> The culprit, according to google search console, was a double redirect on our web email domain (/ -> inbox -> login).

I find it hard to believe that the double redirect itself tripped it: multiple redirects in a row is completely normal—discouraged in general because it hurts performance, but you encounter them all the time. For example, http://foo.examplehttps://foo.examplehttps://www.foo.example (http → https, then add or remove www subdomain) is the recommended pattern. And site root to app path to login page is also pretty common. This then leads me to the conclusion that they’re not disclosing what actually tripped it. Maybe multiple redirects contributed to it, a bad learned behaviour in an inscrutable machine learning model perhaps, but it alone is utterly innocuous. There’s something else to it.

Want to see how often Microsoft accounts redirect you? I'd love to see Google block all of Microsoft, but of course that will never happen, because these tech giants are effectively a cartel looking out for each other. At least in comparison to users and smaller businesses.

The reason Google doesn’t block Microsoft isn’t that they’re “looking out for Microsoft.” They’re looking out for themselves by being aware that blocking something that millions of people use would be bad for business.

So why isn't blocking something that is starred 82k times on GitHub bad for business.

I forget. How much do users pay per star again?

That's peanuts compared to Microsoft's userbase

Same difference.

I suspect you're right... The problem is, and i've experienced this with many big tech companies, you never really get any explanation. You report an issue, and then, magically, it's "fixed," with no further communication.