[lynx44]

This sucks, but telling your visitors to click on ads indirectly is a clear violation of the ToS.

I too got fired by Google's algorithm and didn't do anything whatsoever wrong. They are heartless.

Worse of all, this article does not mention the monopoly they have. They own the online ad market. No one else exists that is anywhere as good.

It's straight-up monopoly, and if you get on their black list, you're out.

[drawkbox]

Does anyone actually get paid by Google Adsense? Almost everyone I know has been kicked from it, not early on but usually when a big payment is coming.

And this bit about returning the funds to advertisers? Any advertisers ever gotten money returned due to click fraud?

I love Google and pay for lots of their products (docs/storage, appengine, etc) but the adsense stuff seems very shady on Google's side as well. Maybe it is my misunderstanding but I know noone making good money on Google Adsense.

Granted this dude was violating the ToS but I know plenty of people kicked just before payment and with no reason for it. It seems like smaller sites or medium content sites they are glad to use for free ad space until it comes time to pay dues. I imagine there is lots of free advertising space and metrics gained from these situations.

[arn]

I make good money on Google Adsense.

so do these people: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=imghp&b... http://www.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=...

[epoxyhockey]

Look at the dates on those checks: 2005 and 2006!

Now, go to pof.com and try to find yourself an AdSense ad today. They have their own ad network now: https://ads.pof.com

Shoemoney still has AdSense ads, but has diversified his income stream quite a bit. I'd be willing to bet that he doesn't see anything near what he had been making from AdSense in 2005.

[arn]

Look at the dates on those checks: 2005 and 2006!

Note that Google started offering Direct Deposit in 2005. :)

[Luyt]

Did this also influence the page ranking of your site? (I would have sent this in email, but your email address is not on your profile).

[jshen]

I don't recall him telling users to click on ads.