Everyone crows about Google being open and the good guy of the internet, battling the perceived evils of Apple, Microsoft and Facebook. What people don’t seem to get is that Google’s just a different kind of bad guy: one that’s somehow convinced (both itself and everyone else) that it’s all sunshine and roses, but that sneakily punches you in the back of the head whenever it feels like it.

Case in point: yesterday, without warning, one of the sites I’m involved with had its AdSense account blocked. There is no proper recourse and there is no transparency. You can appeal, but if you lose, you cannot sign up for AdSense again. There’s no explanation. There’s no way of accessing your data to answer Google’s own questions regarding your account that you need to answer accurately in order to appeal.

This seems to be an increasingly common occurrence, especially with smaller sites without the means to fight the ‘don’t be evil’ giant, but also with entrepreneurs who suddenly find accounts earning them thousands of dollars per month are suddenly locked, wrecking their business.

I’m sure the many blinkered fans of Google will provide some explanation for the company’s actions. “Maybe you got click-bombed,” for example, “and you should always protect against that, you idiot! I WUV GOOGLE!” And so on. But it’s not the account being blocked that’s the problem—it’s the process, which is about as far from open as it’s possible to be.

Still, that iOS App Store review process, eh?