Hey Google, WTF?

Last month I started displaying ads on this blog using Google Adsense. I did it as a curiosity more than anything else. After all, a low traffic blog like mine will not generate much revenue. In fact, six weeks of Adsense has earned a whopping $9.76. Imagine my surprise, then, when I received the follow notice...

It has come to our attention that invalid clicks have been generated on your Google ads, posing a financial risk to our AdWords advertisers.Please note that any activity that may artificially inflate an advertiser's costs or a publisher's earnings is strictly prohibited by our program policies.

...

Please note that because we credit advertisers for any invalid activity we detect, we may adjust your account earnings for any days during which invalid clicks occurred.

If you were clicking your ads out of interest or to see who was advertising on your site, please note that clicking on your own ads for any reason is strictly prohibited by our program policies. Instead, we suggest using the AdSense preview tool as an alternative.

...

Ok. I understand that advertisers will not be happy about publishers clicking away on ads for no other purpose than to inflate the click-throughs. Higher click-throughs result in higher fees. In my case, however, it's pretty obvious that I'm not stealing advertisers blind. I would think that Google, for all their sophisticated engineering power, could derive an algorithm that ignore sites with a minimum number of clicks. Less than 10 in a month in my case.

Now here's the rub; I clicked on the ads because I had a legitimate interest in the products offered. It's a compliment to Google that the ads they choose by my blog have relevance to the topics I discuss. I've even downloaded whitepapers and started conversations with sales reps. I expect that Google's fancy algorithms will never determine that.

Google's note refers me to their preview tool, but it isn't supported in my browser. In short, Google's strict policy prohibits me from viewing information that has peaked my interested. Given that I am a buyer of technology I exactly represent the target market of my advertisers.

When it's all said and done, I will continue to click on ads that interest me. If Google revokes my Adsense, then so-be-it. It's a sad testament to a company that many hold in high esteem, but frankly this web behemoth seems more and more like vintage 90s Microsoft.