Google pissin’ on average...

Google pissin’ on average folks all over it seems…boycott anyone?

Date Posted: August 6th, 2008
Written by Patrick Curl
Category: Featured Posts
Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...

Image via CrunchBase

I’m just going to make this quick – Chris Brogan reported(When Google Owns You) that google had shut down the who account of a Nick Saber, just an average guy, for no apparent reason. Here’s what Chris posted:

Nick Saber isn’t happy now. Monday afternoon, after lunch, Nick came back from lunch to find out that he couldn’t get into his Gmail account. Further, he couldn’t get into anything that Google made (beside search) where his account credentials once worked. When attempting to log in, Nick got a single line message:

Sorry, your account has been disabled. [?]

That’s it.

Nick sent a message or three to Google for support. He got back this:

Thank you for your report. We’ve completed our investigation. Because our investigation was inconclusive, we are unable to return your account at this time. At Google we take the privacy and security of our users very seriously. For this reason, we’re unable to reveal any further information about this account.

And that’s it.

That’s just an excerpt. The question posted was are we giving google too much power by relying in the arm of google too much? Does google control our lives? What would happen tomorrow if you couldn’t login to Gmail, or similar?

These are all troubling issues, remember once upon a time when Google’s slogan was ‘Do no Evil?’ What the hell ever happened to that? It’s been a scenario in the bible, and philosophical circles for ages: With power and / or money comes corruption (not always but quite often…).

It seems Google has free reign to run unchecked and do just about whatever they want to.

WHY I’M PISSED: Today I found out that my adsense account had been shut down. Apparently someone thought it would be funny to click on a bunch of my links, and raise my daily revenue. Do they get punished? Nope, just me. I’m sure I’m not the only person having issues like this…

I was about to cash out my adsense for the very first time too.. I had like $90 before the 97 fraudulent clicks… Yes, I did submit an appeal, but from the way google seems to be acting lately, I doubt I’ll even get a response. Nick eventually did get his account back, you can read about the reply he got from google here.

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On another note, apparently google can make their own rules when it comes to ads served on google UK. They apparently are serving a large interactive ad in their sponsored section see the pic below.

Google gets special ads, but screws everyone else

I found this via Google Blogoscoped. Google’s stance has always been that google won’t use any ads that adwords users can’t access in their user panel. Apparently Google’s new stance is “go F*** yourself, we can do whatever we want <hwa hwa hwa>…” Blogoscoped also pointed out that this isn’t the first time they’ve proved themselves wrong. You can view the search your self: Secured Loans.

In closing, I’d like to say that I’m moving to another email provider, and closing down ALL my google accounts once and for all.  Shutting down my adsense account was uncalled for, especially since I went to their help forum to report the suspicious activity 3 days before it was shut down. Perhaps people should be notified and given a chance to rebuttal. Perhaps googlers should be innocent until proven guilty…eh?

What’s your take? Google Evil or Nay? Would you join a Boycott if there were one?

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  • Patrick Curl
    @Arow Blackdragon: Regarding the special google ad, is that they had made the remark elsewhere that they will always allow themselves the same ads that they give to their users, when they cheat the system possibly even placing their ads first selfishly w/out bidding, then they are in effect limiting the power of the adwords program...

    Say you're paying top dollar for a high bid, and google's special ad is the one above your ad in search results... Which ad is going to get more responses? I believe Google is heading down roads lacking customer service that in my opinion make me want to find other alternatives. I also don't shop at Walmart because they support the Republican party, that's my choice, and we all can make decisions like that.

    I also believe more competition in markets is always a good thing. Google definitely could use more competition.
  • Arow Blackdragon
    This whole discussion regarding Nick's lock-out seems to be focused on preemptive customer service. Google's final reply to Nick (http://www.chrisbrogan.com/google-gets-back-to-...) relays that his account was *compromised* on AUGUST FIRST. But, Goo takes not one, not two, not even three, but *5* days to inform Nick of f-r-a-u-d-u-l-e-n-t charges on his Goo checkout account. (And the idea that Nick was the one who had to initiate the conversation - yuck, ew, gross, and yech! "Bad Google! Go to your room!")

    Ahem, but wouldn't AMEX call their customer, oh... I don't know... say THE VERY DAY OF SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY????

    So I can see how and why this particular event has become such a heated, on-going discussion. True, Goo's size, alone, can explain the more stoic attitude toward customer service. And, also true, Nick - as a paying customer - should feel that spending his money on Goo is worthwhile. Now, I don't know about you, but these two truths don't play together too well in this particular arena.

    So, yeah, I'm for the boycotting. Not to 'teach Google a lesson' though. I just think that would be the best venue in which a new competitor could successfully enter the ring.

    Arow

    ***Side note: Not to slight you, Patrick, but the interactive ad you noted in your post is a Google ad. As the owner of AdSense, I think they do have room to 'bend' the rules for their own advertising, especially noting the difference between 'network advertiser' and 'network owner.' All of this, granted, is under the assumption that Google's own ad did not affect the bids or cost of other advertisers' ads, positions, or clicks (cause that would be shady enough to start my own boycott!!!!)!
  • Patrick Curl
    @Lisa C: The only alternative is for us to use their competitors, and cease all use of google products, enough people leave, enough business lost and they might make changes, of course by then it'll be too late... For now I'm using Wikia and yahoo as my search engines.
  • Patrick Curl
    @Ian: I didn't do anything. Somebody clicked on my adsense ads fraudulently. Which makes me wonder - If I have beef with someone online, say John Chow or something, can I just go over to their site and click on their adsense ads 1000 times and get them banned?

    Seriously, where's the protection for the owner of the site...
  • Willswords
    This is a good reminder of why it is good to use an e-mail client (Thunderbird, Entourage, etc...) that downloads your webmail to backup your messages. Even if you still read it online, it makes sense to have your own copy.
  • Ian
    This instance seems unusual. I've heard anecdotes which suggest that it is comparatively difficult to get banned from AdSense. Google has already committed to cleaning up their ppc network. They are willing to hurt their stock value in order to pursue this goal. Though it stands to reason that they'd be aggressive, I can't imagine what you could have done to get banned from Adsense, short of putting up a landing page with nothing but ads.

    Are others seeing similar behavior from GOogle? It could be a symptom of something bigger. Also I am dying to know what you did. Did you steal Larry Page's lunch money or something? Seriously dude.
  • Join the club of those whose adsense was shut down, and no explanation given other then being told your a danger to their advertisers! No legal recourse, no pleading your case, no even knowing what it was that was done to get you shut down.

    I say, GOOGLE has too much power, by being able to steal (yes, steal!!!) my money in my account they proved who is boss!

    No matter what you say or do, its not ever going to be different, because they rule.
    :-(
  • No business can really expect to uphold a motto as lofty as "Do No Evil". A business is made up of a lot of people, and ultimately, is in it to make money for themselves and anyone they choose to employ. Have the core staff outgrown the ability to control every decision maker within the company? Have the owners lost the ability to review every project and process for signs of this generic moral concept of "evil"? Of course they have.

    Will Google ever cop to that fact and come up with more reasonable expectations so people can't throw a motto like that back at them when per-case problems arise? Highly unlikely. Yet I'm confident it's no real skin off their noses. If Google is still doing well by the vast majority of their user base then they're still ahead of the curve, despite the the mistakes that lead people to speculate and snipe.

    I just don't see any this as constructive criticism.
  • Patrick Curl
    @John: The point is - they could easily give warnings, let you know that something is up, instead they choose to give no warnings, they don't give you time to put in your opinion, they can do whatever they like. Their slogan used to be Do No evil. Show me Google's innocence...
  • I haven't had many problems with Google, except that I can't pay down my AdWords budget because they don't take debit cards. It's pretty frustrating. I'm not trying to pay with pennies, I'm trying to pay with a card. Maybe if I email them enough something will happen.
  • John
    Google is a massive company. Companies that are fractions of their size have support issues like these every day. The bottom line is that Nick's issue has been resolved, and it seems like the only reason you're posting this is because you wanted to publicly cry about your adsense account. Sure, I'm not justifying the situation, mistakes were made, and things could have been handled better. But honestly, I believe you're acting foolishly. One issue, and you're out the door? Uprooting your entire life just to prove a point. And talking boycott? For what, one support issue (that was magnified a thousand times over by another blogger) and your one instance of bad tech support. Yeah, I agree. Fuck Google. Where's the petition?
  • Services are just that, services.

    It would appear there are some serious issues with using Google for so much, with such risks involved.

    Therefore the logical solution is to investigate and promote viable alternatives. To draw a painfully obvious comparison, it's no different than people suggesting alternatives to Microsoft products. (Thunderbird, not Outlook, Open Office, not MS Office, etc.)

    Not so much a boycott as moving on to the next realistic step. These services aren't performing as desired or expected? Find a new service.
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