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1. Comment - Google Readying PayPal Competitor?

   (Jun 20, 2005 - 6:51 PM)

   I was of the same attitude of the poster above who posted the "don't like - don't use them" advice.
   
   But then I tried Google Adwords.
   
   I have only been trying the free voucher amount of acvertising, although I worked out on the day of reckoning what I hadn't known, that they charge tax on their activation fee as well as the pay per click costs. This means that at that time I went a few pence over the free voucher and I think I read then they charge only in amounts of something like 50 dollars (or pounds, I can't remember).
   
   But their system, aisde from this where I didn't read the small print and is bona fide for Google I reckon though not at all helpful in user friendliness, is APPALLING.
   
   I have only read good things about Google Adwords elsewhere.
   
   Firstly, they stall all or most of the search terms and then ask you to improve them. This means changing them. So if you are advertising something much to do with, for example the G8 summit, they could be asking you to change your adverts call up terms from "G8 Summit" to something else. This means you miss all of those people who search simply under "G8 Summit". Perhaps you are selling T-s***s for the G8 Summit, and your advertising is ruined.
   
   All of my search term call of words have been disabled at some point.
   
   Then, they sent me an email saying that my advertising was not getting enough clicks (surely clicks are my interest, not my deviance or misdemeanour) and that I would be charged extra Recently they carged me another fee, called another activiation fee, as the advertising was too slow for them. I wonder if they charge tax on this activiation fee. This is a process they generally go through, continuosly. The only process. Like having your eyes sliced with a sharp knife.
   
   Although I am sure I will pay Google for Adwords in the future, as it makes sense financially, I must say that this service is absolutely terrible and personally harrowing.
   
   I suppose that only a tiny fraction of web users know about this state of affairs with Google Adwords. I am sure it is an anti-competitive practice in European and probably American competition law or convenes the law in some way in this respect. And I suppose the terms are in the contract somewhere so their habitual practice can't be against contract law, though I guess that such a practice as I described might be against contract law as it is against the spirit and subject of the contract.
   
   But in these times no-one cares. Head down, don't say anything, especially about businesses, "they'll think its you", "no one else would say", "they work hard", "we shouldn't care about anything", "we're above them", "no one took this planet seriously from the start", "what are the two oldest professions? Go figure - if you rile them they are the second and you are something like the first."