Live data from Hacker News

Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

kajic.com

131–140 of 183 posts

Re: Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

#131
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I applaud Googlers who try to do the right thing and I don't understand why a random person on HN should dis them for it.

It would be better if that googler or google itself recognized that having lots of automatic switches that destroy businesses, or people's email access or other things with no recourse is unacceptable and worked on that. Google should have an ombudsman or office that deals with these issues. I'm sure there would be lots of fraudulent claims. But there would be lots that were not. Please google let people pay to speak to a human for help when there is a problem.

Re: Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

#132
post #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?

OP here.

I think some people downvoted this question of mine, so I’ll try to clarify my thinking.

Google is paid by advertisers to refer people to their content.

I was paid Wolt credits by Wolt to refer people to their service.

It seems to me that providing people with a promo code that they find valuable, and that Wolt finds valuable is providing a similar kind of value as Google’s own advertisements, even if mine is minuscule, and even if I use Google to advertise it.

Re: Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

#133
post #99
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be the closest person on this thread who can answer questions about Google. Can you please tell us why Google summarily suspends accounts? Why is there absolutely no way to talk to a human being?

I can't speak for Google, and I don't work in that part of ads, but my understanding is it's primarily because of how adversarial fraud detection is. If you give people who violate policy detailed information about what they did wrong and how you know then it is much easier for them to figure out how to abuse the system without getting caught. I don't like it, but I also don't know how to fix it.

I actually wish some Congress critter would propose a law that would require companies to "give people who violate policy detailed information about what they did wrong and how you know" and require a registered human agent for communications in these situations.

Re: Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

#134

Good to know they haven't changed a bit since I was banned, 17 years ago. This seems to be the norm with many american tech companies. They abruptly cast you out with a vaguely worded template explanation, no one will talk to you or explain to you what happened. Appeals are rejected.

It's the original cancel culture. Once google got customers to accept it, it became the new norm.

Re: Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

#135
post #99
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be the closest person on this thread who can answer questions about Google. Can you please tell us why Google summarily suspends accounts? Why is there absolutely no way to talk to a human being?

I can't speak for Google, and I don't work in that part of ads, but my understanding is it's primarily because of how adversarial fraud detection is. If you give people who violate policy detailed information about what they did wrong and how you know then it is much easier for them to figure out how to abuse the system without getting caught. I don't like it, but I also don't know how to fix it.

So the policy can't be found in the TOS and the reason is really a lie? Obfuscation is complicity--part of the problem. Get it all out in the open and the problem will resolve itself. The bedrock of our most hallowed institutions, and principles of democracy and free markets, supposedly refute your reasoning...if you believe in any of that. Listen to yourself as you apologize for the master scammers.

Re: Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

#136
post #5

There needs to be some kind of law that mandates that a company MUST reply to customers and/or users within a given time and offer a proper redress process. I remember years ago FB would block your site and they would give you NO OPTION to contact them - like AT ALL (they used to hide the support chat button, and I think they still do from some people). I also knew a company that got its own IG account indefinitely s…

It is possible no one at Google knows the actual reason behind an ad or site being suspended by Adwords. The programmers might spit out a generic reason while the actual reason is on code line 3,098,089. No one knows and they all hope for the best.

Re: Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

#137
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…

"We contacted attorneys, wrote letters to Google executives, begged, pleaded."

Seems like one is more likely to get a response by complaining on HN.

Re: Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

#138
The advertising industry is a cancer upon human civilization and should be abolished.

Literally no one is going to speak out in favor of this plague except the people whose livelihoods depend upon perpetuating it.

Not even hyperbole: Ask anyone if ads are annoying or not. Unless they’re making money from ads, the answer will be Yes.

Re: Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

#139
post #14
post #9

Welcome to the world of blackhat SEO. If someone starts driving up the price of ads for a targeted keyword, you generate a massive amount of abuse and pay people to write complaints to Google. From Google's perspective, they look at your account and see activity that indicates you are doing terrible things. Coupons are an extremely competitive and hostile market to be in. Not saying what happened to OP is fair or acc…

Exactly, competitors may well be the source of your problems. It's cheaper (and safer) to trash your competitors than raising your own rankings (with SEO).

When I ran a torrent tracker for TV shows I was pushing $1m+ a year through PayPal. I had my own personal account rep, etc. They didn't give a fuck about the pirated material.

My competitor though, they would email PayPal every week telling them we were selling child porn. It would take PayPal no time to lock our account while they logged into the tracker and looked around to check it was still only TV shows. We'd be out of revenue for a few days each time.

That trick is absolutely the quickest way to destroy any online business.

Re: Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

#140
post #80

I'm in the cannabis space; but don't touch green-product. Google doesn't like cannabis business. Some of my competitors (somehow) are able to advertise on the Google platform. And I almost got my whole company kicked out of our Google eco-system (Workplace, Cloud) for even trying to put an ad for our business in there. But we have a contact there, cause we're paying clients on Workspace (Email, Drive, etc). So, didn'…

> Shouldn't an algo be consistent?

If they're using deep learning then no. It's basically random because nobody understands how such contraptions make their decisions.

Post reply on HN