My Adsense account got suspended

Well, yeah, my Google Adsense account got suspended.

I was pretty excited when I was surfing the Blogger.com platform and found out that they had created a widget that will allow me to easily integrate Adsense into my account.  The way I figured it, no one really reads this blog anyways, but if someone does, and happens to click on some Google advertisement, maybe over the year it will pay for my hosting of $10.  So honestly, I wasn't expecting much.

Of course, I got super excited when a couple days ago I finally logged onto my Google Adsense account and noticed that I had actually accumulated over $40.  This was only a couple weeks since I activated my Adsense account.  I had no idea who was clicking on these ads, but whatever, I didn't really care either.

Today, I got a notice in my email box that Google decided there was fraudulent activity and has suspended my account.

This is what the notice read:

Hello,

After reviewing our records, we've determined that your AdSense account poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due to invalid activity, we've found it necessary to disable your AdSense account. Your outstanding balance and Google's share of the revenue will both be fully refunded back to the affected advertisers.

Please understand that we need to take such steps to maintain the effectiveness of Google's advertising system, particularly the advertiser-publisher relationship. We understand the inconvenience that this may cause you, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation.

If you have any questions or concerns about the actions we've taken, how you can appeal this decision, or invalid activity in general, you can find more information by visiting

http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Well... that sucks.

When I followed their link and researched a bit more, this was what was shown:

"Because we have a need to protect our proprietary detection system, we're unable to provide our publishers with any information about their account activity, including any web pages, users, or third-party services that may have been involved.

As you may know, Google treats invalid click activity very seriously, analyzing all clicks and impressions to determine whether they fit a pattern of use that may artificially drive up an advertiser's costs or a publisher's earnings. If we determine that an AdSense account may pose a risk to our AdWords advertisers, we may disable that account to protect our advertisers' interests.

Lastly, please note that as outlined in our Terms and Conditions, Google will use its sole discretion when determining instances of invalid click activity."

I went through the process of appealing my suspension and hopefully it will go through.  It was a pretty long list of questions asking me things I know nothing about, and making me realize besides for a general understanding of the online industry, I really know nothing at all when the rubber meets the road. 

Not like I really need the minimal amount of money I will receive from Google, but what if one day I become this big online publisher?  Okay, that is probably never going to happen but on the off chance it does I'm going to have to change my name and Social Security number and get a drug lord reconstructive surgery to be allowed to play with Google Adsense again.

In addition, it's scary to hear from Google that they have sole discretion determining what to do and no explanation is needed.   Goes back to my whole "big brother is watching" theory.

Fingers crossed...

Update

I just remembered today that I did click on some of the Google Ads myself as I was reading through my own post.  Because I write quite frequently about cars, naturally a lot of auto related advertisements popped up.  During this period I was also car shopping and eventually ended up buying a car through one of the Google Advertisers.  I don't think this really counts towards fraudulent activity, considering the Advertiser paid a couple bucks and in turn I bought a $40,000 car from them.  In addition, at most I clicked on only a couple ads that advertised for local Volvo dealerships, so I don't think that should have set off anything crazy.

Oh well.  To be continued...