Lottoland vs Google South Africa Ruling Exposes Google Ads Policy Issues

The Competition Tribunal of South Africa’s landmark ruling in Google South Africa v Lottoland shines a harsh light on the complexities and inconsistencies within Google’s advertising policies, creating a frustrating landscape for advertisers and their agencies. This case highlights the challenges faced by businesses like Lottoland, and the broader implications for the South African digital advertising market. As a Google Premier Partner, we’ve witnessed firsthand the frustrations this ambiguity creates.

The case centres around Lottoland’s suspension from Google’s advertising platform. Lottoland argued that Google’s policies, while ostensibly designed to create a fair and transparent environment, were applied inconsistently and unfairly. The Tribunal’s decision, granting Lottoland interim relief, underscores the validity of these concerns. The ruling essentially acknowledges the lack of clarity and potential for bias in Google’s enforcement of its own guidelines.

This lack of clarity is particularly frustrating for agencies attempting to navigate Google’s often vague policies. We strive to ensure our clients are compliant, diligently reviewing ad copy, targeting, and landing pages to meet Google’s standards. Yet, even with meticulous attention to detail, there is no guarantee of approval. Seeing similar competitors blatantly disregard policies and continue running ads, while our clients’ accounts are shut down, raises significant questions about the consistency and fairness of Google’s enforcement. This inconsistency can severely damage our agency’s credibility and reflect poorly on our status as a Google Premier Partner. The financial impact is also significant. When a client’s Google Ads account is suspended, it’s not just the advertiser who suffers revenue loss; the agency managing the account also faces a direct loss of income. This loss of revenue can be substantial, particularly for clients with larger daily budgets.

The situation is further complicated by Google’s seemingly automated responses to appeals. Often, appeals are met with vague, generic responses that don’t address the specific issues raised. It leaves one with a sense that the process feels impersonal and lacking in genuine human review, often citing policy violations without actually engaging with the content in question. This lack of transparency and personal engagement undermines the trust that should exist between a leading global platform and its Premier Partners. The financial consequences of these arbitrary decisions extend beyond immediate revenue loss; they impact future business relationships and the overall profitability of both the advertiser and the agency. The delays caused by these automated processes can be particularly damaging, especially when considering the intricacies of the South African market.

This issue is exacerbated by Google’s automated policy triggers. For example, Google Ads’ “Unsupported Language” policy automatically flags ads containing Afrikaans terms. In South Africa, this has resulted in numerous instances where perfectly legitimate campaigns for businesses located in cities and regions with names like “Bloemfontein” or “Vereeniging” are flagged due to the policy’s overly broad parameters. While appeals often resolve these issues, the downtime between flagging and approval can significantly impact campaign performance. For clients with smaller budgets, the impact might be minimal, but for those spending significantly more per day, the potential loss due to a seemingly insignificant, automated policy restriction can be substantial, especially considering the time it takes (up to 14 days) for machine learning to recover.

Adding to these challenges is Google’s recent change to its verification process for advertisers. Since mid-2024, Sole Proprietors in South Africa have been unable to create new Google Ads accounts (existing accounts were paused) due to Google’s requirement for a CIPC extract or VAT registration document. This excludes many Sole Proprietors, forcing them to register as “Individuals,” a feature no longer available for new account creation.

The only option now is “Organisation“. This oversight by Google disproportionately affects small businesses, many of whom have relied on Google Ads for over a decade. For many, Google Ads represents one of the most affordable advertising options available. This exclusion raises concerns that Google may be inadvertently—or intentionally—removing low-spending advertisers from its platform.

The Google South Africa v Lottoland case, coupled with these ongoing issues, highlights a critical need for improvement. Google could take several positive steps to ensure a fairer environment for all advertisers, particularly in diverse markets like South Africa:

• Local Language Review Team: Establishing a local language review team in South Africa would greatly improve policy enforcement. A team familiar with South African geography, terminology, and cultural nuances would be better equipped to assess the legitimacy of flagged ads, preventing the misinterpretation of place names like “Bloemfontein” or “Vereeniging.” The potential exists for many translators in the SA market to be employed by Google to assist in this process.
• Local Policy Expertise: A dedicated South African policy review team would improve the understanding and application of Google’s policies. This team could address the unique challenges faced by South African business structures, such as Sole Proprietors, ensuring that they are not unfairly excluded from the platform.
• Proactive Monitoring of Sensitive Verticals: Google should proactively monitor sensitive verticals (like sports betting) for policy violations. A human review process could identify and address blatant violations more effectively, leveraging the existing strike system to hold offenders accountable. A human review, rather than an algorithmic one, would be far more effective at distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate activity.

It’s essential for our clients to understand that our role as an agency is limited. We can optimise ad copy, refine targeting, and ensure landing page quality meets best practices, but we have no control over Google’s policies or its internal decision-making processes. This means that, despite our best efforts, our clients’ campaigns may still be affected by policies deemed “unfair” or “inconsistently applied”. Many clients struggle to grasp this limitation, and the resulting revenue loss impacts both their bottom line and our agency’s ability to deliver on our promises.

The Google South Africa v Lottoland case, coupled with the “Unsupported Language” policy issue and the recent exclusion of Sole Proprietors, highlights the challenges of navigating a system that often feels opaque and prone to inconsistencies, with revenue losses for both advertisers and agencies being a direct and serious consequence. Implementing the above suggestions could significantly improve the fairness and transparency of Google’s advertising platform in South Africa and beyond.