The site owner is rather lucky he has the option to go to a council like this and that it only took four months. Many site owners are without that protection, option or the social network to make enough fuss to have Google overturn the decision.
Until Google faces a proper market disrupter that challenges their ad lead, and they are need to reform their AdSense appeals process, there is unlikely to be any changes, unless government regulation and/or oversight councils force a change.
Also lucky that he was only fighting for $131. For those hitting more than that each day, having the account dropped without an option for a reasonable appeal is ridiculous and Google should absolutely be doing more in this situation.
One of my employees has a very honest and decent content site (not MFA-style). He ran AdSense on there for a time before they shut down his account and ignored the appeal. He suspected a friend of his clicked a few ads to help him out, without instruction or without letting him know. Completely out of his hands. It would be trivial for people to do this to their competitors.
I suspect that sites generating more income for Google can get away with a lot. The smallfry just aren't worth the hassle to investigate.
This is the concern I have for one of my planned sites I will launch soon that will have ad-content. I am searching for viable alternatives to integrate into the page with AdSense (or have ready for quick addition or on secondary pages), because I worry that I could easily be cut-off from AdSense and have no recourse.
To be frank, Adsense is the best ad network in terms of EPM (earnings per click) . Even my 50 visitors-per-day sites generate a modest income. But, other large CPC networks like chitika pay in pennies for that same traffic. That sucks.
If you rely too much on Adsense, then you are doomed when your account is banned. Better to go for paid advertising on your website itself.
"Better to go for paid advertising on your website itself."
Usually need a minimum of six months of steady visitors, or growing from a healthy base with no sustained dips, before most paid advertisers will even consider advertising for a reasonable/worthwhile fee.
Starting out AdSense seems to be the best option. Its when AdSense toasts you that the scramble begins and not something I'm looking forward to.
Wondering if I should send reminder email to parents and friends not to click any ads. hahaa
I have a variety of sites that make a not-inconsiderable amount from AdSense and one strategy I considered was to set up two accounts (e.g., one in wife's name, at an address outside of our home) and split my sites between the accounts. Avoid having all the eggs in one basket.
Of course, Google have been known to shut down accounts where two are run from the same address so who knows what they might take issue with if they somehow discovered a transgression.
Why? There's no reason Google can't run their services as they see fit. If I don't want you to use my service, that's my choice. There's nothing illegal about it.
For one thing, it's theft. Google not only terminates you but keeps the balance of your advertising payments, potentially going back for months (when Google must have considered all the advertising you were running for them valid, or they'd have terminated you then).
It is not theft. After review Google refunds the earnings to the advertisers who, from Google's standpoint, the publisher is stealing from via click fraud.
And I speak from experience. I know this because a very large ad based site of mine was banned for being in violation of a vague line in their TOS. It was automated and I really didn't know what I was doing wrong. After a month of writing every contact form and google email I could find, I got an actual response and was reinstated after being told what I was doing wrong. Afterwards they withheld a large amount of the prior month's earnings which they refunded to the advertisers.
Sadly, though I was technically in violation, they simply showed me another way to do the exact same thing. There was no fraud, and I was out about two months revenue, but at least I now have a few direct contacts at Adsense for the cost. Very, very expensive contacts...
My main point however is that Google does not keep a penny of the withheld funds. It goes back in full to the advertisers who paid for those clicks.
That's besides the point. It wasn't Google's money to give to the advertiser, it was the publisher's. If there's fraud going on, it's reasonable to withhold that money and return it to the advertiser. But if you have unpaid funds from months back when Google did NOT suspect any fraud, Google takes that and gives it back to the advertisers too -- that's plain theft.
The publisher will always claim it is not fraud no matter what level of investigation Google performs. And Google only refunds the portion of the earnings that they find to be in violation. This to me, as a business owner, seems logical when looking at it from Google's point of view. If I owned Adsense, I can't imagine doing it any differently or more fairly when having to consider both the paying advertiser and the warning publisher. Those two parties will never agree if they were in direct contact so Google has to be the middle man and play the bad guy to at least one of them.
Hacker News patrons would be equally up in arms if the article was about AdWORDS paid ads that a small website owner found to be fake clicks, paid money for, asked for a refund, was refused, and wrote a blog about. Google really can't win.
> Google only refunds the portion of the earnings that they find to be in violation
This is the issue. I've never seen that happen. Every account I've read of a closed AdSense account, accounts that were in good standing for years, has the entire balance of the account taken.
Technically it mioght not be theft, but Google certainly has a clear fiduciary repsonsibility in this case, and violating that is generally a lot more serious than mere theft.
No, they can not run their services as they see fit. Without the law Google as a corporation would not exist. The law on which their existence and the validity of their contracts depends is based on certain legal and social standards and assumptions. One such assumption is that as long as you do not violate the terms of a service agreement, the other side will continue to provide the service.
If Google is incapable or unwilling to present credible evidence in case of alleged contract violations, they are in breach of fundamental social assumptions that will reassert theselves one way or another.
Google certainly knows that. Their calculation is that automated first response is a way to make their service scale, because a high percentage of what they think is click fraud will be click fraud and most of the fraudsters will not fight their decision.
That's fine, but it doesn't mean that people who have not committed click fraud shouldn't fight Google's decision. If Google isn't completely stupid, they will improve their appeals process to filter out justified complaints or regulators will strike them down, and rightly so.
I never said they can break the law, however I don't believe they do. I totally agree you should appeal if you think they're wrong and maybe their systems for doing so suck. By all means call them on that, but I think everyone should be careful not to confuse ignorance with intent.
You did read the bit about how Google was arbitrarily with-holding the advertising revenue his site had generated?
Sounds illegal to me.
If my bank decided they didn't want me as a customer anymore I'm pretty sure I'd want my deposits back (!!!). If I did some work for a customer and then they decided to keep the work, but not pay me, and wouldn't say why, I'm pretty sure they'd end up in court ASAP.
You've never been cancelled, I take it? I was -- with the same "we've reviewed it and the answer is still no", until my friend Howard Tayler happened to note it in the comments under his Web comic, and marvelously it was re-reviewed and found to be Just Fine.
Google's "review" process is automated. Everything possible at Google is automated. If you don't get the attention of a human, you've got no recourse, and that effectively means if you don't have popular friends, you've got no recourse.
I think the review process is manual, it is just that it is still very much a black box. Someone determines the outcome (that someone is probably pretty far removed from the product) and tells you that you have either been successful with appeal or not, no more details.
We had an adwords account recently auto banned with a generated email with no reasoning for the ban. To play it as safe as possible we spent the best part of a day submitting a comprehensive document going into far more detail than needed on why the ban was a mistake. We got unbanned last week but as of yet haven't received a single correspondance from Google past the initial automated email from Google.
I've had a couple of warnings, fixed things, and carried on, but no bans.
I'd be interested to see the average earnings of those banned with limited recourse. e.g., is it under $200/mo or are a lot with $1k/mo+ getting done.
I suspect that low level sites are more or less ignored and put in the too-hard basket. Imagine how many smallfry sites they'd be reviewing out of less-developed countries where the cost to investigate deeper would just outweigh the early advantages of having them in the program. Easier and cheaper to just ban, piss off that kid abroad with his brand new motor bike forum, and keep raking it in from more established sites.
Only way of finding out (and it'd be flawed anyway) is to set up a site letting people log their dispute and amount at risk, maybe anonymous to the public but with moderators checking info a bit. And collate the responses to compare.
Actually, I disagree. Australia has very strong consumer protection laws. Google probably got worried when they started looking into the reasoning for them breaking their contract.
Until Google faces a proper market disrupter that challenges their ad lead, and they are need to reform their AdSense appeals process, there is unlikely to be any changes, unless government regulation and/or oversight councils force a change.