I suggest reading the T&C [1] and Programme Policies [2] and then contact the Adsense Team about it before you get banned (you might anyway). [1] https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms?hl=en_GB [2] https://www.google.com/adsense/policies
It's usually the publisher that gets banned, not the site. If the publisher gets banned and signs up again, they can expect to get banned again when it comes to audit time.
Not ethical in general but I wouldn't worry about Ebaums too much. They've established a pretty bad reputation for themselves as far as stealing content goes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBaum's_World
Then you will find out. Usually google sends you an email warning you. And usually again, they just disable all ads until you are in compliance. Fight google, get banned. Always, but always, in all emails with google, be nice and never threaten or whine.
Hotlinking is taking bandwidth other people are paying for. So yeah it could be considered theft. It's not good to do and will give a site a bad reputation. It's possible to stop it though. I wrote an article about technical measures than can be taken to prevent hotlinking of images (it's in my blog). The methods described can also be used to prevent hotlinking of mp3, wav, midi, swf, avi, mpeg, et cetera, too.
Why do you think there are so many autoclicking websites? I think that is just the story that the IT department gives their bosses when conversion rates are low. Sure there must be a few elite autoclicking guys out there making a ton of money but that is a magical feat that can't be explained. Advertisers are probably effected more so by MFA sites and creative adsense positioning than by any non-exsistent autoclicking. Google makes sure that click fraud doesn't destroy anyone's adwords campaign. Just like that site that sued google. They don't understand that most advertisers that advertise on google for $10 and $20 per click advertise for the exposure and probably lose a ton of money. The problem isn't automated clicking it's that the prices are inflated way to high by deep pocket businesses. So how does google catch autoclicking? I came to my own site accidentaly using a proxy and they set a little cookie in my browser disabling the google ads for my browser. So even when I stopped using the proxy I still couldn't see my ads. I had to clear my cookies to even see my own ads again. So complex cookie tracking is one way. Powerful Ip Proxy Blocking is another General Visitor Click Behavior referrer reading - A bunch of people just don't come from nowhere and start clicking ads Of course they didn't need all of that when you clicked on your own ads then login with the same Ip address to see how many clicks you have. Don't click your own ads. People tend to forget that it will take you 2 months to even get paid. You're almost guaranteed to get your ads canceled by then. Now since you are on the warning list your ads might get canceled for almost no reason and your SSN could be banned from google adsense forever. Even if someone does manage to get a good autoclicking campaign going once they are caught google can begin their lawsuit because they have all of your Personal Information including your SSN, Name, Address etc..
Oh,, should not do that. Sometime I saw ads on my website and really want to click it, but have to read the url and typing in another window. LOL