Google pulls out of charity site but its founders carry on

As recently reported in the Courier, Oblong UK set up a new website, Home4charity, that allowed users to raise funds towards a charity pot simply by clicking on adverts or using its Google-run search engine.

But weeks after the search engine went live, Oblong UK’s managing director Dan Whiteman received an email from Google that stated it had to pull the plug on the firm’s account because it was generating “invalid activity”.

Mr Whiteman said: “It’s really disappointing, particularly as they vetted this a long time ago.

“Google has really thrown a spanner in the works on something which could earn a lot for good causes.

“They have the tools to be able to take anything down that they don’t want online. With a bit of time and effort, they could have kept things working for us.”

The Courier attempted to contact Google but was unable to confirm whether the company had received our requests for a comment.

But Mr Whiteman showed us the email he had received from Google, which stated: “We’ve determined that your AdSense account poses a risk of generating invalid activity.

“Because we have a responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due to invalid activity, we’ve found it necessary to disable your AdSense account.”

Oblong UK is now working hard with advertisers to ensure that the project can continue and offering businesses low-cost incentives to buy ‘keywords’ which will direct users to their websites when using Home4charity’s search engine.

Mr Whiteman said: “If we can get businesses advertising, we are to a degree cutting out the middle man.

“If we get successful, we will be taking all the money and giving it to charity instead of only a share of it.

“We are determined to get the site working because we still think it’s a good idea.”

Anyone wishing to advertise on the Home4charity website or find out more about it should email [email protected]