Sounds like self-censorship in dystopia full of secret laws. I'm glad Google isn't running a country.

Their reputation has turned dramatically. Back in the day Penn and Teller's episode of BS about the death penalty said they might not mind the death penalty if Google were in charge of it. Maybe they were somehow being presciently ironic?

Not only Google, just visit any online space and you will see a lot of arbitrariness, inconsistent rules, obscure decision making, etc. I honestly think that the best people to rule a country are the politicians: They are corrupt, narcisists and dangerous but at least they are somewhat professional in what they do.

Sounds a lot more like abuse detection signals firing based on Apple Pay using virtual card numbers.

Apple says that their virtual card numbers protect your privacy because they're untraceable. Ok, but that also means that your using Apple pay is mostly indistinguishable from credit card fraud.

But, you ask, does Google really have to worry that much about fraud? Do people really phish known-good Google accounts, add a stolen card, and then buy a whole bunch of ads?

Well.... yeah. That's actually one of the primary uses for stolen credit cards.