Indirectly related, but I think there is a lot of scam in this "industry", with tons of misleading ads. As a publisher, when I review ads, I block / bans easily 10+ of them everyday. Ads looking like a (fake) system warning message, claiming the computer / device is infected by something, or requires "something" to be done, etc etc...

Just found further information on this issue from UK:
[en.advertisercommunity.com...]
It seems that the enforcement of this policy (that excludes all IT Repair and Tech Support businesses) was introduced in UK much earlier.

FYI, we discussed this earlier, September, 2018 [webmasterworld.com...]

You'll see from that earlier piece that Google was rolling out a verification program. I've not seen the verification program yet, unless i've missed it.

@Dimitri
Even if there is a lot of scam, this punishing a whole industry is abuse of a monopoly. My client is in the business of repair of hardware for more than 30 years, more than 15 years of using Google Ads. And then all ads switched off automatically within a few days? With the hope that some day we get certified and again "allowed" to advertice?

May be you can contact Google, to hurry a certification. Try contacting the Google Germany office , they may be easier to contact, and might forward your requests to the appropriate department.

@Dimitri
Yes,we contacted the Google Germany office. They themselves are at present not aware of a way to get certified. But we will continue to talk to them on this topic.

You can get it reviewed by a human through Google support.

Alternatively, download AdWords editor, submit the ads and request exemption when it is blocked.

Sad thing is this is only the tip of the potential iceberg of what g might next ban... time will tell...

We too have seen huge drops in our google search traffic, and so far in August '19 we have received only 30 clicks, down from 4000+ per month before the ban and 5220 last August, 2018.. We have over 1000 ads that have now been banned. We have lost over 20% our revenue and will need to downsize soon. Since 2013, we have spent over $300,000 on the google ads platform.

Google has even banned Google Pixel repair ads. Considering that Google have their own repair service and also repair contracts with UBIF for their Pixel phone the move could be considered anti-competitive.

Its been over a year now since David Graff promised a verification program (promised 31 August 2018). Google have been silent on the issue with tech support / repairers across the globe being kept in the dark about when the issue will be fixed, or if it will be fixed and why they were caught in the crossfire. This has led many to believe that Google ads for the repairs and services will not be coming back. Terms of Service [webmasterworld.com]

[edited by: not2easy at 3:34 pm (utc) on Sep 4, 2019]
[edit reason] ToS [/edit]

@Phone_Ninja ... welcome to Webmasterworld!

Tech and IT repair has been hampered for over a year and likely will never fully recover. However, the serps still work, though ads are tightly controlled at the moment.

FYI, we discussed this earlier, September, 2018 [webmasterworld.com...]

You'll see from that earlier piece that Google was rolling out a verification program. I've not seen the verification program yet, unless i've missed it.

@engine - considering you close threads without the ability to reply after an abnormally short time (from what Ive observed so far on this forum, more often than not within a week or less it looks like) it seems both unhelpful and irrelevant to mention that it's "already been covered a year ago" especially when taken into context that the OP was referring to an issue that just started affecting webmasters in Germany circa the time of his posting, not a year earlier ... .FYI ....