Antitrust regulators should look into this one.
EDIT: ...because the policy punishes advertisers use of other advertising providers.
EDIT: ...because the policy punishes advertisers use of other advertising providers.
Google banned my site from their index! Antitrust regulators need to look into this because it costed me my business and my employees! </sarcasm>
> publishers have to also be responsible for any ad networks or affiliates they have on their site which could use these methods
That may or may not be turn out to be legally anti competitive, but it certainly merits an investigation.
My personal opinion is that it is a clear abuse of G's market dominant position.
> Sites showing Google ads should be easy for users to navigate. Sites may not change user preferences, redirect users to unwanted websites, initiate downloads, include malware or contain pop-ups or pop-unders that interfere with site navigation.
That all seems reasonable to me. They don't want to be associated with garbage websites.
Then..
Google on "AdSense Page-level ads"
> We don't count them as "advertisements" when evaluating your site for compliance with our valuable inventory policy. https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/6245304?hl=en
Yes, these ads are not ads compared to other ads: we profit from these.
No consumer, anywhere, in the history of ever, has wanted things to pop under their browser window stealthily. As such, G abusing their position to hurt companies that do it is a good thing. Those companies should be hurt, and preferably die a terrible, terrible death.
If and when G uses their market dominant position to do something which hurts consumers, then things should be investigated. But an action like this, which has no negative consequences for users, should be applauded.