They don't have to get all countries on the same page; for example, they could default to only allowing apps to be sold in the country of the vendor, then expand from that to countries with an extradition treaty with the vendor's country.

Also probably not quite as hard as you make out in practice, as 27 of those countries share membership of a super-national government whose specific purpose is to make trade easier by streamlining legislative differences between them, and that block plus two other single countries constitute about 60% of the world's GDP.

Though random small-time scammers may regardless have a hard time selling in China an app made outside, and vice-versa, as even just the language barrier can be quite intense — I've played a game where the decently resourced western publisher didn't notice (or noticed but didn't fix) the fact that the "choose your name" box only had room for one character, and thus I was the only player who had an interesting name like '狐' rather than 'M'.

> they could default to only allowing apps to be sold in the country of the vendor, then expand from that to countries with an extradition treaty with the vendor's country.

You don't even need an extradition treaty. Just require some collateral for selling outside your own country. Then people selling within their own country (i.e. probably most people) don't have to post anything but are automatically in the same jurisdiction as the victim. Whereas scammers from other countries forfeit their collateral, the amount of which is set based on the amount of scams coming out of their country.

It would be a lot simpler if cyberspace was declared a sovereign territory and Google became the official government of it, answerable to no other government on questions of digital affairs. That way they'd have the power to put all the spammers and ransomware gangs in their goolag for a very long time. Think this is a bad idea? Great for you. Keep letting people like Donald Trump be your digital government. Heck, make Google the government of meatspace too. If every neightborhood in America was run as well as a Google office, we'd all be living in paradise. Even in Google's currently evil debased declined state, it's still infinitely more competent and better than your corrupt compromised legacy government institutions.

> Even in Google's currently evil debased declined state, it's still infinitely more competent and better than your corrupt compromised legacy government institutions.

Corporations are only efficient when they have corporate responsibilities. Corporations do only efficiency and can select customers. Government must guarantee equality and rights for everyone. Even criminals are citizens with rights.

Let me demonstrate. This is how Google would do it:

(1) Algorithm captures 90% of all criminals (it's a good algorithm)

(2) 5% (1/20) change that flagged account is a criminal (95% false positives)

(3) 0.01% (1/10000) of all accounts are flagged.

There are around 246 million unique Google users in the US. Closing just 24,600 accounts removes 90% of criminals. 90% change of capture is a good deterrent.

Google also removes 23,370 innocent accounts.

GOOGLE DOES THIS ALREADY. It's efficient and well-run (actual numbers may vary) but also brutal and unjust. Legacy government institutions do their job better than Google would.

Do you really believe the government is what gives you your rights?

Government maintains a system that enables you to protect your rights, and process to participate. That system can't be very efficient, because you need to have paper trail, and bureaucratic process. It's the process that gives you change to seek justice and protect your rights.

With Google you can only post complaint to HN and wish that someone working in Google notices, or that there is enough publicity to shame them.

Maybe that's true for some governments. Or maybe it was true a long time ago. In America I question whether our government is actually even the government. One thing I like about Google is they don't claim to provide services they don't actually do. I'm glad you live in a place where the system that governs you worked well enough to earn your trust.

I'm not an American, that's true.

I think Americans have forgotten what the government is. It's the job of the people to fix and constantly maintain the government because if they don't own it, someone else will.

It seems like Reaganism never left America. People from right to left have adopted the talking points and the attitude. If there are problems in the government, it's suddenly all bullshit and good for nothing. Talk in a passive voice where the government just happens.