Google is such a rectal breach. They over complicate everything in the guise of security, to create new paid services. The menu overload is being used by all the tech industry to safeguard their information business empire. IBM started with tattoo's. Now the tattoo is digital, created by the heuristics of just accessing the internet.
Ok, so lately I've been looking online about purchasing a levo herbal infusion device.
Now all of a sudden almost every ad that I get, it's about the levo oil machine. At first I thought it was a confidence because it was only on Facebook.
Now it's on every game on my phone, when there's an ad there's 7/10 chance it's going to be three levo oil machine.
So early Black Friday sales happened last month and I picked up a Google Pixel 7 since my previous phone was nearing 6 years old and starting to die every few hours.
Due to some funky error, whether I accidentally put two phones in the cart, I don't know or remember. I ended up getting double charged and realized I got shipped two phones.
I contacted Google Support to start a return for a refund on one of them, and the first support person was great... up until the next dozen support staff throughout this stupid journey.
Turns out that the package I shipped back to them never made it back. I spoke with support and I got the most generic responses ever from a person that doesn't speak English (once they stopped making generic replies, it was quite evident).
They escalated the problem to a supervisor. The supervisor told me that they would do an investigation, would take about a week.
Beginning of this week, investigation ended. They say the package was indeed most likely lost but the representative I spoke to said I could just chargeback with my credit card. So I did.
Today, my Google account was banned. 15 years of history gone.
I went on the support chat for the umpteenth time and they told me because I did a chargeback, the rules are that my account will be banned. I asked why they suggest for me to do a chargeback, when they could have just refunded themselves, and they said the support I spoke to should never have suggested it but rules are rules.
Been trying to fight this but looks like Google support is utter trash. After looking online, it seems like this is their most stupidest policy, and it exists across most other platforms too.
What a shitshow.
TLDR: Bought two phones by accident, returned one of them, package was lost and a representative told me to do a chargeback if I wanted my money back. Did that, Google account got banned. I asked very politely to get it unbanned because it was their advice to do that, they told me to go pound sand.
Google routinely hides emails from litigation by CCing attorneys, DOJ alleges
Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai were involved in ad collusion plot, claims court filing
Google reportedly made it difficult for smartphone users to find privacy settings
Some bits from the article:
When Google tested versions of its Android operating system that made privacy settings easier to find, users took advantage of them, which Google viewed as a “problem,” according to the documents. To solve that problem, Google then sought to bury those settings deeper within the settings menu.
Google also tried to convince smartphone makers to hide location settings “through active misrepresentations and/or concealment, suppression, or omission of facts” — that is, data Google had showing that users were using those settings — “in order to assuage [manufacturers’] privacy concerns.”
DuckDuckGo Calls Out Google Search for 'Spying' on Users After Privacy Labels Go Live
If you are familiar with SEO, you are likely aware that Google provides site owners and developers with recommended schema for certain SERP (search engine results page) features, such as FAQs.
The authors of this article conducted a large study to determine whether websites who provide that content lose traffic, as the content is provided directly on Google's SERP.
The results are damning, and no doubt confirm the suspicions of many who work in SEO.
Some of the more egregious results:
SERPs with featured snippets result in 18.5% fewer clicks than those without. Featured snippet content comes directly from other websites - content that google itself did not produce, yet earns revenue from search ads.
Seeing almost 20% fewer clicks through to your website than you might otherwise receive has the potential for an enormous impact on your revenue.
Several other features also damage click-through rate and overall traffic.
However, interestingly, two features did increase the number of clicks:
Site links: which are added to your organic results but which Google refuses to allow you to manually select.
Ads: which, of course, you are paying Google for.
The full article is here:
