Banned AdSense Publisher Gets His Money Back from Google

Scary for google…
I heard its really expensive to get into a legal battle in US?

I think Google is right to pay him back rather than disclosing their algorithm system

Woah! that’s actually a news! I’m happy to see that google is taking steps to control the quality, however the way they keep things closed in a box and aren’t transparent about things… shows that they try to become big boss at times. This will surely help in many more cases where click fraud (if there is any) can’t be detected.

also my account banned without any reason…

please tell me Amit , in which court i will complaint in INDIA.

i already contact with google adsense (google reply is fake clicks)

…Hmm I am ALWAYS with Google guys, my experience they are never wrong, RED FLAGGING is an automated process and is only happens when somebody is at fault, its another thing that he knows the mistake or its an inadvertent one…!

Google chaps did right thing in the courts (but they might have a better lawyer perhaps)paying small funds instead of telling the SECRET algorithms to the world of crooks, Adsense is LIFELINE FOR MANY MANY in the world and people use it for a full time income, so we have to respect this BEST VIRTUAL FREELANCE EMPLOYER of the world, specially in this recession times, three cheers for Adsense Team, Long live Google, Do not be envy, its Google economy : )

Inspirational for others to file lawsuit against Google ;-). Google should not ban account, instead pose panelty by reducing 50% of adsense earnings or account disabled for 1 month et cetera.

Google banned my account resulting in $96K not being paid to me. I’ve given up hope to get this money back but now I understand that I was wrong not to take legal action.

Oh my god! This time I’m going full speed ahead.

It seems like many desperate publishers now will resort to click fraud because of the lines “Google lost this case is because their lawyer couldn’t convince the judge about how “click fraud” was detected in first place. Google has good reasons to not disclose their fraud detection algorithms in public court cases but the fact that this decision went against Google could probably convince many more ex-AdSense users to follow the footsteps of Aaron.”

IMO, it might be a bug of Google’s click fraud detection system, accusing Aaron for someone else.

Probably Google didn’t want to be more trouble by messing up with this fellow because of their fault…

Google cancelled my adsense account without ever paying me a dime, so I ceased my adwords account and stopped paying them. I will not pay them another nickel in advertising.

I personally like Adsense compared to all other advertising available today. I cannot comment on Adsense and it’s policy. This story is not an Inspirational to file lawsuit…but… apart from winning or loosing one can learn that there is civil law for anything.

The problem is that Google is taking money from you and not telling you why. Sure, they say it’s for click fraud, but prove it to me before you take my money. It’s very simple. They have a great system, but it needs to be more open as to why accounts get cancelled.

It’s possible that some kind of click fraud was taking place, but what gets a person’s goat is that Google hardly has any ‘customer care’. It took me five friggin’ months to shutdown my old Google AdSense account and transfer to a new one (had to change the payee name). And throughout that time there was no way to get in touch with them. (Don’t respond to emails. Ever.) I finally had to file another request claiming I couldn’t access the email account I was using to sign in to AdSense, and I wanted it to be shifted to a new one (it’s an option in their contact form). It still took them more than a month to respond to that and carry out the action – when they claimed that they’ll respond in two days. Throughout those many months my money was locked up with Google.

Think about what would have happened if I’d _actually_ lost access to my account. Whoever had broken in could have gone to AdSense, reset the password (Google mails it to the email address on file) and voila, someone else would have had access.

AdSense is not the only product. Apart from AdWords, try contacting Google ‘customer care’ for any other Google service and good luck to you if a get a response. (Yahoo!, on the other hand, responds within 48 hours to ANY request – even for free service customers.)

Google cancelled my account just before I reached the payout amount. They would offer no explanation as to why. You have to wonder how many people they do that to, and how much it has saved them (free advertising).

Wow, that is great news! It is good to know the little guys may have some recourse available if they’ve been banned. For many people Adsense and affiliate programs are there entire source of income. Good for you Aaron.

Someone has to give a run for their money to Google. They’ve really become arrogant and evil. What the heck will cost those freaks to warn the innocent (mostly) publisher that they are detecting fraud clicks and work with them to detect the fraud. Even after a warning if they continue to receive click frauds then cancel the account or kill the publisher.

Isn’t it too much of an asking? Is it too hard for those evil Googlers to implement this? Instead of working with the publishers they’ve become so arrogant and treat those publishers who rely on Google Adsense for income as criminals. What the hell is wrong with you Google?

Microsoft, Yahoo or any other competitors, why don’t you make use of these anti-Google sentiment to build something useful and democratic and values people? What’s holding you guys back to give Google a competition where they’ll the lesson and get back to their digged holes?

I agree with Dawn… At least there should be ONE warning from Google to the publisher before closing the account.. I think a company like Google can at least do this little thing… and I really wonder why they are not !

What most people don’t seem to consider is that this may be one of Google’s own tactics to make money for themselves. If they can steal the money from even 5%-10% of the total number of Adsense users around the world, they could be making millions each year. About time someone decided to throw the book at them!!

This same thing happened with me and I lost $60 or something. I thought it was because I added many names in competitive ad filter.

In India, where would I have filed case on Google? No options for me.

it would be better if google paid the dues once it closes an account, before others follow and file a suit. And how they finds fraudulent clicks, I think google would prefer to pay any amount of money than disclose that.

If you look at all the banned account stories, Google does this banning act when it’s a payout time.

I have been both a publisher as well as an advertiser on Google. Upon banning an account, though google writes mails to publishers saying money will be returned to advertisers, I haven’t, in last 3 years got any money back from google adwords. Also, I haven’t ever heard any advertiser receiving money back from google.

I think this is one of the most innovative strategies google has deployed – take money from advertisers but don’t pay publishers, thus increasing the revenue margins.

I’m now convenienced that Google AdSense & AdWords itself is a fraud as big as click fraud. No fraud lasts forever and it won’t be long before advertisers get to know the unethical evil google practices.

>>the fact that this decision went against Google could probably convince many more ex-AdSense users to follow the footsteps of Aaron.<<

I’m not sure about this line in the article. Can I sue Google in small claims court in St. Louis, MO (my hometown)? No, I cannot. The google adsense contract requires any lawsuit to be filed in Santa Clara County, California. I can probably file in small claims court by mail but surely I must attend in person to litigate my case against google. Airfare, car rental, hotel … how many people are going through that for one month of revenue from their canceled adsense account? Bottom line–this tactic only works if you live in Northern California.

See Para 17
link

“I think a big reason why Google lost this case is because their lawyer couldn’t convince the judge about how “click fraud” was detected in first place.”

Since this case was heard in Small Claims court….there are no lawyers involved, just the judge and the google representative, who in this case happened to be a paralegal.

No doubt Google Adsense is ‘Life Line’ for numerous publishers all over the world. Google has got almost a monopoly in web advertising even if there are many players. Google banns any account anytime “just because of publisher’s eye color”… Even without any single warning, without considering that adsense earning may be ‘bread & butter’ for any publisher. What is the value of ‘Terms and Conditions’ if all the terms are in favour of google itself ?
Hope, Google will consider Publisher’s rights now onwards. It does not matter for a common publisher that how strong is Google’s algorithm, he needs the money if his account shows, by publishing ads honestly.

One has to fear google and their policies. Its more intimidating that all google accounts are linked together. So if they think you have committed a mistake somewhere, then you might loose all your accounts.

My youtube account was closed all of a sudden without any prior warning and all my tens of videos were deleted. And the videos were also those of me playing guitar and reviewing games. There was nothing there that violated any of their terms and conditions.

But who can ask them anything. There is no way to contact them, no feedback forms, no nothing. They are behaving like they are god and no one can stop them from this, other than we ourselves.

My post on googleopoly -> link

They also do not communicate with their customers. They will ban you without telling you why, even if you are a good customer still paying them advertising revenue through Adwords. Of course, if they want you to spend money they will go out of their way to help you, but they do not communicate with people who are using Adsense.

@prashanth

Did you wear either blue, red, yellow or green while playing guitar in those videos? If you did, you should have known that those colors are used in google logo. so you clearly violated the terms of use…..lol
Very soon we we will see a case study of what arrogance can do to an organization – shut shops

What you are all missing is that one of the main ways that Google earns revenue is through its smaller affiliates. Google accuses them of click fraud and refuses to pay them. This is a well known fact in the investment community.

Do you really think these blog sites that claim to earn thousands of dollars a day don’t have instances of click fraud?

It’s all a game and the small guy always loses. Google is the house and the house, like in Vegas, always wins.