New Google AdSense Terms and Conditions Lead to Widespread Account Bans

If you have a Google AdSense account, this past week you were prompted to agree to new terms and conditions regarding AdSense usage. While most people's eyes become glazed over while reading legal information, not conforming to these new changes can lead to an immediate account ban with no warning or explanation, and it's happening in droves.

Over the past couple of days, many website owners have been devastated by the ominous and vague E-mails sent out announcing account terminations due to sites being "at risk" to advertisers. While there are always bad eggs trying to scam the system, most website owners are what Google would refer to as the little people - those with small websites or even blogs that don't generate as much traffic or ad clicks as, say, Amazon.

Google's E-mails are vague because they don't want scammers to take advantage of any potential weak links or loopholes in their terms or payment formula. Unfortunately that strategy is leaving more and more legitimate account holders in the dark when it comes to banned members who want to do right by the company.

Google has always warned its AdSense users about invalid clicks, sites containing mature content, having too many ads on one page, altering the code used in the ad, or otherwise disguising their ads to look like something they're not, but a couple new rules may have gone under the webmaster radar.

Privacy policies are now required on all websites using AdSense ads. Privacy policies let your website's visitors know what personal tracking information, if any, will be used to collect traffic data, or for E-mail lists. Luckily, for those webmasters who don't happen to have a law degree framed next to their MCSE certificate, privacy policy generators are available. One can be found at http://www.the-dma.org/privacy/creating.shtml.

According to the new terms and conditions, Google will also start banning accounts whose websites don't generate enough clicks, and therefore revenue for their customers. The specific limit wasn't mentioned: