zlacker

>>benhur+(OP)
Google uses non-human automation to make some decisions, including banning accounts. As others have mentioned, this is not unreasonable as long as there is a reasonable (in terms of time and effort) path to disputing a ban - i.e., speaking to a human about the issue.

But Google (and Facebook, and probably some other companies) don't have reasonable processes for disputing or resolving these situations.

Some have said that we should consider Google's challenge: lots of users/activities that need to be monitored and policed. The assumption is that Google could not afford to do this "reasonably" with humans instead of automated systems because the volume is high.

But Google certainly could hire and train humans to follow a process for reviewing and assisting in resolving these cases. They don't. It is doubtful that they cannot afford to do this; I haven't checked their annual report lately, but I'm guessing they still have a healthy profit.

In the unlikely event that involving more humans would be too expensive, then Google should raise their prices (or stop giving so much away for free).

To summarize, there is no excuse for Google to operate this way. They do because they can, and because the damage still falls into the "acceptable losses" column.

>>blunte+xU
I'm actually surprised there isn't more legal action taken. Not this specific case, but in advertising there's quite some damage for automated bans with unreasonable time to resolve the issue.

In a setting where advertisers are effectively forced to use Google to avoid giving market share to competitors, there's the element of not having a choice while ending up with a significant disadvantage once these mechanisms falsely trigger.

With Google being the operator of the platform and judge at the same time, I don't think they can hide behind terms of use in all jurisdictions. Scaling up without carrying the costs involved seems pretty unjustified.