"your account poses a significant risk to our advertisers"- what the hell!like who? the zyprexa injury lawyers? get risperdal cheap? vvansye for adhd? i find it pretty damn interesting that about the same time my site was being linked to porn sites,[i have a stat meter]and i was attacked by a "troll" as ppl reference to--i don't care what google says, YOU OWE ANYONE MONEY WHO BOUGHT INTO YOUR SCAM, and earned it by using your ploy for earning income.

I've cancelled my account for the fact that my earnings were 28 bucks, which doesn't buy my car a few gallons of gas. i can write 28 bucks because their fine print says so. though i never clicked on my ads one time, as the rules say, i didnt do a damn thing wrong but have my computer attacked by a virus, porn links added and increased readership from AstraZeneca,Lilly, Johnson and Johnson and Wyeth.

I had a flood of new readers come in off of a blog and besieged with bullshit,after an NY Magazine letter was published that I linked up to. [and the "troll" was also from New York].

Sorry for the ramble, but my own personal conclusion is this has to be a scam--Google pay up, and being this is America and i'm entitled to free speech, have cancelled my google ad acct.,and[the "team"]google has yet to respond to my request so I removed the code for ads myself, so no worries i'm not making .06 cents for writing this and having someone read my blog as a result].

Risk to the adversisers! like how??? which ones!!? cause this site only carried pharmaceutical ads, lawyer ads, and hurricane katrina fund ads, oh and rehab center, as a reader of mental health issues, of course the ads were appropriately crawled by Google and placed here, so i think the people that should complain are the local counselors, and research clinics that I also read ads for, too bad for them, one counseling place looked like it might be worth looking into--it will be interesting to see if any local advertiser stops getting calls due to advertising with Google.

Something is wrong here.

argh! i'm with you, philip.

Hey,

Sorry to ask the dumbass question, although it appears to be my modus operandi, but did Adsense get around to explaining how it was that your account "poses a significant risk to our advertisers"? That is, how does a few extra (debateably bogus) clicks create a risk? I'm struggling with this one, to be honest!

Matt

Google's motto: "Don't be evil."

My ass.

I find the wording in their reply unusual: "your
account poses a significant risk to our advertisers"

I wouldn't think that fraudulent ad clicks would hurt the advertisers. Afterall, it's Google who's forking over the dough for those clicks—unless the advertisers have to pay for each click, which seems a little messed up to me.

It didn't occur to me that pharma influence was behind this when you made your first post about this, but I certainly have my suspicions aroused now.

*checks for a "tendecy towards conspiracy theories" side effect on pill bottles...*

Phillip,

Yep, this is wrong, and you don't even get your $600 bucks. I suspect its plain old censorship...if you criticize our advertisers we break our contract with you. Sounds illegal.

Out of the blue I'm starting a temp job in an hour that hopefully will turn permanent so hopefully I'll be able to click your paypal button again soon,and it seems like it would be a good idea for others to do the same in response to Google's underhanded behavior and your stellar work.

This is definitely wrong and I will submit it to digg.

Join digg and digg it
I put it in odd news as alot of people view it, downside is it has a lot of submissions so its being pushed out of listings fast.
LINK

the other is reddit
no 16 on reddit
http://business.reddit.com/

business isn't too popular a catagory.
"gst" picked it.

Hey Philip!

Whatever Google's beef is, its reaction is akin to thermonuclear annihilation on account of a one-hour overdue library book.

Earling over at Sound Politics is right: you are getting hosed!

Keep at it!

The Piper

Phil Dawdy I accuse you of deliberately directing traffic away from Pharma.

Ad Sense? Where does the word 'sense' come into their decision?

I'll be awarding them the prestigious Seroxat Sufferers Dumbass Award shortly.

Now Phil, kindly write about something that doesn't upset the establishment, things like agreeing with the war or praising the work of Pharma should suffice.

Fid

Phil, you should definitely sue these guys. I'm sure you're probably not the only one who has suffered their actions so a class action suit would be great.

I'm sending this to a person at Google.

They are seriously messed up, but it goes both ways. I am helping a client with their online ads and looking through the client's stats, I found that Google had placed the ad on a malware site, which installs very very nasty stuff onto users computers.The client had paid several hundred dollars.

I sent a notice of this to Google and got back the stupidest email I've ever read. Seriously, MSFT is going to kick them all over the place unless they get their act together.

Putting your experience and the client's experience together, it appears they don't have humans with judgment looking at things. I guess the malware site knows how to scam the system by making their clicks appear "random" and in line with "expectations." (The client is a high end bike touring company. Their target audience is not visiting the Malware site).

I would file a complaint with the State AG office for your $600. Take Google to small claims court, they do have an office in Seattle that sells ads. Make them defend themselves.

Google has 90 days to pay up once an account is terminated. Looks like I will get 28 bucks by March 4th, if I'm lucky. This is bullshit.

Google customer service, across all services, is a joke. Google also appears to be inflating traffic numbers for # of users being sent to a site, which larger companies are starting to notice and question. Paid Search makes up a large chunk of online marketing spend and if Google is being evil, it could be a significant financial blow to the company. All they need to do is piss of someone like amazon and the shit will hit the fan.

Dear Phillip,

I’m sorry to be reading about your stressing over this happening but as I shared with you previously, “Welcome to the wonderful world of the Internet.” It’s not pleasant when a thing like this happen, is it? Hey, you should be at least happy that your site has not been hacked as were mine and your years of efforts destroyed by some miscreant. Then again, your web host could also have simply just closed you down.

I on the other hand chose to establish a website hosted by a friend and kindred spirit who also appreciates freedom of speech and not being pushed around. I also chose no advertising amongst other reasons to allow me and others the freedom of speech to share our thoughts. I don’t know about conspiracy theory in terms of your website content and its relationship to advertising but I do know my spouse had suffered from mood disorders which are attended to while on the other hand there are some serious crazies out there doing some real personal damage. Trying to reason and share some logic with any of these Yahoo or Google TOS automatons is the equivalent of a discussion with concrete; good luck.

Since I have no idea about clicks, advertising money or the arrangements I have to chuckle when I read some of the comments about you’re suing. Certainly I think suing is a great American idea to right wrongs being perpetrated. Hey look at our litigious society and the suit such as the coffee cup between the legs but I unfortunately live in the world of reality and knowing many individuals who suffer from mood disorders I don’t think most have the finances or wherewithal to institute a $600 action that is unless some fine upstanding counselor will consider taking the case on a contingency or better yet, pro bono.

If you have nothing better to do with your time may I suggest getting an education of the small claims process and pursue your money through that avenue. I wish you luck. I honestly doubt you’ll find a “sharkster” willing to undertake a $600 claim. I’m truly sorry Phillip but this is life and a mean world at that.

Whatever, I wish good luck and more importantly, wellness.

Warmly,
Herb
VNSdepression.com

Yeah that sucks. In late September/ early October everything I do online was hacked and the passwords changed so I couldn't use it.

Including my much loved gmail account.

After a week and a half of emailing back and forth and filling out forms and answering questions. They wanted to know everything.. Who I email on a regular basis... My I.P. address. When I started my account.

I even told them who most likely hacked my account and their gmail account and I.P. address.

I got this email in response:
Hello Janet,

We have investigated this issue, but because the results were inconclusive, we're not able to provide further assistance.

Gmail takes the privacy and security of our users very seriously. For this reason, we can't reveal any further information about this account.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, and thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

The Google Team

(This was pretty devasting to me, since there are several people who I only contact via email, extended family, a sporting team I am involved in. )

I never was able to gain access to my email account.

Philip, in the meantime, are there any other sources of revenue that you could employ at your website (ads from other services) while this matter is sorted out. And please do take Google to court. This seems completely unjustified.

Hi Philip,

This is suck krap. I hope they pay up! I love reading your blog, keep up the good work and for keeping us informed! :)

I'm with you on this one. What gives? Unbelievable that they can't dial it down to little guys like you.

On another note, just saw a couple typos in there - Big Pharma, and squirrelly. I looked it up!

Good stuff, thanks.

thanks to all for your support. typos fixed! thanks zach.

This really sucks. Does anyone know anyone Google has actually paid for running ads on their site? Maybe Google gets people to run ads on their sites and then cancels them when its to pay up. Google pay the man his money.

You might already know this but Yahoo has a something similar to AdSense called Publisher. Might be worth looking into.

http://publisher.yahoo.com/

There will be dancing in the streets the day some innovative David takes down this technological Goliath. Could a lawsuit be pebble that takes them down? Would make a great story if it did. And by the way...I'm not buying into that "Don't Be Evil" motto. Anyone with as much power as the founders of Google (#4 in Fortune's list of the Power 25) and lacking a moral compass will succumb to the darkside. Just look how they compromised their integrity by agreeing to the Communist rulers to censor things like "Falun Gong" for searches in China.

Looks like censorship to me. Their revenue comes from Phrma. I'd try small claims court if I were you.

The problem is that you and your readers are telling the truth in the most eloquent of ways.

this blog is a media news source authored by a journalist, and is actually breaking into the new age world of web based journalism, and it is a JOB. You know, as in needing to pay rent/utilities/etc. $600.00 bucks is needed by someone who is not just doing a public service blog for fun.

Hit the paypal button people! if every person reading here sent $1.00, $5.00 a day or a week, or just once, that would surely pay rent and expenses quite quickly.

OR, Philip finds a job offsite and this blog shuts down.

This is about the changing media, not just Google being unethical scumbags, who should be reported to the Better Business Bureau.

Hi Phil,
Sorry you got screwed.
Furious Seasons is great.
Joy

Bastards did the same thing to me. One day, out of the blue, About.com did a piece about the top ten food blogs on the internetz. My modest blog, Cornichon.org, was fortunate enough to make the list. Traffic went through the roof. Google, in its infinite wisdom, smelled "click fraud" and cut me off. Took weeks to get reinstated, and they never did return the hundreds of $$ they snatched away.

You bastards!!

Oh, this makes me so mad! Pay up, Google!

Philip, maybe in the empty place where the ads were you could post something to the effect of "Read why there are no Google ads here." at the least, it could help spread the word about what Google is doing to you and undoubtedly many, many others.

As soon as I can afford it, I will be donating to your site. You rock!

Well I just took adsense and the google search bar off of my site and replaced the search bar with scroogle www.scroogle.com. My adsense removal contributed to a financial loss of 56 US cents, oh well.

Opps in my most recent comment to this thread I posted an incorrect link. I meant to post the URL for the scroogle web search engine www.scroogle.org, instead I posted the link to scroogle dot com, predictably a porn site. Sorry

Reposted on reddit with a better title:

http://reddit.com/info/62jf8/comments/

Yep, you can put your heart and soul into a web site, make it your livelihood, and then have Google crush it overnight. Adsense isn't the half of it. You could find yourself removed from Google without explanation and the complaint process can take weeks and still not be resolved satisfactorily. And if you find yourself slighted by Google without an official banning (a mere error?), there is no grievance process. Squeal on Google's webmaster forum and pray someone takes pity on you enough to respond.

If Google can pay people to drive around taking photos of every street in America, why can't it hire several hundred customer service personnel to address grievances? They have the money to do things right.

It's time to stand up for real friends and real health.

Phillip,

I find Google's stance laughable. As you well know, Google places the types of ads that are compatible with the content of your blog. Hence, while you write against the perils of the big pharm and all the drugs they pimp, Google's adsense then places the ads of those very same company's.

OF COURSE Google will say that your blog is harming their bottom line. I would hope so!!

While I agree with what you're doing, I am also being objective when I have to take your side in this issue. You are being screwed by Google, pure and simple.

While I'm sure you've already looked into these avenues, have you tried third-party affiliation ad route? I have a friend who uses those types of ads over the lame Google placed AdSense and he's making more money with them as well.

Best of luck to you, Phillip. I do hope that you're able to take legal action against Google and while you may not win, as they have the lawyers and money to fight you, hopefully, at least, the resulting bad press and publicity will be enough to move aside the curtain and reveal that "OZ" is nothing more than a sad little man with big dreams of world domination.

Cheers!!

What a crock!
What it boils down to is that they don't expect anyone to make any money off it and they really don't want to pay.
It kills me every time I fork over to Google for Adwords, but not being an advertising genius in any sense of the word, I'm not sure how else to advertise at all affordably on the Internet. However, reading this makes me committed to finding another way even if it kills me!
What a bunch of bastards!
Like the deodorant ad says, I'm with you all the way on this one!

Because you use the term Web 2.0 I think you're a douchebag and hope that nobody ever does business with you again. I have absolutely no control over that, except to insult you in your comments. Good luck with whatever, by which I mean I hope you run out of money and end up in line at the local soup kitchen. I just really hate the term Web 2.0 and have a feeling on top of it that you, like dozens of other people, have probably fallen through the normal cracks in the system. That tens of millions (or whatever real number it is) didn't fall through the cracks shouldn't give you pause. You go on ahead and fight the man. They probably just don't like YOU.

What I don't understand is that since Google AdSense units are part of their content network, the tools allow advertisers to opt of their ads being displayed on any site. They would only need to enter this URL on their "exclude" list. I administrate the online advertising campaign for a Seattle internet company and can attest that it's a losing battle to get to a "real person" at either Google or Yahoo.

As with Phillip, I was given the cloaked in privacy and boiler-plate excuse that my account posed a significant risk to Google Advertisers. What is THAT? That is not even a reason. It is a hidden excuse which sheds no light on why an account is disabled. Really, if it were invalid click activity, Google will say it is. But "significant risk"? What exactly amounts to significant, and what is the risk? I have no idea. If there were a way to find a real person, and not an electronic pathway to other boiler-plate e-mails, I may get the answer. But it does not appear any of us will find reality with google being unrealistic.

Hello, everyone. A jump from $15 to $30 for a few days won't get an account flagged, ESPECIALLY if the traffic is organic, so traffic was not your problem. Don't bother taking legal action against Google because your site was, and is, in violation of the AdSense program policies (namely: site content). Sure, the site content policies are very broad, but they're still there. There are plenty of other ways to make what will probably amount to MORE money off of contextual and/or banner advertising.

As for those of you who can't seem to get in touch with anyone at Yahoo or Google: you're probably not spending/making enough with them to even be noticed. A few thousand a month isn't enough...

I agree with absolutley everything you have written about Google. My account was suspended for no apparent reason, I got an e-mail about invalid clicks.

If they don't pay I'll pursue small claims court.

They'll close you down like the snap of a twig, and I think they're pigs who don't respect webmasters.

If you have pursue small claims court.Let us know the result.I just get banned.....

I thought it was just me. Google canceled my account too, just as Emily said, for "invalid clicks." *sigh* I'm sorry they've ripped you off like this. You certainly deserve better. See if you can look into other forms of advertising to help you out in addition to PayPal fund-raising. That's what I'll be doing.

P.S. Don't be surprised if you see comments on some of these back posts from me. You know the deal.

From Google AdSense's (GAS's) content standards:

"Site Content

While Google offers broad access to a variety of content in the search index, publishers in the AdSense program may only place Google ads on sites that adhere to our content guidelines, and ads must not be displayed on any page with content primarily in an unsupported language. View a list of supported languages.

Sites displaying Google ads may not include:

* Violent content, racial intolerance, or advocacy against any individual, group, or organization
* Pornography, adult, or mature content
* Hacking/cracking content
* Illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia
* Excessive profanity
* Gambling or casino-related content
* Content regarding programs which compensate users for clicking on ads or offers, performing searches, surfing websites, or reading emails
* Excessive, repetitive, or irrelevant keywords in the content or code of web pages
* Deceptive or manipulative content or construction to improve your site's search engine ranking, e.g., your site's PageRank
* Sales or promotion of weapons or ammunition (e.g., firearms, fighting knives, stun guns)
* Sales or promotion of beer or hard alcohol
* Sales or promotion of tobacco or tobacco-related products
* Sales or promotion of prescription drugs
* Sales or promotion of products that are replicas or imitations of designer goods
* Sales or distribution of term papers or student essays
* Any other content that is illegal, promotes illegal activity, or infringes on the legal rights of others"

I don't know why they didn't spell this out but here's my theory on why they canceled your account and wouldn't pay you:

1. "Advocacy against any individual, group, or organization" - Your posts clearly aren't supporting any of the pharmaceutical companies.

2. "Excessive, repetitive, or irrelevant keywords in the content" - The keywords in your content certainly aren't irrelevant BUT they are excessive and repetitive. Excessive and repetitive in that you use certain keywords (e.g. Zyprexa, Eli Lilly) so much that the ads generated from these keywords are the ones that pay the most moolah. It doesn't say excessive, repetitive, AND irrelevant. It says "or" which gives GAS a way out.

Those are my theories.

the thing w the ads is they rotate and reflect what a post is talking about; and the blog author has no choice in google's ad random placements.the ads match up with the topic of the posts. google has reason, it's a scam. i canceled my adsense account just about 90 days ago now, and according to their fine print they should be sending me my 28.00 bucks now [march 08]. I'll take a photo if I get the check, if i get it; it will purchase 8 gallons of gas for my car. i emailed them my reason for dropping the account with a link to this blog being dumped as the reason.

This crap just happened to my fantasy football blog. We were extremely careful to play by Google's rules, we've been advertising with them for close to a year, and this is how they treat us? A form letter with no explanation? That's got to be the worst customer service I've ever seen. What bothers me the most is the flaccidly polite tone of the email, like patronizing me is going to make me overlook the fact that they're cutting us off without so much as a "here's why."

all reason is nothing.the important reason is u made change the google ads position.so, your account is disabled significant risk to adwords advertiser.

Thanks for posting this, I had almost the exact thing happen. In response, I sent google their OWN stats for my pages showing that my traffic came from posting tutorials on sites not from me clicking on my own ads as they insinuated in the same offensive email you recieved.

So after reinstating my account they STOLE the $75 I had made over several months (I guess i was too close to the $100 check cutting time for them).

I now have made back $15 dollars after another couple months, so won't be seeing anything for my efforts for a long long time. I know it isn't much money, but its the greed and dishonesty that angers me most.

Maybe we should all file small claims against google or join a class action suit?

I was supposed to get a check in March, per Google Adsense own terms---months ago.

Nothing!!!

google had me too they are cheaters I was supposed to get a check in june this end o the month but they F**K me out i just receive their email like this:

Thanks for providing us with additional information. However, after
thoroughly reviewing your account data and taking your feedback into
consideration, we've re-confirmed that your account poses a significant
risk to our advertisers. For this reason, we're unable to reinstate your
account. Thank you for your understanding.

As a reminder, if you have any questions about your account or the actions
we've taken, please do not reply to this email. You can find more
information by visiting
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.

F**K THEM!!!