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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.

Why would you help build Google's place-database moat for them for free?

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

And it's still 100x easier than trying to add your own business or set up a Google Business Profile. Shoot a video from outside showing the buildings around you, show the address and permanent signage on the building (they don't always accept door signs), unlock the door to show that you own the space, then show the interior of the space with things like signage, letterhead, business cards, etc. Then hope that the video was 'good enough' to get a listing.

And heaven help you if you choose to get an office on an upper floor where an elevator ride is required, or you get a space in a building that also has/had a co-working space in it.

Yeah, a while back Google Maps sent out a cheerful "here's all you've contributed" email and i clicked through and found my complete history. It was a graveyard of rejected edits for things like closed streets, wrong business hours, and spam listings (IDK the payoff for the spammers but there's an ongoing cluster of fake hotels and businesses near my old apartment). Seeing the total record of incorrect stuff that i had fruitlessly spent my own spare moments to fix convinced me to quit doing any free work for Google.

??? must have a better social credit score than 1970-01-01

Meanwhile random griefer types work the Google system just fine. For whatever reason some randos altering business hours and posting mass quantities of weird maps reviews, closed updates stay up.

Meanwhile on YouTube when I’m not getting questionable medical drugs and gadgets advertised at me on YouTube… I’ll also get what seems like just porn.

I got one that I’m pretty sure was heavily hinting at “find under age girls”… I shit you not. The pic was disturbing.

My YouTube history, cats and coding music…. I don’t get it.

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 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.

Same for business reviews. I’ve given up because mine are always rejected. No reason given, no appeal possible. It’s almost as if I was shadowbanned. So I don’t leave reviews anymore and wonder how many reviews are black holed. Or even how useful the reviews are because the fake reviews are rampant.

I have had zero luck trying to get gMaps updated to remove an imaginary address they added for my garage. I might as well just put up extra address numbers and another mailbox.

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.

I opened a Google Workspace account for my solo business to have an email address at my domain, got suspended a month later, had no way of contacting support since they require login and I was the only user, filed an appeal, got no response after a month, eventually contacted their Twitter support account and had access restored, but through this all they charged me for the subscription three times while I was locked out and before I could cancel. I contacted their support after I was restored and they said they wouldn’t refund me because the Workspace account wasn’t suspended just my individual user (even though they acknowledged I was the only user). I had receipts and screenshots of everything including confirmation from Google’s own UI that I was suspended for that entire period, but I just have to let Google steal $100 from me now because what else am I going to do?

Also their explanation for the lockout was that I failed the verification step too many times, which I don’t recall failing even once.

> 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...

Making the decision is easy, dealing with the consequences is not.

[flagged]

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!

Pretty cool but I wish linux/windows version is available

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.

These are not illegitimate. They are registered 3rd parties facilitating the government. At least the ones that are on the list are not.

I got one from passportsfast or something. Highly recommended (if it's registered)

> https://travel.state.gov/en/passports/apply/get-fast/courier...

I hope you realize that there are legitimate third-party services which assist with passport applications and filing paperwork, generally in the capacity as a courier. Similarly, in my state and others, there are third-party services which operate as storefronts in under-served communities, that provide services as the DMV office would.

So it is unclear how you determine that they are definitely scams, unless you have attempted to trace each one through referrals or official links from the government office they are representing. Some don't have any link, though: the passport assistance services may be operating independently as middlemen. Is it worth paying someone to assist you with paperwork? Do you only speak Laotian?

In general, for any government service, there are usually middlemen who'll assist you in filling out paperwork and getting approved. That includes Medicaid and the IRS and Social Security. Of course, some of those assistors have licenses, or represent a facility. The passport agencies may not need any bona fides like that.

On the other hand, if a service is advertising "TSA PreCheck" services (and not simply intercepting your keywords to advertise unrelated stuff) then there are only three authorized partners: IDEMIA, CLEAR, or Telos. But I bet you that your keywords are simply triggering some adspam.

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.

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.

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

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

We reached that years ago. We're entering a world in which there is no chance to talk to a human to appeal their decisions, and if you complain about it your social media account will be suspended, you will be questioned by police, and your child will be expelled from their private school.

We will soon use ChatGPT Astra to talk though shit to get out problem solved.

Mind-boggling.

A joke comes to my mind:

A man tells his friend "You know, I don't think we can be friends anymore. Some money went missing from our house.." - "What?! Me? I'd never seal money from your house!" - "Yeah, we found that money, so that's not a problem. But you know... the whole thing left a sour taste."

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.

Google has always been like this. I used to have a Youtube account with timelapse movies from my holidays. Nothing special, just stuff to show the family, but it was a lot of work to edit and upload them all.

One day I got a message that my account was closed because of a violation of the TOS. No explanation what it was that I violated. No chance for appeal. No chance to communicate with a human about it. It was explicitly stated that it was impossible to reinstate the account. To this day I have no clue what it was in the 20 or so timelapse movies taken from a small sailing boat that offended Google.

It was a good lesson to never trust Google.

Google treats its customers like a monopolist.

You should take your ad viewing elsewhere in protest.

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.

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.

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)

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.