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Yup! Google did this to me. I ran a forum and decided to put ads on it, which they were happy to do. When I attempted to cash out they accused me of committing

by tedivm 3y ago

Yup! Google did this to me. I ran a forum and decided to put ads on it, which they were happy to do. When I attempted to cash out they accused me of committing clickfraud and refused to pay out. There was no way to appeal. This is why, to this day, none of the businesses or startups I've been involved with have used Google products if we can avoid it. At the startup I was a founding engineer for we hosted on AWS despite Google's venture fund being one of our investors. Google's products just can't be trusted.

sct202 3y ago
I originally started using ad blockers because of the number of people being accused of clicking their own ads. Idk how they can be sure their systems are working properly when it's basically impossible to appeal and show that it's gone wrong.
CoastalCoder 3y ago
> When I attempted to cash out they accused me of committing clickfraud and refused to pay out. There was no way to appeal. I'm guessing that you didn't see a lawsuit or small-claims suit as worthwhile, given the amount of money involved? If Google is doing this to a large number of relatively small-value accounts, maybe it would be reasonable for a class-action suit. IANAL, but I'm guessing Google would do anything to avoid a discovery process regarding this.
- trogdor 3y ago
  >maybe it would be reasonable for a class-action suit When you sign up for AdSense, you agree to arbitrate disputes.
  - sleepybrett 3y ago
    not working out very well for twitter
  - jabradoodle 3y ago
    That doesn't mean they can take your money for no reason.
    - trogdor 3y ago
      I didn’t say it does.
partiallypro 3y ago
This happened to me as well, I started a forum in college and put Adsense on it; Google accused my account of click fraud, and froze it, keeping all of the ad money. I tried to find ways to appeal, and they didn't care. They could have at least had a 3-strike rule to give you resources to prevent fraud if it were occurring, and an appeal process. The account is frozen to this day (almost 20 years later), and since Google has a monopoly on ads...it was impossible to put anything else up. There were a few, but they were mostly all scammy. I then had some luck with others, and slowly Google bought them all. Microsoft and Yahoo tried to launch competitors but both failed. Google is an ad monopoly, even Microsoft runs Google ads on MSN.

by tedivm 3y ago

sct202 3y ago

I originally started using ad blockers because of the number of people being accused of clicking their own ads. Idk how they can be sure their systems are working properly when it's basically impossible to appeal and show that it's gone wrong.

CoastalCoder 3y ago

> When I attempted to cash out they accused me of committing clickfraud and refused to pay out. There was no way to appeal. I'm guessing that you didn't see a lawsuit or small-claims suit as worthwhile, given the amount of money involved? If Google is doing this to a large number of relatively small-value accounts, maybe it would be reasonable for a class-action suit. IANAL, but I'm guessing Google would do anything to avoid a discovery process regarding this.

trogdor 3y ago
>maybe it would be reasonable for a class-action suit When you sign up for AdSense, you agree to arbitrate disputes.
- sleepybrett 3y ago
  not working out very well for twitter
- jabradoodle 3y ago
  That doesn't mean they can take your money for no reason.
  - trogdor 3y ago
    I didn’t say it does.

partiallypro 3y ago

This happened to me as well, I started a forum in college and put Adsense on it; Google accused my account of click fraud, and froze it, keeping all of the ad money. I tried to find ways to appeal, and they didn't care. They could have at least had a 3-strike rule to give you resources to prevent fraud if it were occurring, and an appeal process. The account is frozen to this day (almost 20 years later), and since Google has a monopoly on ads...it was impossible to put anything else up. There were a few, but they were mostly all scammy. I then had some luck with others, and slowly Google bought them all. Microsoft and Yahoo tried to launch competitors but both failed. Google is an ad monopoly, even Microsoft runs Google ads on MSN.