[ocdtrekkie]

I think the permaban without notification on first violation (that most violators likely weren't even aware was a violation) is unreasonable. This should almost certainly be illegal if it is not already under the DSA or similar, particularly for a monopolist of Google's scale.

[johncolanduoni]

What about this ban is anticompetitive? The only think I can think of is accusing them of dumping product (as opposed to price discrimination), in which case the remedy is going to be to making them charge the API price for everything.

[ocdtrekkie]

The issue with them being a monopolist is less about competition and more about the fact them penalizing you on one of their products can result in them deleting you from the Internet. You can lose decades of email history, the ability to publish apps on over half of the mobile devices on the globe, etc.

In Europe the Digital Services Act (DSA) is beginning to set expectations, particularly for large platforms about not just clear documentation of their terms, but also a meaningful human appeal process with transparency and communication requirements for actions taken.

The DSA is more focused on social networks, but if you were to apply the concepts of the DSA to this story, Google would have violated it several times over.