Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Banned from Google Ads for Using Apple Card

smartprivacy.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 227 posts

Re: Banned from Google Ads for Using Apple Card

#201

Post by tfha »

r00fus wrote: post #59
jaclaz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>so it's legal to discriminate based on it. (And is often done, though not to this extent; many places, for example, will accept Visa and Mastercard but not Discover.) Sure, but one thing is: "Sorry, I cannot accept Discover, do you happen to have another means of payment?" and another one is: "Sorry, I cannot accept Discover, and since you presented one of those cards to me once, then you are prevented for the rest…

The relief for that would be for the customer to talk to everyone and tell them how bad the vendor is, and go to another vendor who offers the same service. In this case, Google is effectively a monopoly/2Big2Fail in advertising. So that remedy is not available or is impractical. So the issue is not necessarily the behaviors (while reprehensible) but the size of the company.

Yeah the real issue is the choice. If there were 5 or 10 reasonable alternatives, this kind of thing wouldn't bother me at all. But if the options are "obey Google or fail", suddenly it's a big problem.

Re: Banned from Google Ads for Using Apple Card

#202

Post by jboles »

rapind wrote: post #127
jonknee wrote: post #2

Google's classic canned response of "We've confirmed we're right, we will not tell you why and this is the last reply you'll receive" is one of the most infuriating things I can imagine. I make my income primarily through AdSense and live in fear of that email one day. In this scenario it seems pretty obvious that their automated fraud AI messed up, but the customer service person is probably also automated. They hav…

My theory is that Google is now being run by robots. They maintain a few token humans to propagate the facade. Before you disagree, ask yourself, would you know if they were(n't)?

The humans are too distracted by non-work activities maybe? This article paints a bizarre picture: https://thefederalist.com/2018/01/10/19-insane-tidbits-james...

Re: Banned from Google Ads for Using Apple Card

#203

Post by tfha »

mleonhard wrote: post #153
geerlingguy wrote: post #20

> If you're planning on using the Apple Card for anything important, think again. That was the final line in the article, but from reading the rest of the article, it seems like the overarching problem was not the Apple Card, or the idea of virtual CC numbers... but more that time and time again, Google will shut down your [YouTube|Gmail|Ads|Cloud|anything] account with little or no notice, and arbitrary, non-contest…

Companies producing Android apps have no choice.

Pivot

Re: Banned from Google Ads for Using Apple Card

#204

Post by pgcj_poster »

quanticle wrote: post #71
zeta0134 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole practice reeks of being downright fraudulent. Especially with a new technology like Apple Card, which folks will understandably not have a strong familiarity with. I get that Google needs to combat fraud and all that, but they should at least inform the customer of why such a drastic action (a permanent ban! !!) was taken with almost no warning. Really, any respectable company in this situation would simpl…

I think an application of Hanlon's Razor ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor ) is applicable here. Google is in an oligopolistic position (along with Facebook) in the online ads space. Therefore, they face zero consequence for having extraordinarily poor customer service. As a result, they optimize their customer "service" to minimize work for themselves. I ran into a very similar situation with my gas c…

I don't think Hanlon's Razor applies to large companies. Individual humans tend to have reasonably powerful moral compass's, but make a lot of mistakes due to lack of information, focus, and error checking. For humans, it makes sense to assume "stupidity" rather than malice. On the other hand, companies like Google have tons of the smartest people in the world making decisions, but they tend to put profit over morality whenever possible. In a sense, they have to, or else they'll be out-competed by someone who does.

For large companies, I would almost go so far as to propose that one should "never attribute to stupidity what can adequately be explained by malice."

I have no opinion about this particular instance. I just find that HN tends to bring up Hanlon's Razor a lot in defense of corporations.

Re: Banned from Google Ads for Using Apple Card

#205

Post by diveanon »

zeta0134 wrote: post #8
jonknee wrote: post #2

Google's classic canned response of "We've confirmed we're right, we will not tell you why and this is the last reply you'll receive" is one of the most infuriating things I can imagine. I make my income primarily through AdSense and live in fear of that email one day. In this scenario it seems pretty obvious that their automated fraud AI messed up, but the customer service person is probably also automated. They hav…

This whole practice reeks of being downright fraudulent. Especially with a new technology like Apple Card, which folks will understandably not have a strong familiarity with. I get that Google needs to combat fraud and all that, but they should at least inform the customer of why such a drastic action (a permanent ban! !!) was taken with almost no warning. Really, any respectable company in this situation would simpl…

What exactly makes the Apple Card "new technology"?

Re: Banned from Google Ads for Using Apple Card

#206

Post by yipeedipee »

scarface74 wrote: post #192
arielm wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure if this is an attempt to troll the thread or your legitimate point of view. If the latter, ads play a major role in the success of man (most?) great products you are currently using because without exposure most people wouldn’t know of their existence. Sadly, that power clustered towards Google with no oversight whatsoever. Google will continue to be opaque unless they have oversight/regulations. Somethi…

I don’t have any moral issue with using advertising to get your product in front of people. There are many different ways to market besides depending on Google ads. I have a problem with a business plan that bases your entire revenue stream on Google ads.

Basically you sum up why having 1 major, huge company that supplies a vast array of website coverage, is a bad idea, aka google adsense/doubleclick which powers so many ad networks. Yes there is facebook/twitter and a few others but google is the one with the crazy huge coverage. Also yes there are other formats but we live in a very digital age where it has potentially better returns for less cost when you use google adsense rather than traditional media. When you are a small company these cost differences are a huge deal.

Re: Banned from Google Ads for Using Apple Card

#207

Post by squarefoot »

ineedasername wrote: post #136
squarefoot wrote: post #82

Bad PR and popularity backlash is what corporations fear the most. We should wait for such things to happen (and then be quickly fixed because of the name) to some really popular figure who will make it public, then grab popcorn and watch Google, or any other corporation that screws "normal" customers, produce spectacular stunts to escape the unavoidable negative press.

The thing is a popular figure, especially if they do semi-large numbers with Google, probably wouldn't get banned before outreach and if they did would be able to get decent support.

That would be the point. I want to read some day "Hi, I'm (insert popular name here). How come that I get immediate answers plus support while other users with the same problem either have to wait or are being banned?". That would hardly happen, but hope is free.

Re: Banned from Google Ads for Using Apple Card

#208

Post by dzhiurgis »

microtherion wrote: post #38
jonknee wrote: post #2

Google's classic canned response of "We've confirmed we're right, we will not tell you why and this is the last reply you'll receive" is one of the most infuriating things I can imagine. I make my income primarily through AdSense and live in fear of that email one day. In this scenario it seems pretty obvious that their automated fraud AI messed up, but the customer service person is probably also automated. They hav…

> In this scenario it seems pretty obvious that their automated fraud AI messed up Ah, but is it really obvious? One of the benefits of virtual card numbers, in particular the Apple Card implementation, is that it's easy to switch them out, which makes tracking harder. Could it be that a company that makes its living off tracking users would not be overly fond of virtual card numbers? As long as users' reaction is "i…

Add this to the list for Elizabeth Warren to bust big tech's balls for...

Others within last 30 days:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20632119

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20814135

Re: Banned from Google Ads for Using Apple Card

#209

Post by floatingatoll »

zeta0134 wrote: post #8
jonknee wrote: post #2

Google's classic canned response of "We've confirmed we're right, we will not tell you why and this is the last reply you'll receive" is one of the most infuriating things I can imagine. I make my income primarily through AdSense and live in fear of that email one day. In this scenario it seems pretty obvious that their automated fraud AI messed up, but the customer service person is probably also automated. They hav…

This whole practice reeks of being downright fraudulent. Especially with a new technology like Apple Card, which folks will understandably not have a strong familiarity with. I get that Google needs to combat fraud and all that, but they should at least inform the customer of why such a drastic action (a permanent ban! !!) was taken with almost no warning. Really, any respectable company in this situation would simpl…

It looks incompetent, not fraudulent. They’re using credit card numbers as a primary anti-fraud mechanism, and virtual cards bypass that.

Re: Banned from Google Ads for Using Apple Card

#210

Post by classics2 »

Reminds me of when I was permanently suspended from PayPal “for reasons” after 20+ years of constant patronage and good standing. Same black box mentality, no human being made the decision and no human being would look at the situation and fix it.

There really should be a catchy term for this sort of algorithmically generated deplatforming.

Google ganking?

Post reply on HN