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Comment by jalapenos | Hacker News Reader

Where are you resident?

I'm in the UK. But I've seen developers from all around having the same issue. (See Reddit)

My app is a free app, and their policy (which I don't agree with) states that private home addresses will only be shown for monetised apps.

To my surprise, Google published my home address for a free app. My account is new too, and address verification is a requirement for getting your developer account approved.

Sounds like it's a matter of UK law then. At a time when neither the US, nor its tech giants, are particularly popular at 10 Downing St. Nor in the UK generally.

And like you've a fair bit of company, to make common cause - whether paying solicitors, or raising a ruckus.

I’m going through the process of listing in the Play Store just now and I’m having the same issues in the EU.

The official channel to complain about this is the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). https://ico.org.uk/

I'm not expecting it to be speedy or effective. Another channel is writing a formal letter requesting your GDPR rights to deletion on paper, to the UK business address https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/c...

We all know that online support is a waste of time. In some ways, HN is one of the actually effective support channels.

You may wish to contact compliance and inform them that they are violating legal requirements in the UK (assuming that this is, y'know...true). Without blustering or yelling (getting angry makes you look less credible), simply state the government agency that accepts complaints, and state that you will file a complaint if the matter is not resolved. If there are laws that mandate how fast Google is required to resolve the issue, it is worth mentioning them.

In general, support has the incentive of making tickets go away. Compliance has the incentive of making sure the company doesn't run afoul of regulators. Compliance is also much much more powerful at an organizational level.

I've contacted them and they've left my last email without response, and have chosen to ignore all my requests to take down my private information

Thank you for this. I'm going to do so now

> Another channel is writing a formal letter requesting your GDPR rights to deletion on paper

GDPR is EU, UK is not. how does this work? surley the UK didn't adopt the GDPR voluntarily?

Same as it always has. It was in place before Brexit.

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/data-protection-and-the...

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2016/679/contents

https://uk-gdpr.org/

The UK incorporated GDPR into our local laws as GDPR UK[0] and the DPA[1]. I don't know whether the punitive measures still hold up though.

[0] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2016/679/contents

[1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/contents/enacte...

From my anecdotal experience of 1 attempt of writing to the ICO it was 100% effective: several months later I received a polite response with a history of communication between ICO and the organisation I complained about, where the latter had to justify what they were doing. This was a sports organisation that originally announced that they would be putting DOB of the athletes on their public profiles, but ultimately was just the age (because there are age bands in competitions) maybe as a result of my complaint - who knows?

The best guide for dealing with obstructive bureaucracies is patio11's :https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-r...

That's specific to credit theft, but a great many of the principles apply to many situations:

- Approach via the legal dept, since their objective is to remove risk, rather than close tickets.

- Know your rights under the law

- Act like a relentless professional not an angry amateur .

But read the article, it's worth it

This, just calmly explain to them your awareness of the asymmetrical costs you can inflict on them (which GDPR etc were specifically designed to create) and what you'll be doing next on what date. And then make sure you do it.

I've found quoting exact provisions of statutes to be very effective (just be careful to be right).

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