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Ask HN: What options, if any, do you have when Google bans you?

11 points by kjrose ↗ HN
I have a friend who had their Google ads account banned out of nowhere. Originally for counterfeiting (which was absurd because they generate their own goods themselves) and then it got switched to "circumventing systems." Again, totally absurd since they are not computer geeks and simply have a straightforward website. They are totally at a loss and when they appealed they got a form letter that basically says that they are still in violation and thus still banned.

Yet they have no clue what they did or why they are banned. They asked me and I looked but saw nothing of any note that was problematic.

I'm curious if anyone has any idea if there is another step they can take to resolve this amicably or if they just need to accept that they are permanently banned and have no recourse or reason why.

12 comments

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byoung2
There is an appeals form https://support.google.com/google-ads/troubleshooter/7217496...

from what you describe (they are not tech savvy, and when you looked everything was fine), it sounds like the site was compromised at some point. It could be compromised now, but maybe only shows the hacked content (with counterfeit goods) to certain visitors (e.g. normal content when you type the address directly and hacked version when the referrer is Google search or ad). This is a common technique so that the site owner doesn't see the hack.

kjrose
Yes, they appealed and it got changed from "Counterfeiting" to "Circumventing Systems." Then it took about 3 months and they sent a "Yes, you are still in violation" form email that doesn't give any clue as to why or what is going on. As well, it says that they are banned permanently from Google Ads so any further accounts they set up will be instantly banned.

Which seems a bit drastic when they don't even know what they did.

bad_username
> they appealed and it got changed... Then they sent a "Yes, you are still in violation"

It is hard to figure out what happened when everybody is "they". I don't think using "he" or "she" would do any harm here.

babygoat
How exactly would a gender pronoun help you understand?
gameman144
"They" is the proper method for referring to a singular person of unspecified gender. In this case, since we don't know the gender of the person in question, using "they" is appropriate. If we knew the gender, then a gender-specific pronoun could be called for.
throwaway4good
I had the same thing happen to me ... there is nothing you can do.
kjrose
I had a feeling that unless there was some legal course (which likely would cost a good chunk of change for lawyers), there is nothing he can do.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
jondlove
I'm going through the same thing right now, I'm hoping this gets more responses; my ad account was brand new, but inactive for five months and suddenly I get a suspension for "Circumventing Systems", with no explanation of specifics.

Alas, every submission to the "appeals" form comes back with identical, seemingly-automated responses, and my Adwords onboarding specialist has yet to receive a response internally after a month of followups

kjrose
Yeah he has a AdWords specialist as well who has thrown up their hands and went you need to deal with Google support.

However, from what I can tell there is no human beings they can actually talk to in order to sort this out with Google support.

usgroup
If you’re in the EU, you have the “right to be informed” according to the GDPR . So you can make a GDPR request to find out.
kjrose
Canada unfortunately.