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Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

kajic.com

41–50 of 183 posts

Re: Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

#41
post #30

Hmm. If I understand correctly, the website is a play to get money from Wolt by getting other people to sign up via OPs referral code. Seems kind of arbitragey - OP is not actually selling something, and Google would probably rather get the advertising $ from Wolt directly. So I see where Google's coming from, and think it can reasonably be classified as "Engaging in practices that circumvent or interfere with Google…

I think the main problem here is that Google don't let you know what went wrong or let you have any actual human you can talk to. This is what makes their decisions seems arbitrary is you have to guess at best why this happened.

Re: Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

#42
post #31

If your business relies heavily on Google to get customers (Adwords) or for generating revenue (Adsense, youtube, extensions, search, …) You are doomed. Google will/has terminated accounts on a whim with no recourse: one day you wake up and your business is destroyed, all you have is a vague, automated email and no way to contact a human being. "Oh you spent 4 years working on this extension and have thousands of pay…

I’m kind of surprised we haven’t read about this kind of thing happen to something like a public school or hospital (surely they exist?) relying on Google services.

Not too far into the pandemic, Google had a US-wide whoopsie that killed Google Classroom for a couple of hours.

Any school (including the one my kids were attending) that depended on Google Classroom was down for the morning. External SPOF.

Re: Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

#43
post #28

The biggest indicator of a monopoly is when they can treat customers like garbage and keep doing business anyway. Google suspended the Ads account of our largest agency client ($20,000 per day) with no explanation other than a vague “policy violation”. They steadfastly refused to explain how the policy was violated or what we could do to come into compliance. We contacted attorneys, wrote letters to Google executives…

How did you find out they took a bribe?

Re: Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

#44
post #35

Come on, in this case it’s pretty obvious, your website was not doing anything of value. Just a random middle man expecting to be paid for existing. Put your promo code on your website fine, but then wanting to advertise on it? That just seems like a dodgy thing to do.

Why should Google have a monopoly on linking to information that others find useful?

Re: Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

#45
post #28

The biggest indicator of a monopoly is when they can treat customers like garbage and keep doing business anyway. Google suspended the Ads account of our largest agency client ($20,000 per day) with no explanation other than a vague “policy violation”. They steadfastly refused to explain how the policy was violated or what we could do to come into compliance. We contacted attorneys, wrote letters to Google executives…

Wait what? I can bribe a human at google to flip a switch and there are no checks and balances in place to discover a change made to a 20K a day account? How many google insiders can take bribes like this? Have they gotten rich from it? What’s the minimum spend to get official help then?

I don't believe it. A single person likely can't flag a customer without a few checks and balances.

Re: Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

#46
post #28

The biggest indicator of a monopoly is when they can treat customers like garbage and keep doing business anyway. Google suspended the Ads account of our largest agency client ($20,000 per day) with no explanation other than a vague “policy violation”. They steadfastly refused to explain how the policy was violated or what we could do to come into compliance. We contacted attorneys, wrote letters to Google executives…

Wait what? I can bribe a human at google to flip a switch and there are no checks and balances in place to discover a change made to a 20K a day account? How many google insiders can take bribes like this? Have they gotten rich from it? What’s the minimum spend to get official help then?

There is a reasonably well documented underground economy of bribing Instagram employees to verify accounts (blue checkboxes) [0] and steal sought after usernames.[1]

Amazon employees have been convicted of bribery for taking $ to "leak information about the company’s search and ranking algorithms, as well as share confidential data on third-party sellers they competed with on the marketplace".[2]

If this happens at Facebook and Amazon, I can imagine it happening at Google.

[0] https://mashable.com/article/instagram-verification-paid-bla...

[1] I did not find any citable evidence on the first page of Google, but it's something I've heard from friends that are into influencer stuff. Supported by a quote from [1]

"he decided to message someone with an interesting handle (a.k.a. username). That someone said they were able to take over that account because he worked at Instagram."

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/11/former-amazon-employee-sente...

Re: Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

#47
post #28

The biggest indicator of a monopoly is when they can treat customers like garbage and keep doing business anyway. Google suspended the Ads account of our largest agency client ($20,000 per day) with no explanation other than a vague “policy violation”. They steadfastly refused to explain how the policy was violated or what we could do to come into compliance. We contacted attorneys, wrote letters to Google executives…

> their old agency paid off a Google insider to flag our client’s account resulting in suspension

That's extremely serious. If you wanted to share details with me I can raise the issue internally; my email is in my profile.

(Speaking only for myself)

Re: Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

#48
post #4

Good luck getting a straight, specific answer from anyone at Google regarding supposed problems that violate one of their vaguely worded policies. Some of the stuff flagged by their automated systems are laughable - one that comes to mind is an ad promoting genealogy research that was blocked for promoting birth control. Not that the other platforms are much better. A nonfiction book publisher once told me her Amazon…

That's pretty ironic because I've definitely seen hentai for sale on Amazon.

Re: Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

#49
post #47
post #28

The biggest indicator of a monopoly is when they can treat customers like garbage and keep doing business anyway. Google suspended the Ads account of our largest agency client ($20,000 per day) with no explanation other than a vague “policy violation”. They steadfastly refused to explain how the policy was violated or what we could do to come into compliance. We contacted attorneys, wrote letters to Google executives…

> their old agency paid off a Google insider to flag our client’s account resulting in suspension That's extremely serious. If you wanted to share details with me I can raise the issue internally; my email is in my profile. (Speaking only for myself)

I applaud Googlers who try to put the "don't be evil" genie back in the bottle, but I wish you would point your energy toward a more-achievable goal.

Re: Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

#50
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their old agency paid off a Google insider to flag our client’s account resulting in suspension That's extremely serious. If you wanted to share details with me I can raise the issue internally; my email is in my profile. (Speaking only for myself)

I applaud Googlers who try to put the "don't be evil" genie back in the bottle, but I wish you would point your energy toward a more-achievable goal.

Regardless of what you think of Google's business practices, paying off insiders is absolutely not something that any of us should accept.
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