
I love this liberal argument. It's the sister argument of "Well, if you don't like YouTube censorship, then you can start your own YouTube!" It is truly out of touch with how societies actually function.
This argument only works when you have lots of market competition full of small players where it doesn't make any difference which service you use. But large corporations can effectively become something like public utilities that function like economic gatekeepers in a way that even governments are incapable of.
It is also hostile and encourages/enables the hostility of big players. My presumption is characterized by liberality, but it's a presumption, which means I default to liberality, unless there is a good reason to restrain it. Saying "just don't use it" can either be unrealistic, or something like a move of last resort. We regulate business and have always regulated business for a reason, pace free market extremism.
The common good is the concern of the law, and protecting the individual is for the sake of the common good. Start there, and you might take a different view of the function of economies in societies and how they may or may not be constrained.
All my university systems run on Microsoft. All my future employers' systems will probably run on Microsoft. All public transport in my country effectively requires an app which is tied to either Google or Apple operating systems to buy tickets. Schools require students as young as 6 years old to have an iPad or chromebook tied to Google or Apple.
There is no real choice in our modern society to "not give your personal data" to these megacorps.
https://noyb.eu/en/telesign-profiles-half-worlds-phone-users
I did not gave my data to TeleSign but apparently they have it. And my operator did not tell me.
> Giving your personal data to private companies, however, is a choice. You can simply not use their services.
This is what I do, but it certainly doesn't stop private companies from getting my private data anyway.
There is no way to opt out of this.
I really am I favor of your suggestion. Next to that my stance is that big companies should be by law be required to have a human representative you can contact, especially in the time of AI.
> I sincerely hope that the next round of EU laws tackles this instead of privacy. It's just as big an issue, especially if you're running a small business.
At least in Germany, you can file for a court order ("Einstweilige Verfügung") against Google - that usually works out and is relatively cheap, a couple hundred euros. Consult a lawyer, I think most EU countries have a similar instrument. Do note, you might have to file for an order both against the Google Europe HQ in Dublin/Ireland and against your country's Google office.
How would this work? Google isn't an official registry, do they have an obligation to list any business?
And the privacy argument is often effectively countered with security concerns, even more so if that is expressly stated so in the ToS.
Just to be clear: I'm 100% on the GP's side, I'm just curious what the Verfügung could do here. In order for the court issue such an order, it needs at least a reasonable legal basis.
I guess it has mostly to do with the fact that once legal gets involved, even at Google scale it makes sense to just take a look and see that, yes, of course, it was just another case of someone sabotaging someone else and the system being to dumb to catch it, lets fix it before we have to show up in court.
On a side note: GDPR demands that companies provide a way to get a manual review for decisions made by machines.
> On a side note: GDPR demands that companies provide a way to get a manual review for decisions made by machines.
Correct. Unfortunately, from what I've heard so far, all that this entails is that some drone looks over the case, and checks a "reviewed" box or so. It's a right to manual review, not to manual rectification.
> even at Google scale it makes sense to just take a look and see that, yes, of course, it was just another case of someone sabotaging someone else and the system being to dumb to catch it, lets fix it before we have to show up in court.
Rather than "Evan at" I'd say "especially at". It costs big companies way more money to deal with legal issues than it costs you to raise them.
Google only has so many staff lawyers and it doesn't take a lot to get them bogged down. The bigger you are, the now likely you are too have a bunch of legal work.
It's simply in their best interest to make your legal case go away as quickly as possible in most cases.
Honestly this kind of "honest question" is quite depressing: If you don't start out from the understanding that yes, Google is ground reality for most people and yes, the law should protect you from unjust persecution on those kinds of platforms then what can we tell you? This point of view is inhumane and should just be released. It is not for others to convince you that you should consider human rights more important than corporate rights. You should wonder why you have this point of view and why you think it's reasonable. Then let it go, so you don't infect others with it (and make the world a measurably worse place as your legacy).
I didn't ask a question about the ethics of the action. I asked about the specifics of the court order.
Courts (at least in Germany) cannot just arbitrarily decide on what is just or not; they must follow the rule of law. Without some adequate legal basis, a court won't order a thing.
> It is not for others to convince you that you should consider human rights more important than corporate rights.
Human rights are by definition more important than corporate rights. I take offense at your suggestion that I'd consider the latter more important, given that I explicitly stated that I'm 100% on the GP's side.
If you're 1 out of 100 marketing agencies, you're part of a free market.
Once you have monopoly or near-monopoly, you become more like infrastructure, whether you provide electricity or access to customers.
At that point, you either have to expect to be willing to host anyone who stays within the law, or have the monopoly broken up.
Only the most hardcore market fundamentalists/objectivits tend to disagree about this principle, in my experience. (Which means practically nobody outside the US). Though some seem to be quite willing to accept abuse of market power if it primarily hurts their political enemies.
Like a sibling comment of yours, you are arguing principles. I'm not arguing those principles; I already stated that I'm 100% behind them [in favor of the GP].
> Only the most hardcore market fundamentalists/objectivits tend to disagree about this principle, in my experience.
Even if the court agrees in principle, it still needs a adequate legal basis to issue an order. Violation of a law, or a contract, or whatever. I asked the GP, who seems to have experience with such cases, what this legal basis this could be.
The EU, and especially some of the member countries, tend to go harder on cases where monopoly power is either misused or cause some harm to the general public.
The legal basis to intervene is there, but may be vague and open to interpretation.
For instance, a near-monopoly position might cause other regulations, like laws against unfair business practices to be interpreted more strictly than for other intermediaries:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:02...
As long as the population within a jurisdiciton univerally supports the principles behind a ruling, finding some regulation to support it usually can be done.
In the US, there seems to be two factors that make it a lot harder to enforce such regulation (to the extent that they even exist there) - The fact that these companies are American and able to buy influence through lobbying and contributions - The current division in American politics, where virtually any position supported by one side automatically will be opposed by the other, causing paralysis
Simple: by offering you to host a marker on google maps or by even giving you an account, they are entering a contract with you/your corporate entity from which they can't just unilaterally exit without good reason. The legal basis is just the same as the various people on both ends of the political spectrum who filed for injunctions against Facebook/Meta and Twitter to have their accounts unbanned.
The question of course is if the jurisdiction of the person I replied to has the same idea about contract law but IIRC (and IANAL...) it should be harmonized across the EU - but heh, if the removal of the maps marker has led to a drastic decrease in traffic, a couple hundred euros for an actual lawyer should be more than worth it!
The key thing is, going via the court system or even "just" the legal department without involving the courts short-circuits the relatively powerless first-level support.
If you're interested in the finer details and a bit of ranting, read e.g. this post from lawyer Christian Saefken [1] - it's geared towards Twitter (and Facebook, which a friend of mine had success with just the same).
[1] https://christian-saefken.de/abmahnen-aber-richtig/
> Simple: by offering you to host a marker on google maps or by even giving you an account, they are entering a contract with you/your corporate entity from which they can't just unilaterally exit without good reason.
Contracts work both ways: now imagine Google, or Facebook, or Twitter stating that you can't close your account without a good reason because you have a contract.
The point is that you don't need a good reason, you just need a previously agreed upon reason.
A cursory examination of the ToS [2] is shows numerous cases in which Google (or the user) can terminate the contract. Whatever happened here, it's all but certain that Google claims that one of these cases is fulfilled, hence they have the right to terminate the contract.
> If you're interested in the finer details and a bit of ranting, read e.g. this post from lawyer Christian Saefken [1] - it's geared towards Twitter (and Facebook, which a friend of mine had success with just the same).
> [1] https://christian-saefken.de/abmahnen-aber-richtig/
That lawyer is claiming a Right to Free Speech. I don't how this strategy can be successful, as Twitter will counter-claim that they it's a private platform they are free to regulate. Sexualized content can be free speech but surely one wouldn't claim that Twitter has the obligation to host it if they don't want to.
If Twitter indeed caved, then they caved simply because they assessed that said Tweet wasn't worth the trouble, not because they were legally obliged to.
[2] https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/terms
I wonder if the refusal to list a business could be considered tortuous interference now, as it has effectively become a negative false statement: "There's no bakery here".
Even if you dont want to be listed on google maps, they will sometimes generate a fake listing for you anyhow. I got burned by one of these as a customer, the link for takeout was not actually a site the restaurant was partnered with. I’ve also seen restaurants with similar names url squat these other places.
It seems so bizzare google will publish such information without ever validating it with the business. It must cause a lot of damage and support quite the environment of scammers though.
> It seems so bizzare google will publish such information without ever validating it with the business.
Why should they? Validation would be expensive, and the false information doesn't hurt Google. Where else are you gonna list?
If they don't want to validate it, they shouldn't publish it or sell advertising on a service that used the unverified data. It was OK for the web because that's the only way, but maps have a lot more sources of truth.
This happened to a restaurant I go to a lot. Their Maps listing said there was online ordering, but the link went to a site that even had a disclaimer saying they were not actually affiliated with the restaurant. I reported it to Google and they removed the entry, but anyone can make a change and double checking seems to be cursory at best.
On the flip side, as an avid Google Maps reviewer they also removed my negative review from a restaurant without any good reason (supposedly the business reported it as being “fake” or something)
It really pissed me off because I wrote a long thoughtful review and mentioned the good aspects of the restaurant too as well as some recommendations, and it’s just completely gone
The worst part is the restaurant is sitting at 4.5 stars despite being quite bad, and the recent low star reviews are all questioning the rating, which is obviously artificial
I’m at Level 8, how far along are you?
Just curious why you guys do this and for free?
It actually helps people. The only negative thing here is that Google makes money from it.
> It actually helps people. The only negative thing here is that Google makes money from it.
I used to be that naive, then I tried to correct a Places issue on Facebook. I stumbled into this netherworld of similar people being abused with horrible tools continually banging their heads against a wall "to help people," with little or no support from Facebook.
After months of trying, I totally failed at my task, and I vowed never again. These company just abusively exploit people's need to help others for their own profit. If Google/Facebook/etc. wants me to work for them, they can pay me and give me reasonable tools.
Add the info to OpenStreetMaps instead.
> Add the info to OpenStreetMaps instead.
OpenStreetMap didn't have the same error (which was still on Facebook, last I checked). Facebook Places has a buggy duplicate detection system that would frequently merge different places together, including one I specifically cared about. It would suck in any new instances into its merged blackhole. IIRC, a huge portion of the activity in that "netherworld" Facebook group I found was trying to mass-report merge errors to the automated system, which frequently didn't work.
However, OpenStreetMap would have been a very good suggestion for some of the other "netherworld" Facebook group members. Many of them seemed care about making Facebook Places accurate in general, so they'd look for and fix errors far afield from the stuff they actually interacted with.
Yeah I was just commenting in general towards the attitude of wanting to help people. It's wonderful when people have good intentions like that. But people should direct those good intentions on improving open data sets instead of being slave labour for large corporations.
I like to see my numbers get bigger and collect badges.
I enjoy taking photos and reviewing food. I used to do it on Zomato, and made some friends through that, but Zomato pulled out of my country and Google Maps is pretty much the only good existing choice
If that happened recently enough, I would guess that your "long thoughtful review" was confused for a ChatGPT fake.
I've been reading a lot of reports recently about how businesses abuse AirBnb and Google Maps reviews by forcing the companies to remove them on technicalities or by outright lies. I wonder if I should just post any less-than-stellar reviews without any text but with rating only in order to make it harder for them to remove. Thoughts?
This is also a problem on the customer side. I don’t shy away from leaving bad reviews to businesses that deserve it. These businesses either reply with a passive aggressive doxx like “Hi Or Nornor” when I don’t use my real name anywhere on the internets (including medical-related businesses), or they report the review and my account gets blocked with all my reviews removed.
And then of course there is it a single living human at google you can contact to even find out which review was flagged, why, and what to do about it.
I don’t even read reviews anywhere anymore, they’re all faked or AstroTurfed anyway that they give no indication of anything. What a brave new world.
I encountered the same problem recently. My family member’s business changed location. Updating the Google maps listing caused Google to flag it for not following guidelines and weeks passed with the listing being “under review”.
The solution that ended up working for me was to start paying a few dollars a day for Adwords. For some reason that cleared the issue up the next day. Then, I turned AdWords down to a few bucks a week and then later off entirely.
> The solution that ended up working for me was to start paying a few dollars a day for Adwords. For some reason that cleared the issue up the next day.
Yes, for some reason it cleared up after spending money. I really hope it’s not the norm. Sounds like extortion to me.
Can confirm. This works in more places than one, Reddit too. Reason? When you're a paying customer, you get routed to elevated support staff. They have a higher incentive to help you fix the problem and fast.
I don't hate it, I appreciate it. Better than having no easy recourse. Because I bet if everyone were treated equally, it'd be shitty service for all. Better to toss in a few bucks if it's valuable and get the support (and some ads run).
> I don't hate it, I appreciate it.
Since that amounts to a kind of extortion, I can't see how it would do anything but make me furious.
This sounds like an Mafia movie. Pay up for a little protection and don't let it happen again!
Intentionally or accidentally, it's a great problem for big tech to have. You scramble with everybody else to be on the service and the DDOS crowd, confused tourists and local ruffians take your account offline. Better grovel up to reinstate your honour and pay for protection/added services/more identity validation that doesn't stop the problem from happening. Same thing every big country does, we are all under a "security umbrella".
Honestly, real life advertising needs to make a come back. And localized knowledge of the businesses worth keeping alive, when Google's security algorithm dumps them without administration even knowing it. Eggs all in one basket, was never a good idea.. right?
All business and all government eventually become a racket.
Also, how should a small business deal with fake negative reviews in, say, Play Store? Google does nothing to fix that. As the app developer you know a review from an account that didn't sign-up to your service is fake, especially when it appears at the same time other similar fake reviews do.
This is very sad. It's a disgrace that even physical businesses today depend so much on Google.
If you happen to review few places on Google Map you are holding superpowers. Idk if that works for new accounts too. But yeah, at least if you do some activity then you report a place as closed, they are "checking" it for 1h, then you get the e-mail that the place got removed from Maps.
I use that for good purpose - I fix a lot of invalid information on Google Maps around my home town, and they apply the changes without batting an eye. This is good for society. But I can clearly see how that could be used for abusive purposes.
Companies that don't provide their customers with an easy way to speak with a representative shouldn't be allowed to operate inside the EU.
I feel like you should be able to request a call from their call center rather then be forced to wait on the phone for one. The long wait times to speak to representatives is a cost savings measure.
First saving on having to hire an appropriate level of customer service staff. Second that percentage of people who give up.
It's a feature, not a bug.
I think one of the pixel phone had an option to detect when there was a human on the other end of the line. Definitely made me consider getting it back when I was looking for a new phone.
Google Assistant will wait on hold for you, yes.
Though from what I've seen, most places have callback options.
>I sincerely hope that the next round of EU laws tackles this instead of privacy
why instead?
Because privacy laws have zero teeth and workarounds are technically easy (or endlessly annoying for zero new outcome, e.g. see cookie popups). If the EU would actually enforce GDPR it would be amazing.
Meanwhile these companies who have essentially became a public utility don’t provide customer support or explanations.
Lots of companies are expending a lot of effort to ensure they respect GDPR
Non EU companies are the worst offenders at not understanding their privacy obligations (particularly ones that provide tags)
I'm guessing that the core idea behind GDPR laws wasn't a to flood internet with banner popups, but to limit excessive and unneeded for honest usage, storage of PII. IIRC GDPR allows for some limited PII storage without any banners, but it is restricted in time and scope, to prevent selling this data. Instead nobody is limiting usage of the data (not even Eurocommission site with GDPR rules) because that is not enforced in reality. So in essence GDPR law was a spectacular expensive failure, because nobody restricted their PII processing and analytics.
GDPR forces companies to make a choice: stop invasively selling data, or get explicit permission to do so. if a company chooses the shady second option, they have to hamstring their UX and have a big nasty banner that says "we don't give a fuck about your privacy"
it's actually very clever. the more profit hungry and and invasive a company is, the more desperate they are to sell your data, the shittier they have to make their website - or break the law and get a nasty fine a year or two down the line
this idea that gdpr isn't enforced or is somehow expensive (?) doesn't have any grounding in reality: just 2 months ago, Meta was fined 1.2 billion euros for GDPR breaches. they've also already been fined hundreds of millions multiple times. in 2021, Amazon was fined ~800m euros. smaller businesses are being fined all over the place[1]. GDPR is the opposite of expensive. it's profitable
GDPR is a huge deal at companies that handle any data at all. they don't think it's not being enforced
if you were criticising the lack of enforcement of a github policy, do you think you'd actually go and make sure they weren't enforcing it? so why not the EU?
[1] - https://www.enforcementtracker.com/
your ideas are contradictory:
>If the EU would actually enforce GDPR it would be amazing
>The EU should not focus on privacy laws any further
and not to be advdersarial, but they do enforce GDPR. have a look at the enforcement tracker and sort by Fine:
https://www.enforcementtracker.com/
TLDR: less than 2 months ago, Meta - one of those de facto public utilities you're describing - was fined 1.2 Billion Euros for GDPR breaches. they and Amazon have previously been fined hundreds of millions
If the EU privacy regulations didn’t actually solve the problem, what makes you think they would do any better regulating customer support?
Well because there's already been a lot of laws passed in that regard and there's already momentum. I don't mean they should stop this momentum, these privacy laws are incredibly important.
I meant the need to start a new front.
Is it listed on OSM?
If its not you're part of the problem.
Yes of course it is. I put it on both on the same day.
Your comment feels very passive aggressive, FYI. There's no need to make accusations like that.
you get bad service from these companies for the same reason the government generally provides bad service, they are monopolies with no reason to spend more money to improve
I worry about the horrible side effects that would occur from trying to grant that wish. It is always easy to make demands when you aren't the one carrying them out and most people don't think the implications through.
My mind just boggles at the implicit additional bureaucracy, expenses, and slowdowns being cheered for. The kind of mess which results in a system so complex that it has its own "degrees which shouldn't exist" spawned from it like medical billing.
feel free to post a link or add it to your profile and ill leave a good review
Thank you, that's very kind. However, it's not possible even for me to view the listing while it is blocked.