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Comment by rbinv | Hacker News Reader

I don't think this is actually related to Matomo being a competitor. Malware is much more likely, making this a non-issue. Could be a false positive, too.

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Then why would a Google worker (not a machine, but a real life human) tell this person that using their competitor is not allowed? Did you read the screenshot?

The Google worker said "x url is not allowed". It says nothing of using Matomo. The URL is to the js which google must have considered malicious.

The user explained it was Matomo, a Google competitor, and the worker responded with "No, that is not allowed.". Seems to leave absolutely no room for interpretation. It is not about the URL, it is about Matomo.

The worker is just reading what their screen says. Might as well be a robot.

Yeah, the fact that you're talking to a person-operated robot rather than an automated one doesn't change the fact that you're talking to a robot.

It's a huge difference. This is a Google employee explicitly telling you that using their competitor is not allowed.

It's no different at all from a support chatbot incorrectly telling you using their competitor is not allowed. This support employee does not write or enforce the contracts for Google beyond a support form. The employee could say "Google requires you send us your first-born child" and it wouldn't mean Google is actually bound to that employee's statements.

Your example is bad because clearly Google has no claims on a child. In this context, a Google employee is telling a Google customer that he is not allowed to use a competitor's product. After the customer has explicitly noted the problem.

Now a lot of people have said this poor drone could not possibly understand the situation well enough to not make statements that are flagrantly anti-competitive. Well, that is Google's problem. Both their automated system and their customer service are behaving in a way that hinders competitors. If they don't fix this, they are liable.

And by the looks of it, it has happened before, so there is a pattern.

It is about the URL. The google worker doesn't say anything about matomo, he doesn't add any context, he just displays generic and common discussion patterns.

I picture the setting in my mind and it's the best explanation. Someone sitting in a cubicle or a farm, answering thousand of messages like that per day. He's not reading the chat, he's scanning it for words like "ok", "thanks you", "fixed", "working now", "bye", etc.

Matomo doesn't register on their radar.

The user doesn't explain what Matomo is. His message looks like a copy/paste from matomo's website. It's even put into quote.

This conversation was not around Matomo being an alternative to GA.

Doesn't mean Google doesn't actively classify matomo as malware though.

This Google employee responded to a question. When looking at the question and answer, and the actual resulting situation, it is pretty clear what's happening here.

What question exactly ? I don't see a question in the chat.

They actually said "this is not allowed". Sounds very much like a CS agent reiterating that the URL is on a ban list. You reading it like the CS agent is saying using a competitor is just your interpretation. Look at it like this, specifically banning something because it's a competitor would be a huge deal (rightly so). With that in mind, do you really suppose they would tell the agent that directly?

What's anticompetitive behavior is for URLs associated with competitors to be banned. They were. Whether a customer support drone was able to identify them as URLs associated with competitors is immaterial.

Because they are a support agent who is reporting to the customer a bunch of links that their computer screen is telling them is not allowed.

Plausable but I do not imagine that to be the case. It was recently updated and Matomo has a self-diagnostic includeing "File integrity", it has no warnings. Its also on its own small droplet, so somewhat isoloated.

The Google Rep was clear it was not allowed also (though perhaps misinformed).

He was communicating poorly, but I don't read that as him stating Google's official stance on Matomo. I read it as him saying "those links are not allowed because our link scanner says so, and that's all I know."

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