Once upon a time Google decided to give advance notice of upcoming policy updates – probably to keep them safe legally. It was a good call, because it would be unreasonable for advertisers to check the myriad of policy pages on a daily basis.

But it seems Google doesn’t care too much about the page. I only found it by accident, and I doubt advertisers were ever emailed about its existence. Yes, it might have been mentioned on Google’s Adwords blog, but most advertisers don’t even know about the blog, let alone feel they have to read it every day.

Now, to make things worse, Google have changed the URL of the page, making it even more obscure. And I’ve just found out the new page isn’t even indexed in Google!

Here’s all it says on the old page:

This page shows upcoming changes to the AdWords advertising policies. When appropriate, we also send out service announcements and notifications to advertisers who are directly impacted by our policy changes. We hope that you find this page useful.

http://support.google.com/adwords/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=release_notes.cs

(the rest of the page is blank, and there’s no link to or mention of the new page)

The new page is here:
http://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=release_notes.cs

It is linked to from this page:
http://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=guide.cs&guide=1316546

But not indexed!

I feel sorry for any advertisers who lose their accounts because they weren’t aware of rule changes, because Google:

• has a continually changing and hard to use navigation system for their help files
• doesn’t contact advertisers directly about policy changes that could see their account permanently closed
• doesn’t even index a page as critical as the AdWords Policy Change Log

Many, many, many thousands of Google Adsense users have had their accounts suspended by Google. 99% of the time it is due to newbies not managing to navigate and abide by the numerous rules that must be obeyed. That Google does little to remind you of them, and makes their discovery moderately difficult seems to be a deliberate tactic.

Why would they make it so hard? Well for most businesses 80% of the income comes from 20% of the customers. Big customers will put the effort into abiding. Minnows might not, and Google’s automated system will catch them out. It’s an exclusive club, open to everyone.

Which means Google avoids dealing with customer service (one of the biggest costs when everything else is automated) for accounts that make them next to nothing.

Unfortunately this means collateral damage – SME customers who missed a rule or somehow get to to be suspended unfairly. I’m not sure if Rusty Compass is a minnow or SME, but in Australia there is a law that protects it from bullying:

Mr Bowyer’s complaint to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will accuse Google of unconscionable conduct – a legal definition that refers to harsh or unfair behaviour by a stronger party over a weaker party.

In the USA the only option would be to get a judge to define Google’s advertising products as a utility – utilities are required to make themselves available to anyone who pays their bills.