paul IMO your spot on with your interpretation, it is against the TOS to encourage people to click on an advert. No room there for ambiguity.

http://money.cnn.com/2004/12/02/tech...ex.htm?cnn=yes

Google sees this activity as a threat. Well, so why is the site I referenced still able to, "Beg" for clicks?

UPDATE!

This Webmaster has taken the TOS violaton down.

Google ads are still showing, so that's good. I wouldn't want someone to lose income, especially this time of year. At the same time, I'm not sure if some of that income was rightfully earned. Either way, I'm happy she choose to take the msg down. And I'm happy Google didn't cancel her account, as everyone needs second/third/etc. chances.

im glad you resolved this, but i feel like playing devils advocate. isn't this type of thing what you would expect from a pay per click advertisement campaign. some people are gonna click just because it makes someone else a little money. should they really be penalized for actually sending a real person to your website? it is in fact real traffic, and google ads are supposed to be targeted so seems like that someone clicking might even fall into your target audience.

anyway let me take this a little more extreme. since the person clicking the link (ad) is soooo concerned about your loss of money on the advertisement shouldn't they simply copy the address for the ad and type it into the browser? after all that way the advertiser pays nothing for the visitor, and we do a nice job of cutting out both google and the publisher. seems fair? didn't think so.

so like i said when you enter into these types of ad campaigns you have to weigh all the benefits vs. all the negatives. if you are bidding 1 dollar or more a click you've got to ask yourself if the false clicks are worth it. if they aren't don't bid so much. if you can't afford it that is life.

i'm just playing devils advocate here and i don't think click scamming is cool at all, but i do think there is a fine line between people earning some return for placing an ad and full out scamming. i don't know what kind of damage he, but like i said there is a fine line between scamming and and supporting your site.

and don't think google has that in their TOS because they care soooo much about you and your ads either. they are in the business of making money, and if advertisers don't feel their money is safe with google or being effectively spent they will go elsewhere. end of story.