Hacker News Reader

Comment by setgree | Hacker News Reader

> The solution here is to never use a hidden or “privacy” card number with Google

The author regularly uses the same CC with many other google services

> The same credit card on the account, a corporate Mastercard from Brex, is attached to Google Cloud, Google Workspace, and Google Domains. Collectively, Google services have successfully charged that same card over $2,000 since that email.

View on HN

Google Ads is a separate division with separate policies, separate payment infrastructure, and separate fraud detection systems. Don't try and make sense of it; it's inscrutable on purpose.

If everything about it is separate, that makes it pretty easy to split out into an independent organisation too.

If Google Ads was a separate company, then the rest of Google wouldn't have an income source. Google is one breadwinner (Ads) + N loss leaders for it.

(They're trying to grow a second revenue generator — GCP — but it's not been the success they've hoped; especially compared to Azure. Microsoft had the B2B relationships already in place, while Google has mostly been a B2C company, so they've been struggling to win clients.)

Of course they would have an income source. They would sell space on their pages to Google Ads or any competitors, like most websites or media companies (newspaper, tv).

So they'd split off Google Ads then create another ad platform to sell ads on their properties? Why would anyone use the independent Google Ads?

Ok I see what you're saying. You're right that we cannot really separate google from googe ads for their own products. But Google Ads also sells ads on websites outside google (via Google Adsense). So it might make sense to separate AdSense from Google.

Yes, I use a card to pay YouTube Premium and the same card is "not supported" to pay Google Workspace.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com