Follow these policies to help keep Google Help Communities a place for accurate, appropriate, and helpful discussions about Google products. These rules apply to everyone using the forums.
Prohibited Content
Your use of Google Help Communities must comply with these policies:
- Irrelevant Content. Topics and posts must be clear, concise, and related to support for the specific Google product that is the focus of that forum.
- Spam. Don’t spam the forums or create topics or posts with spammy content, including content or URLs that are promotional or commercial in nature, repetitive, unrelated, or excessive.
- Nudity and sexually explicit material. We don't allow nudity, sexually explicit material, or content that directs traffic to pornography sites.
- Harassment or violent behavior. We don't allow behavior that harasses, threatens, or bullies forum participants or anyone else. Harassment can take many forms including stalking, repetitive pestering of a targeted individual, profanity, and unwanted sexualization. Additionally, do not allow depictions of graphic or gratuitous violence.
- Hate speech. We don't allow the promotion of hatred toward groups of people based on their race, ethnic origin or nationality, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or affiliation with any other protected group.
- Impersonation. We don't allow impersonation of other people or companies or other behavior that is misleading, deceptive, or fraudulent.
- Private and confidential information. We don't allow unauthorized publishing of people's private and confidential information, including credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, driver's and other license numbers, addresses, or any other information that is not publicly accessible. Do not post or distribute images or videos of minors without the necessary consent from their legal representatives. Report a violation.
- Copyright. We will respond to clear notices of alleged copyright infringement. You may flag any copyrighted material by going to the Legal Help page.
- Child exploitation content. We don’t allow content that exploits or abuses children. This includes all child sexual abuse imagery (even cartoon images) and all content that presents children in a sexual manner. We will remove such content and take appropriate action, which may include disabling accounts and reporting it to appropriate authorities.
- Malicious or deceptive. Don’t facilitate the distribution of malware, viruses, destructive code, anything that may harm or interfere with the operation of the networks, servers, or other infrastructure of Google or others. Don’t facilitate the distribution of any software in violation of the Unwanted Software Policy or of any phishing or social engineering content.
- Illegal activities. Keep it legal. Don’t engage in illegal activities, promote dangerous and illegal acts, or depict illegal activity. This includes content that facilitates the promotion or sale of illegal drugs or recruits or fundraises on behalf of violent extremist groups. We also don’t allow the promotion of regulated products or services, including alcohol, gambling, and pharmaceuticals.
- User Profile. Your photo, display name, tagline, bio, and associated website and YouTube channel links (if applicable) must comply with these policies. Additionally, we don’t allow photos, display names, taglines, bios, or links that contain profanity, lewdness, racial slurs, or gibberish.
Reporting Abuse and Consequences
If you believe that a topic or post violates these policies, click the Report Abuse link to flag it for review. In response to a report of abuse or as part of our other review processes, we may review content in the forums and take action if it violates these policies, including restricting access to the content, removing the content, and limiting or terminating a user’s access to Google products.
Please read the Google Terms of Service for more information. We reserve the right to change these guidelines at any point in our effort to keep the forum helpful, user-friendly, and safe. We may limit or restrict your participation in the help communities at our discretion.