Caution, monopoly at work.
This case certainly doesn't break the trend.
As a web-geek, am I supposed to feel bad that someone failed to game the system?
I think it's a good comparison to Google. The big G can say "We're not being evil!" all it wants. But the fact is that it has a near monopoly on search engine advertising which allows it to treat its advertisers awfully. Imagine a radio station randomly pulling ads without a proper explanation. What would happen? The radio station next door would get the ad dollars.
Try calling Google Adwords phone support (trust me it exists, my friend works there.) You won't find the number listed on their site. I googled and found it on some obscure forum. I was answered with a teleprompt, asking me for my adwords customer number. I'm not a high roller (couple hundred bucks a month) so after the system identifed me it dropped my call. I had to use their crappy email system, where I was answered by a cut-and-paste response that didn't answer my question.
I've had no trouble reaching Yahoo and MSN's search engine marketing groups by phone.
Radio, Newspapers and Television were traditional media monopolies which limited the number of advertisers and limited the overall range of opinions and content that became available. They still exist, in fact, and if Google rejects your ads or content, you can take it to them - except they really are still quite a bit more limited than what you put on the Internet.
Google is the opposite of a traditional monopoly. It uses automated filtering of content in order to charge the lowest rates and offer high rates to its users and high profits to itself. The fact that Yahoo and MSN provide "good customer service" proves that it's available - it just isn't profitable.
Indeed, today's ultra-competitive world is going to force people to deal with automated systems rather having other people help them. Google is just one part of this world. It can be a pain to deal with but this is very different kind of pain than the pain of a monopoly.
There are plenty of things that are a pain about Google but monopoly isn't a label you can pin on it.
It just so happens that everyone else is really really shitty.
From an advertiser's point of view, that is just not the case. Advertisers are forced to use Google, because that's what an overwhelming majority of consumers use. The alternative is to be crushed by your competition.
It's interesting to me that so many of Google's paying customers complain about them, and so many of their non-paying customers love them. Isn't that backwards?