Google steals money from bloggers
Since november I have an account with GoogleAds and show their ads on my blog. The revenues are marginal and don’t cover even the costs for hosting this site. However, I am very reluctant to continue this relation with Google.
Not only that the ads rarely match the content of my articles, more importantly, the transaction behaviour of Google is unacceptable. They transfer the money only when the account reaches more than 100 Euros, however up until then they already charge their customers for the 99,99 Dollars worth of ads. Second of all, they wait a full three months until transferring money, without even paying interests for the stored money. Third of all, several bloggers are now claiming that Google charges them with Ad-Fraud the moment that the transfer is due – the charges of AdFraud are in most cases totally out of the blue and never match reality.
A recent case can be found at Ruednitzer, the Google Watch Blog has also reported other incidents.
This is no issue about the money alone – but an issue how a company treats their partners and especially those earning the money for Google. Ads only make sense in an environment that is interesting for the readers – if bloggers wouldn’t write, then the ads could not be shown. Google is stealing money from the bloggers because they don’t deliver, they don’t communicate and they don’t give any evidence for their charges.
Here is a list of other bloggers that have discussed this case: Alleswasbewegt, Joblog, Ebusinessblog, Ambros Gleisner, Stefan Waidele.
Other cases can be found in the Adsense Forum.
The first company that is suing GoogleAds is a Korean Company which together with the Korean Fair Trade Commission is asking Google to release the evidence on the clickfraud-charge, even though Google already announced in June 2006 to be more transparent about this issue, they have not taken any concrete steps to comply with their announcement.
Through linking to the GoogleWatchblog and the specific cases, we can at least help that this behaviour receives more attention. See Urks, Robert Basic.
Alternatives to GoogleAdSense can be found at HerrSpackmann.
März 4th, 2007 at 17:40
[...] Kunden Verhalten von Google, was nicht nachvollziehbar ist und einige Empörung bei zu Unrecht beschuldigten Webmastern [...]
März 9th, 2007 at 18:17
[...] wird wahrscheinlich so sein, dass meine Berichterstattung über den Fall Google motiviert hat, mich abzuschalten. Klassischer Fall von Zensur – aber dafür [...]
April 19th, 2007 at 19:17
Dear Internet Publishers and Internet Advertisers
You are being deceived by Google if you are showing Ad Sense ads or if you advertise in their Ad Words program. Google has no assets but sells it’s bloated bubble stock for hundreds of dollars. 20% of all clicks on Google Ad Sense ads are by the owners of auto generated Google Ad Sense pages that the ads are shown on. 5% are generated by Google’s own employees clicking up their profits. 10% are generated by rouge click gangs in foregin countries being paid by the same website owners that auto generate Google Ad Sense pages by the 1,000s. You have a 65% chance of a good click on your Ad Sense ad. Google’s 35% Click Fraud Rate, Flush Your Cash !
März 21st, 2008 at 04:06
[...] Während ich darauf warte, dass die Google-Halbgötter auf meinen Einspruch reagieren, stöbere ich, hellhörig und neugierig geworden, mit Googles Hilfe noch ein bisschen im Web – und stoße auf einen Artikel von Karsten Wenzlaff mit der Überschrift: Google steals money from bloggers. [...]
Dezember 5th, 2008 at 20:59
Sorry but i have to say i have not had a problem with “adsense” in three years, i get paid on time, and i have even clicked my own add by mistake from time to time, i emailed them to tell them i had done so when changing a page, and all seems ok …. it may change .. who knows !!
Juli 16th, 2009 at 02:39
I understand what you are saying, but for some blogs, google adsense still makes more than any other similar program. For most of my sites I tend to use it as a supplement to affiliate programs.