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Wow, I've never been able to get a real person at Google to review a case of supposedly breaking ToS. My Google account got suspended for "traffic pumping". I d

Wow, I've never been able to get a real person at Google to review a case of supposedly breaking ToS. My Google account got suspended for "traffic pumping". I didn't know what "traffic pumping" was at the time but after looking it up, it looks like they thought I was a bot for a phone carrier trying to commit fraud: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_pumping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_pumping For reference, I haven't ever used the Google account for anything like Google Duo, Allo, Hangouts, etc. There was an appeal system linked in the message saying "You broke the terms", but when I filled it out, about 24 hrs later I got a response saying "You can't appeal if you broke the terms", which seems inconsistent at best. I managed to track down a Google support employee and basically told him "Hey, it should be obvious that I'm a real person and not a bot for a phone carrier". His response at first was "The appeal should work, let me know if it doesn't". I told him that it didn't work, and his response was "Well we're not allowed to help you if the automated system says you broke the terms. You must have broken the terms." Happy for you getting anything out of them other than a brick wall, at least. EDIT - To pre-empt some questions that may come up: I was using a unique, randomly generated password for my Google account. Plus, you have to be able to login to the account to see the "You broke the terms" message, so the password was definitely not changed.

stcredzero 8y ago
"Trust The Computer. The Computer is your friend!" We're descending into the parody dystopia envisioned in this game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game) In the early 90's, if I were to tell people that a mega-corporation would seek to take over all the world's information, and they would subject users to this Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare treatment straight out of the movie "Brazil," they'd think my brain was taken over by "Paranoia" the role playing game.
- jacobush 8y ago
  Unfortunately, most still would believe that.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    I have half a mind to run a Paranoia game over lunch.
- geoelectric 8y ago
  I'm sorry. Knowledge of that website is limited to citizens with Ultraviolet access, and I see you only have Red. Please report to your nearest Computer station to discuss next steps.
Osiris 8y ago
"you must have broken the terms" Is this attitude prevalent in Google: pure trust in automated systems? Engineers should know better than any that software is not perfect and it's insane to have blind trust in it.
- Derek_MK 8y ago
  I can totally understand it in cases where the alleged offense is something like uploading copyrighted content to YouTube, where there is clear evidence and an audit trail saying "Here's what you uploaded, here's when you uploaded it, and here's the point where the rights holder registered it in ContentID, etc" But this is a case where they thought my account was a bot. And I contacted the guy, as a very real person. At that point it's pretty much just sticking one's fingers in one's ears yelling "NANANANANA"
  - fro0116 8y ago
    > I can totally understand it in cases where the alleged offense is something like uploading copyrighted content to YouTube, where there is clear evidence and an audit trail saying "Here's what you uploaded, here's when you uploaded it, and here's the point where the rights holder registered it in ContentID, etc" Probably not the best example. There are countless reports of ContentID falsely claiming copyright violations. I personally had a gaming video muted for violating some copyright by some company I never heard of when the only thing playing were ingame sound effects (no music).
  - yellowapple 8y ago
    > something like uploading copyrighted content to YouTube Even that ain't clear cut. For example, if I upload a song to YouTube that's a remix of another song, and someone else uploads their own remix and registers it with ContentID, there's a risk that my remix will be flagged as "infringing" upon the other remix even though it is not a derivative of the other (and the other does not hold the copyright on the shared samples that triggered the ContentID detection). I happen to know this because one of my own songs got erroneously flagged for this exact reason. Thankfully I was able to reach out to the company that submitted the ContentID registration on behalf of the "original" author, and they were able to rescind it (uploading remixes of songs to their ContentID management platform was in violation of their terms of service, so it was an open-and-shut case); else, I would've had to risk my own account getting flagged to death, since going through YouTube's appeals process would've been the only other option.
ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
You know you can get anyone's google accounts banned by going to their website and setting up a bot to click their adsense. Or going to their playstore and clicking report. Or going to their youtube and clicking report. You can pay to get your competitors banned permanently. That's what probably happened to your account and to my colleague's account as well.
- Derek_MK 8y ago
  But... It's a personal account, with no business value whatsoever. The only thing I could think of is someone trolling, but someone would really need to hate Bionicle video game speedruns, because that's pretty much all that was on my YouTube account.
  - warent 8y ago
    Sorry man, you know how it is; competition is brutal in the overcrowded space of Bionicle video game speed runs. I had to do it in order to get the views.
yellowapple 8y ago
"If an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist."
drivebycomment 8y ago
A unique random password doesn't matter much, as a lot of hijackers use password obtained using malware or phishing. Practically no account is hijacked through brute-force attack nowadays - in most cases it's impossible, and even when it's possible, it's unnecessarily costly and time-consuming for hijackers. What you want is u2f (hardware security key), and if you don't want u2f for some reason (e.g. cost or usability), use some other 2-factor authentication methods. No amount of "randomly generated" password will make a difference for malware or phishing, which account for majority of account hijacking.
michaelmrose 8y ago
Essentially they provide no meaningful non automated support of any variety and only respond when people post stories on social media. The logical solution is to depend on them for nothing important because any service you depend on to make money may be withdrawn at any time with no notice of any kind. Continue enjoying excellent services like search and maps while continuing to block the adds that may or may not contain malware. The fact that this means google has no opportunity to derive any meaningful revenue from this sort of relationship isn't your problem. When they want to earn money they can figure out how to have actual support.

stcredzero 8y ago

"Trust The Computer. The Computer is your friend!" We're descending into the parody dystopia envisioned in this game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game) In the early 90's, if I were to tell people that a mega-corporation would seek to take over all the world's information, and they would subject users to this Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare treatment straight out of the movie "Brazil," they'd think my brain was taken over by "Paranoia" the role playing game.

jacobush 8y ago
Unfortunately, most still would believe that.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  I have half a mind to run a Paranoia game over lunch.
geoelectric 8y ago
I'm sorry. Knowledge of that website is limited to citizens with Ultraviolet access, and I see you only have Red. Please report to your nearest Computer station to discuss next steps.

Osiris 8y ago

"you must have broken the terms" Is this attitude prevalent in Google: pure trust in automated systems? Engineers should know better than any that software is not perfect and it's insane to have blind trust in it.

Derek_MK 8y ago
I can totally understand it in cases where the alleged offense is something like uploading copyrighted content to YouTube, where there is clear evidence and an audit trail saying "Here's what you uploaded, here's when you uploaded it, and here's the point where the rights holder registered it in ContentID, etc" But this is a case where they thought my account was a bot. And I contacted the guy, as a very real person. At that point it's pretty much just sticking one's fingers in one's ears yelling "NANANANANA"
- fro0116 8y ago
  > I can totally understand it in cases where the alleged offense is something like uploading copyrighted content to YouTube, where there is clear evidence and an audit trail saying "Here's what you uploaded, here's when you uploaded it, and here's the point where the rights holder registered it in ContentID, etc" Probably not the best example. There are countless reports of ContentID falsely claiming copyright violations. I personally had a gaming video muted for violating some copyright by some company I never heard of when the only thing playing were ingame sound effects (no music).
- yellowapple 8y ago
  > something like uploading copyrighted content to YouTube Even that ain't clear cut. For example, if I upload a song to YouTube that's a remix of another song, and someone else uploads their own remix and registers it with ContentID, there's a risk that my remix will be flagged as "infringing" upon the other remix even though it is not a derivative of the other (and the other does not hold the copyright on the shared samples that triggered the ContentID detection). I happen to know this because one of my own songs got erroneously flagged for this exact reason. Thankfully I was able to reach out to the company that submitted the ContentID registration on behalf of the "original" author, and they were able to rescind it (uploading remixes of songs to their ContentID management platform was in violation of their terms of service, so it was an open-and-shut case); else, I would've had to risk my own account getting flagged to death, since going through YouTube's appeals process would've been the only other option.

ganeshkrishnan 8y ago

You know you can get anyone's google accounts banned by going to their website and setting up a bot to click their adsense. Or going to their playstore and clicking report. Or going to their youtube and clicking report. You can pay to get your competitors banned permanently. That's what probably happened to your account and to my colleague's account as well.

Derek_MK 8y ago
But... It's a personal account, with no business value whatsoever. The only thing I could think of is someone trolling, but someone would really need to hate Bionicle video game speedruns, because that's pretty much all that was on my YouTube account.
- warent 8y ago
  Sorry man, you know how it is; competition is brutal in the overcrowded space of Bionicle video game speed runs. I had to do it in order to get the views.

yellowapple 8y ago

"If an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist."

drivebycomment 8y ago

A unique random password doesn't matter much, as a lot of hijackers use password obtained using malware or phishing. Practically no account is hijacked through brute-force attack nowadays - in most cases it's impossible, and even when it's possible, it's unnecessarily costly and time-consuming for hijackers. What you want is u2f (hardware security key), and if you don't want u2f for some reason (e.g. cost or usability), use some other 2-factor authentication methods. No amount of "randomly generated" password will make a difference for malware or phishing, which account for majority of account hijacking.

michaelmrose 8y ago

Essentially they provide no meaningful non automated support of any variety and only respond when people post stories on social media. The logical solution is to depend on them for nothing important because any service you depend on to make money may be withdrawn at any time with no notice of any kind. Continue enjoying excellent services like search and maps while continuing to block the adds that may or may not contain malware. The fact that this means google has no opportunity to derive any meaningful revenue from this sort of relationship isn't your problem. When they want to earn money they can figure out how to have actual support.