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Comment by Marsymars | Hacker News Reader

> Google's classic canned response of "We've confirmed we're right, we will not tell you why and this is the last reply you'll receive" is one of the most infuriating things I can imagine.

For non-negligible damages, heading immediately to small claims court (given you live in a sensible jurisdiction) seems to be the easiest thing in that case. Even if Google's ultimately in the right, they typically can't just ignore that entirely.

From a decade ago:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-i-sued-google-and-won_b_1...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-google-bothered-to-ap_b_2...

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What damages can you prove?

Google presumably hasn't signed a long-term contract with you to provide any services or continue a business relationship.

Is "We don't want to do business with you any more because our algorithm isn't smart enough to differentiate what you're doing for fraud" actionable?

> What damages can you prove?

Well, that really depends on the case and jurisdiction, I can't answer that for you. Really, the key part is to force Google to actually provide reasoning for their actions, as they eventually did in the case I edited in links for.

Going to court twice to get Google to pay $0 in damages and not reinstate your account doesn't sound like "the easiest thing" to me. It's at best a Pyrrhic victory.

I get the desire to impose costs on Google for their bad actions, but this doesn't seem like a very productive plan.

Well yes, giving up is almost always the easiest option in any situation. I mean easier than attempting to navigate Google support channels or having the right internal connections.

Really, sometimes people forget (and I'm guilty as charged) they live in a society with laws and legal recourses.

It's not as simple as "Google can cut you off no questions asked whenever they feel like it"

> It's not as simple as "Google can cut you off no questions asked whenever they feel like it"

Are you sure about that? Often such terms are built into the user agreements.

Well, that's certainly what they want you to think ;)

I suppose there are a couple of issues that haven't been tested in court.

But besides that, anything you paid and wasn't rendered as services needs to be refunded. It doesn't look like they refund it most times, no?

The problem is that regardless of whether they are or not, getting to a point where a judge looks it over is a process most can’t go through with an opponent like Google.

Again, depends on the jurisdiction, but in the UK filling for a small claims court case would be like £125? And if they don't show up the case will almost certainly be ruled in your favour and Google ordered to pay back whatever they owe you - plus any court costs you incurred. It's really not that difficult. Even paying a lawyer £100 to write and send them a letter "you have 7 days to fix this or we're going to court" would most likely achieve better result than trying to contact their useless customer service.

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