31 Aug 2026 · Google Ads · high severity · fix verified 14 Sept 2026
Google Ads Developer Policies prohibit programmatic proxies, hosted MCP servers included
Google Ads Developer Blog: "integrations now need to connect directly to Google Ads services using their own dedicated Google Cloud project." The renamed Google Ads Developer Policies prohibit a "third-party hosted interface, secondary API, wrapper service, or MCP server, proxy endpoint, or any similar service that solely replicates, wraps, or re-exposes Google Ads programmatic capabilities as an intermediate layer", and add that the policy "doesn't restrict your own use of the Google Ads API in a programmatic or automated way, nor does it restrict open-source tools where the end-users download the software and connect it to Google Ads using their own access credentials."
What it breaks
Any agent, dashboard or pipeline that reaches Google Ads through someone else's developer access: a vendor-hosted MCP endpoint, a shared API wrapper, middleware with embedded credentials. Headless account changes without per-entity Google sign-in are named as prohibited. No deadline is published; Google says its compliance team is reviewing existing integrations and will contact developers, and violations can bring non-compliance fees, downgraded access or termination. Nothing in reporting flags which of your tools sit on which Cloud project.
Who it hits: Agencies and in-house teams using hosted Google Ads MCP servers or API wrappers; vendors that re-expose Google Ads calls to clients; anyone whose AI agent edits Google Ads accounts on a third party's token.
The fix
List every tool that reads or writes Google Ads, record whose Cloud project and developer token carries its calls, flag any hosted endpoint that re-exposes Google Ads to you, and move those to your own project or a self-run open-source tool.
fix artifact · #A-013
Google Ads access inventory checklist (programmatic proxy test)
Sort every tool that touches your Google Ads accounts by whose Google Cloud project and developer token carries its calls, so you can see which ones the August 2026 Developer Policies treat as a programmatic proxy before Google's compliance review reaches them.
- verified_on
- 2026-09-14
- next re-check
- 2026-12-01
- status
- current
Sources linked on every entry · artifacts stamped and re-verified · ← all changes