Also wasn't there some controversy a few months ago (perhaps march? random guess) where someone lost their google life because of some adwords dispute? I think

Also wasn't there some controversy a few months ago (perhaps march? random guess) where someone lost their google life because of some adwords dispute? I think the issue got resolved because he was lucky enough to be a nerd which a blog that got picked up by HN/Techmeme etc. and then someone from Google personally fixed the problem. Most users would have been hosed. It also doesn't help that Google has no "real" customer support other than forums. As a user it would be extremely uncomfortable to lose your Google life and have no phone number to call. At least you can call Microsoft. Whether they can do anything about it is a different story but it at least will escalate easier, or at least I would imagine