Just got this email from Google AdWords today:
“We’re making a change to AdWords access levels that will affect your account. In the coming weeks, we’ll replace reports-only access with a new read-only access level. As a result, all reports-only users in your account will automatically become read-only users.
This change will give your reports-only users a clearer view of your account performance. As read-only users, they’ll have access to advanced reporting tools that are only available in the Campaigns tab, such as filters and data segmentation, which make it easier to spot performance trends and identify areas for improvement.
As with reports-only access, read-only access will be limited to browsing and viewing reports. Your read-only users will not be able to make edits to your campaigns. However, read-only users won’t be restricted to using the Reports tab only. Instead, they’ll be able to view performance statistics anywhere in an account, including the Campaigns tab.
We plan to make these changes within the next few weeks. If you’re comfortable with the changes, no action is required on your part. However, if you don’t want your reports-only users to see the Campaigns tab of your account, you can update your account access preferences by following these instructions.
We hope that these changes will help your business get more out of reports-only access to AdWords. Thank you for taking the time to read this email, and have a great start to 2010!”