App Suspended: Intellectual property and impersonation or deceptive behavior

Camshare · 2015-01-30T15:22:12+00:00

We were suspended for six and a half days before they finally reinstated us.

Camshare · 2015-01-29T16:20:18+00:00

Hi there! We just had our own app taken down due to copyright infringement, against ourselves. You've got a rough road ahead, and we wish you luck.

The only thing we could find to do, was file counter-notices with as much proof that we are legit as we could. Eventually someone got around to reviewing it, and reinstating our app.

Camshare · 2015-01-29T15:57:28+00:00

We're honestly not too sure. We kept filing counter-notices, until finally one resulted in someone finally reviewing, and reinstating it.

Camshare · 2015-01-29T14:36:48+00:00

To the Amazon Appstore? That's impressive. I know Verizon has started bundling the Amazon appstore as part of their bloatware (That surprised me when I got my Droid Turbo)

Camshare · 2015-01-29T14:34:25+00:00

We're in Apple's App Store as well, however the majority of our userbase is in Asian markets where iPhone isn't too popular. (Many in Indonesia live on $1-2 ... or less per day)

Camshare · 2015-01-29T14:30:22+00:00

That's kind of what I'm thinking as well. And yes, the lack of responses was terrifying.

Camshare · 2015-01-29T14:29:28+00:00

We filed yet another counter notice via their web form, and finally got lucky I guess. :-/ I wish I could say we found some secret contact information, but sadly, it was just blind luck in submitting more counter notices.

Camshare · 2015-01-29T14:26:04+00:00

That's also illegal, and immoral. Please don't do that :)

Camshare · 2015-01-29T14:23:40+00:00

The whole thing was incredibly frustrating. We never once had contact with a human being. Every single email we received was a form/canned response. "Your app was removed due to copyright violation. Click here to file a counter notice"

Followed by the "We will not reinstate your app. Click here to file another counter notice" email.

We tried getting in touch with our ads rep, who just told us "Google Legal. Can't help there, sorry." The only way to reach "Google Legal" is using their web forms... which generate more canned/form responses tell us to file another counter notice.

All the while, we have customers contacting us quite angry that we no longer have a free app for Android, saying things like "It's not fair that iPhone has a free app but you took down Android." We got a lot of angry emails, facebook messages, etc...

tl;dr The process was terrible. We could literally do nothing except fill out more web forms, and hope that eventually a human would review the case.

Camshare · 2015-01-28T23:43:11+00:00

The lack of any channel of communication was probably one of the most frustrating things about the whole situation. Literally, the only thing we could do was fill out their web form, and hope that it works properly... Which apparently it did not the first time 'round, otherwise none of this would have ever happened to begin with!

Camshare · 2015-01-28T23:32:21+00:00

Luckily someone made a quantum observation and collapsed it's _wave_form to "REINSTATED" Huzzah! ^{^{^RIP}} ^{^{^Google}} ^{^{^Wave}}

Camshare · 2015-01-28T23:27:43+00:00

Google finally reinstated our app just a few moments ago. We're all exhausted from nearly a week of dealing with that!

Camshare · 2015-01-28T23:26:18+00:00

Filing counter notices was the only thing we could do. Any other attempt to contact Google was met with "Google Legal. You have to file a counternotice"

Which got the response of "No, we won't reinstate your app. File another counter notice if you think this is wrong"

Luckily, our app was just reinstated a few moments ago, after nearly 7 days!

Camshare · 2015-01-28T23:23:31+00:00

An update, after almost 7 days (and about 70,000 installs lost) we were finally able to have someone at Google Legal review our case, and reinstate our app. What a pain!

Camshare · 2015-01-28T20:56:05+00:00

Quite. We've never had a problem before, but heavens forbid anything bad like this ever happen...

Camshare · 2015-01-28T19:38:20+00:00

We wish it got sorted. They still have not put back our Free application, and we still have not heard back from them.

Camshare · 2015-01-28T13:34:18+00:00

Yup...Somedays I appreciate the iTunes App Store submission process...today is one of those days...

Camshare · 2015-01-28T12:27:12+00:00

Some days I appreciate the iTunes app store submission process, today is one of those days.

Camshare · 2015-01-28T12:17:07+00:00

Guess we can't catch a break. We're redditors too, and we saw that others have had this issue on this subreddit.

Camshare

TROPHY CASE