I discussed Google’s false accusations and shut-down of my account (see my recent posts here, here, here, and here) with Joel Comm today, author of the best-selling and newly-updated What Google Never Told You About Making Money with AdSense.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m not the only one unfairly accused by Google. Here’s Joel’s reply to my plight:

I’m sorry to hear that your account was closed. You are correct. It can happen to ANYONE and people do need to be aware of it. I’ve had at least one person tell me they saw some odd things happening with their stats and they took a proactive stance, emailing google about it. That turned out to be a very good move.

Best regards,
Joel

Joel’s advice about proactively emailing Google is good, and I also heard of that working for one person (though in true robotic fashion, Google’s initial response to the proactive email was to immediately shut down the person’s account, but they later re-activated it after much pleading from the person who was actually trying to be proactive – it seems you just can’t win with Google, no matter what).

In my situation however, I didn’t see anything odd happening with my stats ahead of time, my only warning was after Google had shut down my account and then they wouldn’t let me see the ad stats to determine what happened. My site stats didn’t show anything out of the ordinary, leading me to believe it was just a few clicks instead of hundreds or thousands which caused the problem. And once again, these were low-dollar-amount ads, not ads which would’ve cost the advertisers any significant amount of money, certainly not warranting Google’s “protection.”

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Apparently I’m not alone in this. A quick search on Yahoo turned up all of these quotes from different people on just 3 blogs which momentarily focused on the problem of click-fraud. Check out the excerpts below from 21 people just like me! Some of them lost thousands of dollars, some have very high traffic sites, some have very low traffic sites, but all have one common theme: we’ve all been screwed by Google with no proof and no recourse.

Several people indicated that other sites they run or tried to set up later were also banned because they were set up by a person with a similar or identical name.

One person was even shut down because he dared to click on an ad, consider a product, then click on the same ad to buy the product in question from the same advertiser later in the same day! Google considers that click fraud! Hello!!!!! Is there anyone in there, or are they all mindless money-sucking robots disguised as humans?

The three blog articles for your reading pleasure are:
in Russell Beattie’s blog
in the WebmasterWorld blog
in the MarketingNewz blog

Thanks for your continued support,

Kurt Inman
Free RSS Resources

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“I returned from holiday yesterday to an e-mail telling me there had been fraudulent clicks on my account. I presume that they think I am clicking on my own ads (they wouldn’t tell me the exact reason) which as I have been on a farm (middle of nowhere) for the last three weeks that would have been difficult.”

————–

“A strange twist is that my brother who has a site on a totally different topic, different area of expertise etc, has had his account terminated also-reason is because he knows me. No I am not kidding-’Google AdSense account was found to be related to an account previously disabled for invalid click activity’”

————–

“With an automated reply. I’ve lost count of the amount of people who simply got dropped for no real reason. You only get an automated reply, I’m told. I’ve gone to Bidclix and dropped Adsense simply due to the pathetic people who can’t seem to run adsense period.”

————–

“It appears my right of appeal consists of - you’re guilty and we are not going to tell you of what or how we know-just accept it and get lost”

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(more…)

Google continues to ignore me and refuses to provide any proof of their false accusations, as I suspected they would. I guess they want to be just like Enron, Worldcom and all the others…

Thanks for your continued support,

Kurt Inman
Free RSS Resources

> — Google AdSense wrote:
>
> > Hello Kurt,
> >
> > Thank you for your email regarding the action taken
> > on your account.
> >
> > As you know, Google treats instances of invalid
> > click activity very seriously. By disabling your
> > account according to our policy on this matter, we
> > feel that we have taken the necessary measures to
> > protect our advertisers and to ensure that invalid
> > clicks will not continue to occur on your site.
> >
> > Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are
> > not allowed further participation in Google AdSense.
> > We appreciate your understanding.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> >
> > The Google AdSense Team
> >

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Brought to you by Free RSS Resources: RSS feed directories, podcast directories, blog directories, blog pingers and RSS marketing tools, kept fresh and up-to-date. Powered by iPowerWeb, amazing web hosting for just $7.95 a month. Come learn how to increase your blog and website traffic, and profit by setting up and marketing your own RSS feed. My free 2005 e-book shows how.

As promised in my post yesterday, here’s the latest response from Google to my email in which I disputed their false accusation of click fraud. It’s almost word for word the same as their original message: robotic, heartless, mindless and it never acknowledges the fact that they could be mistaken.

If anyone out there hears of a class-action suit forming against Google for false accusations of click-fraud, please let me know. I’ll be the first to join in and spread the word.

In the meantime, please consider exploring and purchasing some of the tools I’ve recommended in my blog and on my website, using the links I’ve provided here and in my Free RSS Resources e-book. They’re all good products which will help us succeed with our businesses in spite of Google’s efforts to arbitrarily destroy us, their very own customers.

Thanks for your continued support,

Kurt Inman
Free RSS Resources

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Wed, 22 Jun 2005 15:10:06 -0700

From: “Google AdSense” adsense-adclicks@google.com
To: “Kurt Inman”
Subject: Re: [#28541546] Ad Problems
Hello Kurt,

Thank you for your email regarding the action taken on your account.

As you know, Google treats instances of invalid click activity very seriously. By disabling your account according to our policy on this matter, we feel that we have taken the necessary measures to protect our advertisers and to ensure that invalid clicks will not continue to occur on your site.

Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed further participation in Google AdSense. We appreciate your understanding.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

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Brought to you by Free RSS Resources: RSS feed directories, podcast directories, blog directories, blog pingers and RSS marketing tools, kept fresh and up-to-date. Powered by iPowerWeb, amazing web hosting for just $7.95 a month. Come learn how to increase your blog and website traffic, and profit by setting up and marketing your own RSS feed. My free 2005 e-book shows how.