Google users locked out after 15 years' use
Not completely related to personal accounts being banned, but something that happened to me recently:<p>I started a side business with some friends during lockdown. We created an online store selling some hard-to-get long tail items, and almost instantly got some traction and growth thanks to Google Shopping. A month ago we received one of these generic automated mails that our account is banned and we were misrepresenting ourselves or a product with no details on what we did wrong. We went through the T&amp;C&#x27;s in some detail and we think we did everything they asked, and we have no idea what we didn&#x27;t do well enough. We also checked in with every single client and we had near perfect scores on trust pilot, I can&#x27;t recall a single incident with a client.<p>We&#x27;ve been contacting Google almost daily but almost never been able to find a human to talk to. Through unofficial channels we&#x27;ve found a few people in Goolge but whenever they gave us any advice on what to do it&#x27;s always &quot;off the record&quot; or &quot;you didn&#x27;t hear it from me&quot;. Something is very rotten.<p>There are always replies on here about not betting your entire business on Google. Google shopping gives 2 orders of mag better conversion than any other channel we tried. For search-to-buy there really just aren&#x27;t any alternatives and if Google decides to lock you out your business is basically dead. Lucky for us it was a side hustle. Here in Africa e-bay and Amazon aren&#x27;t options.<p>More scary, since then we&#x27;ve found TONS of businesses in our country who have suffered the same fate in the last month, and many are well-established, popular businesses now facing existential threat.<p>It&#x27;s incredibly scary that Google&#x27;s moderation bots can be a single point of failure for a business employing 20+ people.