Banned for Life

Story of an Android developer banned from using his Google Play account for life. I feel bad for him.

I’ve had a similar thing happen to me ten years ago: I had a Google AdSense account and was happily using it on my website. But a “competitor” (we were stupid kids at the time… well, stupid-er than today that is) decided to generate thousands of fake clicks on the banners, which triggered an automatic action on my account.

Like Steve Gehrman, my account was banned for life, and so was a myriad of other Google accounts. I tried once to create a new account but it was instantly banned as well. It felt like at the time that there is no way to get a human to look at the issue, which really amplifies the feeling of injustice.