Don't be arrogant, Google

Honest to goodness, I wanted to post a blog with the above title for sometime now, but the article below beat me to it.

But allow me to qualify first, what I wanted to say weeks ago has nothing to do with the article below. A few weeks back, I was an Adsense Publisher, but I was shut down by Google, without any prior warning that they would do so, because they suspected "invalid clicks". I was really pissed off at that time because I had qualified for their minimum payout of US$100 after 4 months of displaying their ads. Questions raced through my mind: "Is Google shutting me down because they do not want to pay me?? Would a Company that is earning billions in Revenue do that?? If they really suspected "invalid clicks", why didn't they shut me down earlier (i.e. 1,2 or even 3 months back)? Why shut me down only when I am due for payment at the end of the month?? This is ridiculous.

So, I emailed Google asking for an explanation. I requested to view their data logs to verify that the clicks I have received are "invalid". Here is my email:

Hi,

Pls send me a detailed breakdown of all the clicks for my site. Isn't it true that Google has a way of filtering valid clicks from those that are invalid? Isn't the publisher already not paid on days when invalid clicks were suspected? So shouldn't only valid clicks be recorded in my Adsense report?

I do not appreciate my account being deactivated esp. when payment is due to me at the end of this month. My account could have been deactivated earlier if invalid clicks were indeed suspected, but this deactivation just 2 weeks before I am due to receive payment makes me wonder if Google has had the intention of not paying me all along, and has set me up to publish its ads for free.

Regards,
aC

Below is Google's standard reply:-

Hello aC,

Thank you for your email.

As you know, Google treats instances of invalidclicks very seriously. By disabling your account, we feel that we have taken the necessary measures to ensure that invalid clicks will not continue to occur on your site. Due to the proprietary nature of our monitoring system , we are not able to disclose any specific details of these clicks. As previously noted, if you would like to appeal the disabling of youraccount, please contact us only through this form:http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/request.py?contact=invalid_clicks_appeal&hl=en_GB

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

"proprietary nature of our monitoring system" - Ha! How convenient!

No one is asking to look at the source code of your Adsense program, I just wanted to look at the (audited) logs to verify that "invalid clicks" were indeed present. I subsequently appealed against this disabling of account but it was to no avail. In their last reply, Google said they will not entertain any more requests.

In such situations, what kind of recourse can the little guy take against a conglomerate? It seems like Google has the final say (in everything internet related), and we can do nothing else but accept its decision. If you are so sure that you are right, you should come clean and be transparent in your records. Prove your case to us instead of just simply mandating your decision upon us and expect us to accept them, knowing full well there isn't any alternatives for us, the little guys.

Will that stop this little guy from putting up Ads on my Blog? No way. So, don't be so arrogant Google. If you do not want us to be your publisher, there are other companies who will accept us (e.g. Bidvertiser).

(There's a danger in putting up this post because, as you know, Blogspot belongs to Google. So, in the near future, if you type in my URL and you find an error prompt which says "No such website found...", you know the reason... But some things need to be said.)