Google bans yet another small business • Hacker News Board

Re: Google bans yet another small business

#11

Post by thanhhaimai » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

m-p-3 wrote: post #4

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #3

Google and Microsoft banned this small business. Are we meant to believe they are coordinating to step on the little guy? Despite the hundreds of thousands of small businesses that do advertise successfully on these search engines? Somehow this does not seem likely to me. I suspect there is some other relevant factor that you are not telling us.

It wouldn't be unheard of a small business being virtually sentenced to death because the opaque byzantine maze of unwritten rules got triggered by some keywords or automated systems. I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt here.

> do not use the “get out of debt” header, because you look like a “get rich quick” scheme. It reminded me of the times when Apple nagged me about the translations in my app that was never supposed to target an english-speaking audience.

Opinions are my own.

Tbh, any ads with the phrase "get out of debt" sounds very shady to me. I wouldn't give it the benefits of doubt personally.

> Microsoft never answered at all. After two weeks of silence I reached out to them myself, and the agent tried to be nice, but the phrase “I understand your feelings, but, I’m afraid you’re banned for life and this cannot be changed” just broke me.

If two companies with 100% different spam & abuse systems detected something wrong with this ads, I have the feeling we're not hearing the full story here. Microsoft even went to the extreme of "ban-for-life".

Re: Google bans yet another small business

#12

Post by smoldesu » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 6:54 PM UTC

Sounds like this is an asked-and-answered situation. Larger companies have lawyers on retainer who will look over each ad before it hits the market and determine whether it's deceptive or in-line with the TOS. Google disallows you from mentioning cryptocurrency outright (except in very specific, express situations). Furthermore, the "get out of debt" line would have definitely set off a red flag in my mind, and if I was in charge of ad verification I'd probably reject yours too.

That being said, Google and Microsoft (or any of the FAANG squad, for that matter) are certainly not your friends in this situation. But are they culpable? I doubt it. This boils down to a human reading your ad and disliking the tone/contents wholesale. It ultimately doesn't matter how your project is licensed, how transparent your company is or who you're working for: the goal of ad-checkers are to mitigate the risk associated with advertising such a diverse range of products. Since you posted an ad for a relatively high-risk product (handles money, integrates with crypto, is a subscription service), it makes perfect sense to me that you got denied access.

Re: Google bans yet another small business

#13

Post by fighterpilot » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 6:56 PM UTC

thanhhaimai wrote: post #11

m-p-3 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't be unheard of a small business being virtually sentenced to death because the opaque byzantine maze of unwritten rules got triggered by some keywords or automated systems. I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt here.

> do not use the “get out of debt” header, because you look like a “get rich quick” scheme. It reminded me of the times when Apple nagged me about the translations in my app that was never supposed to target an english-speaking audience. Opinions are my own. Tbh, any ads with the phrase "get out of debt" sounds very shady to me. I wouldn't give it the benefits of doubt personally. > Microsoft never answered at all. A…

They didn't use the phrase "get out of debt".

Re: Google bans yet another small business

#14

Post by robertlagrant » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 6:56 PM UTC

thanhhaimai wrote: post #11

m-p-3 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't be unheard of a small business being virtually sentenced to death because the opaque byzantine maze of unwritten rules got triggered by some keywords or automated systems. I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt here.

> do not use the “get out of debt” header, because you look like a “get rich quick” scheme. It reminded me of the times when Apple nagged me about the translations in my app that was never supposed to target an english-speaking audience. Opinions are my own. Tbh, any ads with the phrase "get out of debt" sounds very shady to me. I wouldn't give it the benefits of doubt personally. > Microsoft never answered at all. A…

Or they exchange info. The article even says that MS banned them before they even knew what the business was.

Re: Google bans yet another small business

#15

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Google bans yet another small business

#16

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 6:59 PM UTC

josefx wrote: post #9

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #3

Google and Microsoft banned this small business. Are we meant to believe they are coordinating to step on the little guy? Despite the hundreds of thousands of small businesses that do advertise successfully on these search engines? Somehow this does not seem likely to me. I suspect there is some other relevant factor that you are not telling us.

> Despite the hundreds of thousands of small businesses that do advertise successfully on these search engines? In other words: The existence of hundreds of thousands of happy white people make it unlikely that a black guy could get targeted by two racists. Clearly cop A who allegedly broke his right leg and cop B who allegedly broke his left leg are to be found not guilty asap so they wont have to miss their biweekl…

I don't understand how preventing this business from giving Google money is meant to enrich Google? It's fine to suggest a nefarious scheme here, but surely we need to choose one more complex than raw profit, since it seems like Google and MS are declining to profit from specifically this company, right?

Also, FWIW, I have found that it doesn't usually go over well to compare my non-civil rights struggle with civil rights struggles. It just . . . you know, it implies a level of injustice that simply isn't supportable and it doesn't come off right. Just my 2c.

Re: Google bans yet another small business

#17

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

m-p-3 wrote: post #4

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #3

Google and Microsoft banned this small business. Are we meant to believe they are coordinating to step on the little guy? Despite the hundreds of thousands of small businesses that do advertise successfully on these search engines? Somehow this does not seem likely to me. I suspect there is some other relevant factor that you are not telling us.

It wouldn't be unheard of a small business being virtually sentenced to death because the opaque byzantine maze of unwritten rules got triggered by some keywords or automated systems. I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt here.

Isn't the benefit of the doubt usually something we extend to the accused, not the accuser? :)

But for what it's worth I went to Google's financial services advertising page and quickly identified at least a few items that might be the cause of an issue. It seems likely that some of these items, like providing a physical address, would also be required by Microsoft. It's also worth noting that the service seems to be offered from Russia and I know that many countries are currently sanctioning parts of the Russian economy to some degree or another, which seems possibly relevant.

Re: Google bans yet another small business

#18

Post by chmike » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 7:12 PM UTC

Why isn't it possible to make a new ad if the first one was rejected ? I don't fully understand how it played out.

A service about money like this one is a very sensitive business. I'm not sure it's the encryption or privacy the problem. Google has to protect it's ad readers and when in doubt, they probably prefer to avoid it.

As this business is probably starting, it has quasi zero credibility in term of honesty. Other marketing strategies should be used to bootstrap it and grow it's user base. Once it will have a few years without any problem and happy users, it would be more trustable.

Re: Google bans yet another small business

#19

Post by Bjartr » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 7:37 PM UTC

thanhhaimai wrote: post #11

m-p-3 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't be unheard of a small business being virtually sentenced to death because the opaque byzantine maze of unwritten rules got triggered by some keywords or automated systems. I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt here.

> do not use the “get out of debt” header, because you look like a “get rich quick” scheme. It reminded me of the times when Apple nagged me about the translations in my app that was never supposed to target an english-speaking audience. Opinions are my own. Tbh, any ads with the phrase "get out of debt" sounds very shady to me. I wouldn't give it the benefits of doubt personally. > Microsoft never answered at all. A…

> If two companies with 100% different spam & abuse systems detected something wrong with this ads

Do we know this for sure, or are we assuming they only use in-house resources to determine "suspiciousness"? Could they both be contracting out to the same third-party for some additional trustworthiness signal?

Re: Google bans yet another small business

#20

Post by josefx » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #16

josefx wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Despite the hundreds of thousands of small businesses that do advertise successfully on these search engines? In other words: The existence of hundreds of thousands of happy white people make it unlikely that a black guy could get targeted by two racists. Clearly cop A who allegedly broke his right leg and cop B who allegedly broke his left leg are to be found not guilty asap so they wont have to miss their biweekl…

I don't understand how preventing this business from giving Google money is meant to enrich Google? It's fine to suggest a nefarious scheme here, but surely we need to choose one more complex than raw profit, since it seems like Google and MS are declining to profit from specifically this company, right? Also, FWIW, I have found that it doesn't usually go over well to compare my non-civil rights struggle with civil r…

> I don't understand how preventing this business from giving Google money is meant to enrich Google?

The effects do not always have to be immediate, Google once got caught reducing its labor pool by agreeing not to hire from the competition. At first glance you would think that less workers would result in higher wages when it actually fucked over the workers a dozen times harder because they could no longer get alternative jobs in the area.