I was listening to TWIT (and TWIG) a week or two back, when they were discussing the father who got his Google account banned for sending the doctor medical related images.
Not nearly on the same level, but I recently started a boudior business. I don’t show nudity on the site (if you want to see those images, you have to request access). So a few months back, I claimed my Google business page, and went to spruce it up, like you do. Google didn’t like the images I tried to share, and, rather than just saying “no, this is a little too racy for what we think should be found on our site”, they just banned me from sharing any images. At all.
I discovered this when I tried to post a picture of autumn leaves, and it told me I couldn’t. Why not, I asked.
“We regret to inform you that we can’t approve your posts and photos as your photo contributions violate our Maps User Content policies. This removal is permanent. It will not affect other services associated with your Google account, however, you are no longer able to contribute imagery/local posts and photos.”
This is basically a zero strike policy, as I have never successfully posted an image with Google Maps Business Feature. Google has the technology to say “this doesn’t meet our [rather vague and open to interpretation] policy. Tough luck. While we are able to tell you which images don’t meet our policy and have the technology in place to block these images from going up online, we will just prevent you from posting images ever again, rather than let you know what you did to violate our policy.”
Of course, if I search for photos using my name, they pop up in Google search just fine, but let me try and post a picture of some dag-gum trees (when in Ant-land, swear like @ant_pruitt …), and no can do. Makes it hard to use Google’s business facing features…
Not a fan of Google atm…
