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Ran a online retail business for 12 years. One day, Adwords account suspended. Some generic 'voilation' email. No way to resolve, no person to speak to, no comm

by Ap0c 6y ago

Ran a online retail business for 12 years. One day, Adwords account suspended. Some generic 'voilation' email. No way to resolve, no person to speak to, no comment on the issue. Tried to resolve for months. Fired 15 staff, gave up. Basically the internet = Google when you run online retail.

imdsm 6y ago
Was there no way to create a new adwords account?
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
  Pretty sure that's against tos..
  - shadowprofile77 6y ago
    And.... Who cares? Given Google's absurdly shitty behavior to so many users, its opacity, frequent mendacity, casual indifference to small organizations and let's not even go into all the gory details of its globe-spanning not-even-disregard-but-outright-hatred for any notion of privacy, I'd say anyone who can subvert its TOS and get away with doing so simply to save their livelihood deserves applause much more than scorn.
    - appleflaxen 6y ago
      Even if I don't care about the morality/legality of it, I probably wouldn't bother. Google knows every profile and IP address I've ever used. It would be trivial for them to detect this, and close it down again. It's just not worth the effort.
      - nullc 6y ago
        The irony is that the honest users won't expend a lot of effort evading, while the scummier users will (and have a much easier time of it, since they've done it 100 times before). In this way anti-fraud filters sometimes act as pro-fraud filters: False positives kill honest use, and dishonest use finds a way.
    - p49k 6y ago
      You need stability to run a business. Google would most likely eventually find and shut down the account; it would just be a matter of when. It’s not a sustainable plan to try to operate in that kind of precarious situation.
derekmh 6y ago
Not according to my analysis [1]. Also if you take a look at sites that specialize in e-commerce founder interviews, you’ll see that they use all sorts of acquisition channels/strategies (partnerships with mini influencers, FB/Instagram Ads, SEO, affiliate programs and so on) and they work really well. I would understand if you said “the internet = Google for MY retail store”, but saying it applies for all online retail is simply incorrect. [1] https://zerotousers.com https://zerotousers.com [2] https://www.starterstory.com/ https://www.starterstory.com/
- twirlock 6y ago
  Nobody cares about your "analysis."
swiley 6y ago
I've watched people start moving (already successful) businesses to be more dependent on google and it freaked me out because of stuff like this. You get a lot of stuff in the short term but you have to remember your long term survival means absolutely nothing at all to the organizations that run these massive platforms and eventually they'll do something that can wipe you out.
whazor 6y ago
Not sure when this happened. But Adwords does have a phone number and companies have their own agent.
- tluyben2 6y ago
  I understood you have your own agent when you spend large amounts of money; i'm not sure what large is in this case, but maybe larger than most people spend?
theandrewbailey 6y ago
Is your state atterney general part of the antitrust suit? Can you contact them and join in somehow?
marketingPro 6y ago
Notably absent, the generic details about the company. I'm removing Google from my life as we speak, but whenever you prod further about these you find out they did violate TOS and are just unhappy.
- machello13 6y ago
  Even if that's true in this specific case (it's certainly not true in all cases, like you say), it doesn't excuse the lack of options to appeal.
koheripbal 6y ago
We had all of our business listings on Google Maps/Business suspended a month ago because I had our GSUITE admin account suspended (due to some confusion with enabling/disabling 2FA repeatedly while doing a GSUITE Data Export), and it cascade suspended the company's Google Maps/Business listings. The Google account was unsuspended in minutes, but there is no way to unsuspend Google Maps/Business listings, even though we are PAYING customers of Google. GSUITE support says they don't own Google Map listings (they only support the core apps), so they can't help, and Google Business listings support has a canned response that says because of Covid they aren't responding to requests. We are already hurting because of the pandemic and now we're not even listed anymore. This is exactly how it was dealing with 1980s telecom monopolies.

by Ap0c 6y ago

imdsm 6y ago

Was there no way to create a new adwords account?

Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
Pretty sure that's against tos..
- shadowprofile77 6y ago
  And.... Who cares? Given Google's absurdly shitty behavior to so many users, its opacity, frequent mendacity, casual indifference to small organizations and let's not even go into all the gory details of its globe-spanning not-even-disregard-but-outright-hatred for any notion of privacy, I'd say anyone who can subvert its TOS and get away with doing so simply to save their livelihood deserves applause much more than scorn.
  - appleflaxen 6y ago
    Even if I don't care about the morality/legality of it, I probably wouldn't bother. Google knows every profile and IP address I've ever used. It would be trivial for them to detect this, and close it down again. It's just not worth the effort.
    - nullc 6y ago
      The irony is that the honest users won't expend a lot of effort evading, while the scummier users will (and have a much easier time of it, since they've done it 100 times before). In this way anti-fraud filters sometimes act as pro-fraud filters: False positives kill honest use, and dishonest use finds a way.
  - p49k 6y ago
    You need stability to run a business. Google would most likely eventually find and shut down the account; it would just be a matter of when. It’s not a sustainable plan to try to operate in that kind of precarious situation.

derekmh 6y ago

Not according to my analysis [1]. Also if you take a look at sites that specialize in e-commerce founder interviews, you’ll see that they use all sorts of acquisition channels/strategies (partnerships with mini influencers, FB/Instagram Ads, SEO, affiliate programs and so on) and they work really well. I would understand if you said “the internet = Google for MY retail store”, but saying it applies for all online retail is simply incorrect. [1] https://zerotousers.com https://zerotousers.com [2] https://www.starterstory.com/ https://www.starterstory.com/

twirlock 6y ago
Nobody cares about your "analysis."

swiley 6y ago

I've watched people start moving (already successful) businesses to be more dependent on google and it freaked me out because of stuff like this. You get a lot of stuff in the short term but you have to remember your long term survival means absolutely nothing at all to the organizations that run these massive platforms and eventually they'll do something that can wipe you out.

whazor 6y ago

Not sure when this happened. But Adwords does have a phone number and companies have their own agent.

tluyben2 6y ago
I understood you have your own agent when you spend large amounts of money; i'm not sure what large is in this case, but maybe larger than most people spend?

theandrewbailey 6y ago

Is your state atterney general part of the antitrust suit? Can you contact them and join in somehow?

marketingPro 6y ago

Notably absent, the generic details about the company. I'm removing Google from my life as we speak, but whenever you prod further about these you find out they did violate TOS and are just unhappy.

machello13 6y ago
Even if that's true in this specific case (it's certainly not true in all cases, like you say), it doesn't excuse the lack of options to appeal.

koheripbal 6y ago

We had all of our business listings on Google Maps/Business suspended a month ago because I had our GSUITE admin account suspended (due to some confusion with enabling/disabling 2FA repeatedly while doing a GSUITE Data Export), and it cascade suspended the company's Google Maps/Business listings. The Google account was unsuspended in minutes, but there is no way to unsuspend Google Maps/Business listings, even though we are PAYING customers of Google. GSUITE support says they don't own Google Map listings (they only support the core apps), so they can't help, and Google Business listings support has a canned response that says because of Covid they aren't responding to requests. We are already hurting because of the pandemic and now we're not even listed anymore. This is exactly how it was dealing with 1980s telecom monopolies.