Yes, I worked with Google before and with sun microsystems and yes, we know all stupid things people are doing... Google is not stupid and has all the tools to monitor cheaters... Banning happened not only with new publishers.. it happens to everyone who are greed and do stupid things.... Of the top ten reasons why account is banned without any further warning, the following are the main reasons.. Clicking your ads using proxies Having your Friends and accomplices to click your ads Having a click-ring (Hitzilla before was big having thousands of members and seems impossible to detect but Google cracked them down) Other reasons like placements, porn, gambling will have warning first...
So Google is omniscient? If someone wanted to give someone else a Christmas Present and for the next few days singled out a website and clicked on their Google ads all through the day they would get a nice after Christmas check - no questions asked. As Google would know of course, that the two were not acquainted. And if the happy clicker were to extend his/her generosity and continue to click on that website's ads for another week or two, then all the better for that website owner. What if this person were to click on someone's ads a few dozen times in succession just one or two days a week for a couple of months. Google would not begin to suspect the website owner of foul play? In this scenario the website would be rather obscure, perhaps only getting two or three thousand visitors a month. You believe (based on your experience of having worked at Google) that Google would know the truth of this situation and the website owner would have no problems. I'd like to believe that also, but I'm afraid that would require a faith greater than what I can muster.
I cannot blame you for such foolish belief but here's the explanation... It's all about statistics... --- The time the clicks occurs --- The frequency of clicks during those times --- The source of visitors doing clicks --- Site's average CTR (especially if no changes being done) I said, hitzilla before has thousands of people clicking on other's websites and seems impossible to track but Google pinned them down... Even if you have 1 thousand people doing clicks for you, the next time a single person from that group click your ad again the other day, and again on next month, would be a suspect.. If google found out that other people/ips from the group doing repeat clicks in next couple of days or months, then say goodbye to your account.. Google's aim to to protect advertisers by all means... Google's database of proxy IPs is updated every minute all new proxy IPs popping-up in every minute are recorded... No one could cheat against Google... Account sabotaging is not possible as well... As what happened to my nephew's account last 2007 when an Indonesian scammer clicked his ad more than a hundred times, Google understands cases like this. Google just simply removed those clicks and advised my nephew to be careful next time and to be friendly online (especially in forums)... Google knows stupid people sometimes trying to bring down accounts of good people...
In fact, it is fraud, for which you can be prosecuted, go to jail, and have a criminal record. Unlikely in the case of piddling a few dollars out of Google, but possible.