Google Adsense being sued

[Insanity]

Wayne

I remember you were really pissed off about the google ads thingy, and rightly so.
I found a link for you:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=24308

Yeah thank you.

I saw that article on slashdot this morning.  Unfortunately it's not about the same situation that affected me personally.  This sounds like more of a case of "free publicity" by the lawsuit filer than a lawsuit to benefit those (like me) who've been banned without explanation or recourse for something I didn't do.

In our case, one or more individuals decided they didn't like the advertisements and clicked on them hundreds of times over a three day period.  

Rather than "work with me" to resolve it, Google simply closed my account and refuse to allow me to be a part of their program on any level, for any site that I may own.

In short, someone decided that supporting the Amiga community was a bad thing and screwed me personally.  I can say this with a clear conscience, because all funds incoming from Adsense were being used to advertise with the Adwords program, meaning we were getting more and more new people into the site, and more interest in the Amiga.  God forbid...

While Google banned my account and refused me any of the money I was owed (before the incident happened), they still took over $100 from me for Adwords advertisements I had placed (which were to be paid for by Adsense income).

However, not the first time I've gotten screwed by a few in this community, and it'll probably not be the last.  I'm still trying to appeal this through Google but all I'm getting is either stock responses or ignored altogether.

It will just be a matter of time before someone more pissed off than I writes a virus which -- when infected -- will cause everyone's machines to automatically "click" on every google advertisement that gets displayed.  This will happen, and it'll bring Adsense to it's knees but considering the {bleep}ty treatment I've received from Google over this issue, I just can't seem to care...

Wayne

[Insanity]

That sucks man.

[unrelated]
I am checking this site (and aw-net) daily as I find the upcoming OS4 highly interesting.
The sort of place where a REALLY fast OS like the AOS4 will be useful is in a PVR (check mythTV).
The OS seems to be nice to work with as well, sadly it lacks some programs and probably functions as well. But those will come along.

The thing that struck me is that you guys keep arguing and arguing about porting AOS4 to this and that platform. Granted that the CELL looks VERY interesting (since the os won't hog the the SPEs and only a small part of the PPE), but before there is a usefull compiler, at least 2 years will have passed (death to GCC that actually makes things slower when using eg: SSE2).  

My point: Give over with all porting crap. let hyperion finnish the damn thing first.

oh well.

really sad about the google ads thing.

BTW, I edited your subject line so that it would be more usable by everyone than "look here Wayne".  Hope you don't mind.

Wayne

[Insanity]

I should have written something more explanatory.

I've had a long day. Everything just kept falling apart today (IT-support at a company manufacturing front loaders for tractors).
(*drinking a beer and listening to soothing Trance*)

[boing]

>all funds incoming from Adsense were being used to
> advertise with the Adwords program

Hi Wayne, I'm saddened to hear about the way in which one person decided to abuse the system.  Now for a Google business virgin like me, can you explain (briefly) what "Adwords program" is?  I presume AdSense is a Google-offered "service" where Google puts up Amiga.org links on the right side of the page when people search for "Amiga"?

FWIW, I know a vegan woman with an internet hosting and site dev services... and if I'm understanding the business angle here (big if) Google now allows you to set a daily limit on how much you want to spend on ads.  This way if a jerk tries to bang on your banner-link (whatever) they eventually find that it stops working and give up.

Would this help you?

Also maybe if you pitched the story to The Register, or the AP, maybe Google would take notice.

@boing,

Adsense is the "ads by google" box on a site where webmasters get paid for clicks on the advertisements that are placed on their site.

AdWords is the "you advertise with google and your ads are placed in Adsense boxes on other sites" program.

I had the money spent per day limited to what Adsense was earning, and could have spent a lot more, so no, that wouldn't help me.  Apparently I'm a victim of Google's new Gestapo "no mercy, no appeals, no second chances" policy which is to simply shut down every site they even "feel" is cheating without explanation.  

The problem for me is that they attack you personally by removing your entire account, so even if you have 1000 sites displaying adsense ads and have never had a problem, one issue (like happened here) is enough to get you (and every site you've ever owned) permanently thrown out of their program without so much as an honest explanation.

It's a really {bleep}ty way to do business if you ask me, and reading all the stories on the Web by people in similar situations, my opinion of google has diminished greatly.

Wayne