FWIW, editing OpenStreetMap is very straightforward*, and with that, you're actually contributing to an open data set that everyone is allowed to use, rather than just propping up Google.

(To be fair, on a laptop - I'm sure Google Maps is more straightforward on a phone. But for someone already prepared to invest this much effort, editing OSM should be well within range. And if you just enjoy contributing to maps, for a phone I can highly recommend https://streetcomplete.app.)

Another thing they apparently do is let business owners (e.g. hotels) remove negative reviews because they're "defamatory".

I had a very factual 3-star review on a hotel that was supposedly very quiet, but was super noisy and the AC was not working. And there was literally nobody at the reception at the time of check-out and nobody picked up the phone either. All in all, nothing serious, but worth a review. Purely factual stuff, nothing bad-mouthed, just my experience and three stars.

A few months later the review was removed because it was "defamatory". I was able to get it reinstated by sending them proof of payment to the hotel and proof that I was there. A few months later, it was removed again! That same dance was repeated six times..... What a weird system.

I've found that if you attach any pictures at all: rejected.

So what I've taken to doing is adding the business without photos (almost always accepted), and then trying to attach the photos later after that goes live (mostly works). But I agree, their process is completely broken, and I doubt they have any incentive to fix it.

Had similar experience trying to add a restaurant to Google Maps, our own even. First time, rejected because didn't exist, it did. Second time, they say they sent a letter, and they see that someone received it, no one did. We wait a month, they say they sent another letter, we wait another month. Nothing, and now they stopped replying too. Wait another month, suddenly the restauarant magically exists on Google Maps, with the wrong images, wrong address, wrong open times, but the pin is the right place at least, so I guess that's cool. Took another month or two to force through all the corrections too.

This was made 2-3 years ago, probably worse today. Absolutely horrific experience, and they have zero motivation to fix it, because people like us still want to be on Google Maps, especially if you're not in a super good location, so people can actually find you.

I've stopped believing in the accuracy of Google maps after my experience at my last apartment. The ground floor of my building was a deli with an address like 123 4th Ave, and the entrance to the deli was basically facing the corner itself rather than either side of the cross street, and my apartment's address (using the placeholder above as a reference) was 123 4th Ave Apt. 2R. All of the apartments had a separate entrance than the deli that was further down the block past the deli on 4th Ave. The problem was that the cross street (let's call it 5th Street) also had an building with the same number two doors down, and for whatever reason, Google Maps put the address marker for the entirety of 123 4th Ave on 5th Street, and even more annoyingly, they showed the way of getting to my apartment as going into the deli's entrance first, which made no sense because there is absolutely no way to get to the apartments from inside the deli without either going outside or I guess teleporting through the ceiling. When trying to get something delivered to my apartment, the delivery people would often look at Google Maps, see the marker on 5th Street, look for the 123 marker, and then go and ring the bell for 123 5th Street instead of actually going onto 4th Ave and ringing our bell. I tried to contact Google Maps to get this addressed (pun intended), but I was told that they did not have a way to have separate entrances for different parts of the same address, and they told me to get a new separate address from the city. I responded that the city of New York would probably not issue a new address for a building I didn't own and that they could solve the problem by just moving the pin over to the 4th Ave side of the corner instead of the 5th Street side since the entrance pointed out diagonally and no one would have trouble finding it still if they did that. I never got a response, and all of my attempts to submit a correction directly got ignored.

Friend owns a construction company. Been at same address for seven years. Suddenly their Google Business Page not working right. Google says to delete it and reverify, only solution to try.

Four times my friend had to take a video: you have to start by standing on the street on the nearest intersection, film all the street signs around you to prove your location, then he had to walk down the street, show the gate with the business name on it, the vehicles with the business name on them, open the front door with the business name on it, give them a tour of the working office and show them invoices and bank statements laid out on the desk with their logo etc on it. Three times they came back and said it wasn't enough to verify.

At the same time you can go on swapd and buy GBP verification for $500 and have it verified in an hour by someone who fakes the entire thing.

If we're sharing problems contributing to google maps: I tried submitting a correction to google maps for the first time a few months back. A cafe was listed in the wrong location by about 100m. Very confusingly putting it on the other side of the station it's in front of in a different building.

I submitted the correct location and it said the change required manual review. Then a few days later I got an email that the change has been accepted. But opening google maps it was still in the same wrong location, and it's still wrong now.

I'm surprised you tried so many times to do Google's job for them.

I tried to remove a not-anoymore-existing company I had a business profile before from Google Maps. I was close to giving up, it's such a complicated process that is fully intransparent.

Kudos for you for trying 4 times.

Did you add a website like https://www.tesla.com/findus?location=daegususeongsupercharg...? It's hard to reject an edit if you have confirmation from the owner.

It’s a strategy. Ask RyanAir. They systematically shut down any way to communicate with them, except lawsuits. Tried their chatbot, hotline, email, letter, fax, small claims court (I’m not joking they don’t even care about that). Unless you turn up with a court order and confiscate a plane, they simply won’t give a fuck, and I’m sure it’s a tactic to deter 99% of their problems before they start

Funny you should say that. I'm not a big Instagram user, but have had an account for years. The company I work for has just started an Instagram campaign, and asked anyone who wanted to, to check out their campaign and give it a like. I did so, and a minute later received this email:

"Your Instagram account has been suspended. This is because your account, or activity on it, doesn't follow our Community Standards on account integrity.

If you think that we made a mistake, you have until 8 March 2027 to appeal."

I've now uploaded my drivers licence, a photo of my passport and still apparently that's not good enough for them.

My latest rejection says I have only one more chance. No idea what the transgression was, but apparently there is no recourse.

I guess it's a good thing I don't really give a crap about Instagram in the first place, isn't it.

> At some point it may be necessary to add the requirement for large companies to have a both human contact point and perhaps a requirement for specifics on account terminations and the like, or at least a way to request them, to the letter of the law.

This is already implemented, under the EU's Digital Services Act, you can appeal and get specifics about account terminations - see https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/dsa-out-co...

The more you ad-block and tracker block, the more scammy the ads when you take down the guards.

People who never do any sort of blocking are the most valuable ad-targets, and hence get the highest bids when their views are auctioned. They get Toyota, Coke, and Downy ads.

Scam advertisers are bottom feeders and the "advertiser of last resort". Google doesn't really care that much about people with blank profiles, and why would they, these people use their services and contribute nothing back. I don't think Google is vindictive, but it just doesn't make business sense to put a lot of resources into cleaning up ads that pay google nothing and mostly go to people who temporarily disabled their ad-block.

I went through a phase of reporting scams and every single time my report was rejected.

I guess I shouldn’t have expected any differently when their income is dependent on displaying those scam ads.

As long as it makes them money, they're incapable of caring.

Make them liable for what they show, and watch them suddenly discover they are able to care a lot.

Sometimes I am convinced that there are no good products and so all advertising must happen for bad products.

I mean how often do you see an ad for a product, buy it (not even from the ad itself, maybe from a recommendation from a friend) and you are happy with the product and think the ad was truthful?

Congratulations. They must have been worried about your circular graphic at the bottom of your post!

Did they address what the fix was?

I mean sure that makes sense - but the OP isn’t even getting any information to confirm or deny this. If that’s the case Google should explain the issue.

Seems not to be blacklisted, but I see the domain is only 22 days old, so that'll be it I imagine.

My work web filter is blocking it as well due to "newly registered and observed domains", but I don't think Google should be using that as a heuristic.

Just a data point: UK Mobile Broadband resolves the product site fine. (I have not registered with my credit card so the 'adult and malicious site' filter is still in place). As other posters have mentioned perhaps the name itself is triggering some kinds of filtering?

Looking forward to the update where his vibe-coded site has been compromised and is being used as a C&C server

Doesnt help, when official government websites ( usps.com ) are on the commercial suffix, and not .gov

Lol. Haven't thought about that. Now I'll have to ponder shouldn't I add another domain to the mix.

Probably a regexp. Easiest to implement. Clbuttic.

Uhhh.. They actively particpated in the sluaghter of over 10k children in the last two years and fired all their employeess who spoke up regarding it.

Yup, I was had by a malicious fake Homebrew site that had the #1 spot in Google thanks to it being an ad (a key fact that was very unclear at the time of browsing Google)

Used to be you'd say Google was bad because the users weren't the customers, the advertisers were. Nowadays even the advertisers aren't the customers. They only customers Google has anymore are the shareholders.

Google treats its customers like a monopolist.

You should take your ad viewing elsewhere in protest.

wave

This is my driver since it become usable. I have 140 terminals on 2 workspaces. Grouped by project/task. I know, I'm the author, so I'm biased, but I love working using it.

I would too. Google Ads are the absolute quickest way to lose your shirt. You need masses of experience (or a straight scam) to run a profitable ad campaign. Their agents will hound you to the ends of the Earth the moment you start reducing your spend.

If you decided you like it enough to get a license code HNMAGIC will get you 50% off (valid for 24 hours for anyone to pick :))

non-existing? if we mean the same ads (mainly the cartoonish knight with bluish-black hair, though I've seen a caveman variant from another game) the game does exist. I played it about ten years ago, back when their ads were still the puzzles you supposedly need an IQ of 300 to solve. (kudos for keeping up with the times, I suppose.) /s it's a gacha money-pump, but I don't think the developers are strictly guilty of false advertising: from memory, the game does include one minigame or another reproducing the ad's loop.

My Show HN failed. Might resubmit some time later, but HN (in general) is a lucky draw. And also I figured that trying to sell a indie software might be a good idea for own business and HN can't help with getting enough potential customers :)

Detectors can clearly identify the exact issues. So, what are those issues here? We know, but we don't want to tell our cash-paying customers.

Because the proportion of "HNers and technical users" in the general population is vanishingly small.

> Maybe Google have detectors of some sites that are mostly vibe-coded also being associated with AI slop.

That is definitely not the case. At least 90% of google results are AI slop now.

A true full-time Google employee is like three layers of outsourcing removed from touching these operations. The people doing the work have been given zero latitude to actually help someone.

And then the design and implementation of the process itself is split across access silos mediated by lawyers and program managers. It's deliberately physically impossible for a motivated employee to improve the system for users.

No, the business controlling side has decided that it's ok to have scams as ads as long as that makes money.

More likely, overworked and underpaid. Some employee in $farOffLand working 10 hour shifts for $4/hr with a quota^W target of appeals-per-hour to meet.

They made over one hundred billion dollars last year. Seems like by and large they're doing their jobs pretty well.

Oh, you expected them to care about users? Lol, lmao even.