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In terms of your anecdote about your client's experience - I can't speak to this, as I'm not directly familiar with this "Google for Domains" service and I don'

In terms of your anecdote about your client's experience - I can't speak to this, as I'm not directly familiar with this "Google for Domains" service and I don't have enough details from your post to comment. However, I can assure you that Google definitely has a customer support department - I work with them every day =). Also - it's important to distinguish between the free products we offer - and the paid products - where you actually give us money. In the latter case, there is nearly always a customer support hotline, and in many cases, a binding SLA agreement. I work in Google Cloud, on the support organisation side of things - and I can confirm there is definitely phone support (along with chat and email), we do have SLAs on all of our products and you are definitely speaking to a human. It's not particularly hard to reach a person - either go through your admin panel (https://admin.google.com https://admin.google.com - click the big question mark), or all of our 24/7 support numbers for each country are right there on the website: https://support.google.com/a/table/3247295?hl=en https://support.google.com/a/table/3247295?hl=en That's on the business side. On the consumer side, the phone numbers shouldn't be too hard to find either on a search e.g.: https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/7100415?hl=en&ref_topic=3364260 https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/7100415?hl=en&r... My own anecdote - several years ago before I started with Google, I subscribed to Google Play Music - I accidentally un-favourited a track once, and I couldn't find a way to find it again. So on a whim I rang Google Play Music support, and went straight to a person within seconds. She was very friendly, and tried to help me find the history - unfortunately it wasn't there, but the customer service was pretty damn good - a heck of a lot better than all of my experiences with several un-named mobile phone and broadband companies. (Hint: I'm in Australia) Disclaimer: I work for Google.

rebootthesystem 10y ago
You might not know the answer to this question. If you don't, it might be interesting to see if you can get to the answer internally. Let's say I setup a site and have AdSense place ads on it. I don't touch any of the ads. I never click any of them. Yet, for some reason, the ads see a bunch of click activity. The reasons can be many, from sheer randomness to a competitor using it as an attack vector (to deny revenue and more). I have seen this precise scenario lead to the absolute shutdown of a Google account. And that means every single service, including email and docs. Gone. Done. No recourse. No way to even recover the data. Has this changed? Do you have a way for people affected by such algorithmic issues to engage in a conversation with something that does not resemble a totalitarian regime? The paid vs. free part is immaterial. People are relying on your products and offerings. Free is a strategy for dominance. I can understand free products not having a human in the loop. What I can't understand is the dictatorial/totalitarian relationship with your users, who, free or not, have come to rely on these tools.
- victorhooi 10y ago
  I believe you're referring her to Adwords clickfraud - is that right? I don't work on that team, so can't comment on their policies (and even if I did, I probably can't comment publicly). However, my understanding is normally AdWords accounts are suspended for billing/fraud related reasons (e.g. you don't pay your bills) - e.g.: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2375414?hl=en-AU https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2375414?hl=en-AU If you AdWords account does get suspended, there's a form to appeal it here: https://support.google.com/adwords/contact/pf_suspended https://support.google.com/adwords/contact/pf_suspended I haven't seen it lead immediately to the actual Google login itself being suspended. However, if your the actual Google account was suspended - there is a set procedure you can follow to un-suspend it - there should have been a link in the notification email. Also - paid or free isn't immaterial - it actually does make a difference. If it's a free account (E.g. @gmail.com), you can fill in the online forms to appeal the suspension. If it's a paid account (i.e. part of a GSuite domain - or it's old name, Google for Work), then what often happens are individual accounts are suspended, and you talk to your own domain administrator to get that resolved. There are ways to get a domain suspended (e.g. you don't pay your bills) but they're usually fairly obvious. (Disclaimer: I work for Google, but the above comments are my own opinions).
  - rebootthesystem 10y ago
    You are confusing your own products. AdSense. Not AdWords. The various forms Google makes available for appealing suspensions are pretty much useless. I urge you not to believe what I am saying here as well as not feeding within your own internal echo chamber. Use your own search product to search the 'net for the thousands of stories of various forms of algorithmic account suspensions, the damage they cause and how frustrating it is to get anywhere with Google. Based on what I've witnessed personally and what I've read online the idea of relying on Google products for anything business critical terrifies me. You --Google-- needs to truly care for it's clients and, as I said in a prior post, issue a guarantee. I am NOT talking about a guarantee of uptime for a service, that's irrelevant here. What I am referring to are guarantees of service longevity as well as protection and recourse from algorithmic account suspensions. A business person needs to have the ability to address and discuss misunderstandings or problems and not have their entire Google-provided infrastructure evaporate overnight with nowhere to go. To me the matter of free vs. paid is immaterial. Google and companies like Google use free services to gather and monetize audiences. For example, nobody would pay for search. Nobody would pay for a Facebook account. So you use free to bait the hook and capture audiences. This is a technique as old as the Internet, with browsers such as Netscape and earlier being the first land-grab-through-free-products. If you are going to have a virtual monopoly by resorting to free products you also have to have the responsibility of not causing your user base irreparable damage by pulling those product either by early termination of the services or termination or suspension of account without recourse. At the moment you are large enough to not have to care about this one bit and nobody has challenged you in court for this terrible issue. Start here and read through a few pages of links: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=google+suspended+my+account https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...

rebootthesystem 10y ago

You might not know the answer to this question. If you don't, it might be interesting to see if you can get to the answer internally. Let's say I setup a site and have AdSense place ads on it. I don't touch any of the ads. I never click any of them. Yet, for some reason, the ads see a bunch of click activity. The reasons can be many, from sheer randomness to a competitor using it as an attack vector (to deny revenue and more). I have seen this precise scenario lead to the absolute shutdown of a Google account. And that means every single service, including email and docs. Gone. Done. No recourse. No way to even recover the data. Has this changed? Do you have a way for people affected by such algorithmic issues to engage in a conversation with something that does not resemble a totalitarian regime? The paid vs. free part is immaterial. People are relying on your products and offerings. Free is a strategy for dominance. I can understand free products not having a human in the loop. What I can't understand is the dictatorial/totalitarian relationship with your users, who, free or not, have come to rely on these tools.

victorhooi 10y ago
I believe you're referring her to Adwords clickfraud - is that right? I don't work on that team, so can't comment on their policies (and even if I did, I probably can't comment publicly). However, my understanding is normally AdWords accounts are suspended for billing/fraud related reasons (e.g. you don't pay your bills) - e.g.: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2375414?hl=en-AU https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2375414?hl=en-AU If you AdWords account does get suspended, there's a form to appeal it here: https://support.google.com/adwords/contact/pf_suspended https://support.google.com/adwords/contact/pf_suspended I haven't seen it lead immediately to the actual Google login itself being suspended. However, if your the actual Google account was suspended - there is a set procedure you can follow to un-suspend it - there should have been a link in the notification email. Also - paid or free isn't immaterial - it actually does make a difference. If it's a free account (E.g. @gmail.com), you can fill in the online forms to appeal the suspension. If it's a paid account (i.e. part of a GSuite domain - or it's old name, Google for Work), then what often happens are individual accounts are suspended, and you talk to your own domain administrator to get that resolved. There are ways to get a domain suspended (e.g. you don't pay your bills) but they're usually fairly obvious. (Disclaimer: I work for Google, but the above comments are my own opinions).
- rebootthesystem 10y ago
  You are confusing your own products. AdSense. Not AdWords. The various forms Google makes available for appealing suspensions are pretty much useless. I urge you not to believe what I am saying here as well as not feeding within your own internal echo chamber. Use your own search product to search the 'net for the thousands of stories of various forms of algorithmic account suspensions, the damage they cause and how frustrating it is to get anywhere with Google. Based on what I've witnessed personally and what I've read online the idea of relying on Google products for anything business critical terrifies me. You --Google-- needs to truly care for it's clients and, as I said in a prior post, issue a guarantee. I am NOT talking about a guarantee of uptime for a service, that's irrelevant here. What I am referring to are guarantees of service longevity as well as protection and recourse from algorithmic account suspensions. A business person needs to have the ability to address and discuss misunderstandings or problems and not have their entire Google-provided infrastructure evaporate overnight with nowhere to go. To me the matter of free vs. paid is immaterial. Google and companies like Google use free services to gather and monetize audiences. For example, nobody would pay for search. Nobody would pay for a Facebook account. So you use free to bait the hook and capture audiences. This is a technique as old as the Internet, with browsers such as Netscape and earlier being the first land-grab-through-free-products. If you are going to have a virtual monopoly by resorting to free products you also have to have the responsibility of not causing your user base irreparable damage by pulling those product either by early termination of the services or termination or suspension of account without recourse. At the moment you are large enough to not have to care about this one bit and nobody has challenged you in court for this terrible issue. Start here and read through a few pages of links: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=google+suspended+my+account https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...