I had a very similar issue. I signed up for AdMob and right before I was payed out they banned my account for "click fraud". This was a legitimate app, no tricks to try and get people to click the ads. I just displayed an ad banner at the bottom of the Android app. I ended up just rolling my own custom in-house ad system and just cross-promote my other apps. I make more money from selling pro versions of my apps anyways.
Is that completely legal for them to do? I know nothing about ad business, but I would expect that if you provided service (shown ads) they should not be able to withhold your money without explanation. How is that different from refusing to pay for, say, rented car?
Your relationship with them is governed by a contract, which in turn is governed by contract law (probably California's but you have to look at the choice of law clause to be sure).
Without reading the contract it's impossible to say whether or not the reported conduct is in conformance with it, but if I had to bet, I'd bet it is.
There are solid differences between renting cars and serving ads.
In the end, it's would be a civil legal matter and probably not worth anybody's time for $100 coupled with the high chance of losing considering the terms of service agreed to.
In my state (Missouri) Small Claims Court seems to work fairly well for these types of things. It does take a lot of time, so it probably isn't "worth" it in a purely monetary sense, but it is worth it to me in an ethical sense. It is fraud, pure and simple.
It isn't fraud. The legal requirements for such are subtle and numerous, but basically require knowledge and intent which are difficult to prove and unlikely in most or all of these scenarios.
Google has to do it's best to serve it's customers on both sides, those who display ads and those who pay for advertisers. Cheating exists, the mechanisms to mitigate that cheating aren't perfect, and each side loses some as a result. To claim that their imperfect anti-cheating mechanism is fraudulent is quite a stretch, and you'll be hard pressed to find a advertising facilitator which provides better customer service for such small sums of money.
I'm not so much concerned that they may make a mistake and close a legitimate account. I think not paying for ads already served, and not responding to queries about it, is enough grounds to take them to court. If Google wants to respond and make an argument as to why they shouldn't be paying for the ads the publisher has served, then they would be free to do so- the problem is they have refused to do so, and I think it is perfectly legitimate for a a publisher to take them to small claims court and demand that explanation.
So yeah, what I probably should have said is, "It smells of fraud, plain and simple". I am open to hearing Google's side of the story.
This is silly and incorrect. Some advertisers have budgets of millions, some tens or hundreds of dollars. Just like some content providers earn millions and others tens or hundreds.
I think the problem is due to their rules they can really ban you for anything. Maybe ad placement is in a spot where people can click it by accident often. Well those multiple clicks are now click fraud in the eyes of google.
