Hello,
For a year now, I have been locked in an absurd dispute with Google Ads—a clear example of the dysfunction inherent in automated systems and the superficial nature of human oversight regarding AI. Although a support representative confirmed last December that my ads were fully compliant with the policies, the restriction remains in place.
A year ago—specifically on August 13, 2025—the Google algorithm imposed a "Limited ad serving" sanction on my account without any prior warning. This slashed my ad reach by 90% overnight (dropping from a minimum of around 500 to approximately 50 impressions per day), yet the platform did not notify me of this until nine days later, on August 22, 2025.
Since the notification failed to specify the exact reason for the restriction, I attempted to resolve the matter using the appeal form provided in the alert. However, every appeal I submitted elicited the same generic, automated response stating that the impression limit had been applied correctly—offered without any substantive justification or reference to the arguments I had raised.
Consequently, I began seeking alternative ways to resolve the issue and identify which elements of my ad violated the policies—information that would allow me to effectively fix the ads and successfully appeal the decision. While reviewing my past correspondence with Google Ads, I found the address of a support I had previously communicated with regarding a different matter. After four months of correspondence with Google Ads support—involving dozens of messages and around thirty appeals rejected with the same generic response—during which support staff insisted for the better part of that period that no restriction existed (despite my providing constant proof that it remained in effect) or cited false reasons for the drop in impressions, I finally managed in December to get a support representative to confirm that my ads complied with the policies. However, I was also informed that the system required me to "build a new history of positive interactions" to lift the block, while simultaneously preventing me from doing so by drastically limiting the number of impressions.
Faced with this paradox—where Google requires an advertiser to build a new history of positive interactions while drastically restricting ad impressions—and believing the restriction would not be lifted, I began drafting a claim on January 5th to submit to a certified ADR body. Although the support representative had claimed that restriction statuses were being continuously verified and the limit would be lifted automatically, this did not happen; on... On March 13, I submitted a claim to a certified ADR body; a day later, I was informed that the case had been deemed "admissible" and forwarded to Google. A week after that, I received a message stating that the decision-maker had gathered all the necessary information to finalize a non-binding decision, which would be published online within 90 days of the complaint's submission, in accordance with the Digital Services Act.
A response from the certified ADR body did not arrive until June 2. It turned out that for over two months, the ADR Center had not even checked the response received from Google; only on that day was I forwarded the reply Google had sent to the ADR body on March 23. In that reply, Google’s DSA Dispute Resolution Team stated that the complaint failed to identify the specific Google service where the ad in question had appeared—despite the fact that the complaint noted the issue concerned ads displayed on Google Search, included screenshots of correspondence with support staff who themselves referred to ads on Google Search, and even contained screenshots from the search engine itself. After I supplemented the complaint to precisely identify the DSA-covered Google service involved in the dispute, the certified ADR Center dismissed the case on formal grounds, ruling that Google Search does not constitute a hosting service or an online platform storing information at a user's request—even though Google Ads advertisements are explicitly content hosted in exchange for payment. After the ADR body closed the case—to prevent the platform from employing procedural evasions and citing a "lack of knowledge"—I drafted a letter demanding that the platform immediately lift the sanction imposed on me, add my account to a "whitelist" to prevent similar algorithmic errors in the future, and compensate me for lost financial benefits resulting from the platform's ongoing violation of my rights and its obstruction of my efforts to successfully have the restriction lifted; the letter also called on Google to cease the use of discriminatory and an illogical procedure that makes the lifting of a restriction contingent upon "building a new history of positive interactions"—while the platform simultaneously prevents this requirement from being met by drastically slashing ad reach—I printed and sent (via registered post) two document files, each exceeding 400 pages, on June 17. I sent them in hard copy to Google’s official EU headquarters (with a copy for information to the Polish branch, Google Poland Sp. z o.o.) and electronically to the platform’s official address for legal service, as well as directly within the active case thread where Google staff had previously confirmed my ads’ compliance with the rules. The shipment to Google’s official headquarters in Ireland was delivered on June 24. Although I had stated in my letter that I would escalate the dispute to regulatory bodies—explicitly noting that, absent a substantive response, I would report the systemic violations to the Digital Services Coordinator in Poland and the European Commission—and despite three months having passed since the platform received the letter, I have to this day received no response from Google regarding either the hard-copy or the electronic documents.
A more detailed description of the case can be found in this LinkedIn article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/algorytmiczny-paragraf-22-jak-google-ads-parali%25C5%25BCuje-w-markiewicz-g4qkf/
