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Ask HN: Adsense banned me while owing me 30k. What could I have done?

23 points by m0dE ↗ HN
This actually happened last year. Google banned my Adsense account and never gave me a clear reason why. I appealed twice, but they rejected both without telling me why. At this point, I gave up after that reading about how notorious they're being apathetic towards people in my situation. I couldn't find any guideline or stories of people getting anywhere beyond where I was.

I was wondering if anyone from HN has gone through something similar, and was able to successfully appealed the ban. Or if they were able to at least escalate their matters to the point where they were able to talk to a human being in Google.

My website is www.modd.io. It's a simple HTML5 gaming website. Afaik, I wasn't breaching Adsense's policies.

Thanks in advance guys.

12 comments

[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 33.3 ms ] thread
Eridrus
There was recently a class action over this practice: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/google/google-agrees-t...

You should act quickly to either submit a claim as part of the settlement, or exclude yourself from the settlement: http://www.adsensepublishersettlement.com/

I would look over the terms of the settlement and see if they work for you ASAP, since the deadline is in 3 days.

m0dE
wow I didn’t know about this. Thanks you. Just out of curiosity, why would one want to exclude themselves from this settlement?
qbrass
So you can sue Google on your own and not as part of the class action.
Eridrus
If you read the terms and are unhappy enough with them that you would want to file your own lawsuit, then you should exclude yourself. If you accept the terms, then you're giving up the right to sue them separately.
badrabbit
Google is human unfriendly. They only care if their bottom line is in danger. Make a lot of noise on social media(involve your user base if possible.)

You probably thought of this already but why can't you sue them? Even if you lose,you might at least get a review of the ban. Do they have a non-arbitration TOS?

anoncoward111
Is it a bad idea to sue? I mean, they're Google, but, if they owed you the money...?

Just find a friend of a friend who is a lawyer and who will file it for you?

zerr
Is it possible to always withdraw funds on the go? Why wait accumulating 30k?
gesman
Google enforced scheduled payouts to benefit from traffic driven by publishers but be able to avoid paying off accumulated fees on a short notice with some standard excuse.
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marktangotango
Seems like there would be click rings extorting adsense users; pay up or we’ll get your account banned.