I just placed some Adsense on my blog (shameless plug: www.copyrightings.com) and saw an ad delivered that I was actually interested in. Can I click that under their ToS?

Can I click that under their ToS?
If you wish to get your account disabled.

Try this, the AdSense Preview Tool which will
allow you to check the destination of ads on your page without the risk of
invalid clicks. For more information, please see:

https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/topic.py?topic=160

If you'd like to learn more about viewing the URLs of your Google ads,
visit Help Center at
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=9876.

For your reference, you can find tips and guidelines for keeping your
account in good standing by visiting
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=23921.

Pokemo where exactly in Google's ToS < https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms?hl=en_US > does it say that you are not allowed to click your own AdSense?

Of course, we're talking about someone who's genuinely interested in the ad – the advertiser will get what they paid for because they may get a new customer – and not someone simply doing crosschecks on URLs.

That's AdSense's rule #1: Don't click on your own ads!

<<Clicks on Google ads must result from genuine user interest. Any method that artificially generates clicks or impressions on your Google ads is strictly prohibited. These prohibited methods include but are not limited to repeated manual clicks or impressions, using robots, automated click and impression generating tools, third-party services that generate clicks or impressions such as paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, autosurf, and click-exchange programs, or any deceptive software. Please note that clicking on your own ads for any reason is prohibited. Failure to comply with this policy may lead to your account being disabled.>>

https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=48182

I think they'll change that and allow you to click on your own ads, but you won't get paid for those ads.

Ok lets take this further.. my kitten accidently jumped on my laptop and the ad went "clik" – Now what happens ??

will Google penalize the Adsense User ??
Does it amount to click frund ?

Now lets take the case in thought in Kevin's discussion ;

Kevin : "Saw an ad delivered that I was actually interested in."
TOS :"Clicks on Google ads must result from genuine user interest"

Kevin: genuine user
TOS:"clicking on your own ads for any reason is prohibited. "

Kevin: account being disabled
TOS: "Failure to comply with this policy may lead.."

Now ..note the MAY clause .. it does not say WILL .. so IMHO, there is the fine line that a user can actually click on an ad of their own site or the kitty can jump up the laptop... a Due dilgence process must be in play by google

Hey, you don't have to click on an ad. You can manually type the URL at the bottom of the ad or right-click and view the source of the AdSense iframe, where you'll find the URL as a parameter ("adurl=...").

Ah, thanks Ionut.

Pd: your kitten can click on your ads, as it doesn't own the AdSense account, and you're not able to judge whether the cat was genuinely interested (because you can't communicate to your cat about this). However, you are not allowed to throw your kitten on the keyboard, because that would mean you "directly or indirectly generate queries". And I think it's against animal rights :)

Regardless of whether it's morally and legally OK for you or your kitten to click on your own AdSense if you're genuinely interested, practically it's a bad idea.

The AdSense TOS are enforced in the main by computer programs that accumulate data, calculate statistics, and look for values outside of some threshold. It's asking for trouble to let yourself get within range of their radar. There are plenty of stories on the web from people who got kicked out of AdSense for reasons which they felt weren't just.

Hey Philipp, I caught him in the act.. and it was on blogoscoped :)-!!

http://slash.pd.googlepages.com/DSCF1254.JPG

he is beautiful!!!

i wish i had one :)

Cute, that maybe leak on the keyboard. take care, @/pd, does you laptop water-repellent? Perhaps you make the top record with the highest Adsense price in the world.

I recently read on Digg that a cat was able to hack Mac screensaver password, so clicking on an ad shouldn't be so hard :-D

I think the cat is actually looking for the mouse. (behind him)
BTW, the mouse (the arrow) is not pointing over the adsense (not even on sight).

actually, my cam was on Video on mode, when I tried taking the pic.. heres the actually -2 seconds before the previous pic..

http://slash.pd.googlepages.com/DSCF1253.AVI

I think Google click fraud detection team should acquire Bitboost, authors of PawSense. ;-D
http://www.bitboost.com/

Google needs to ban the Adsense account of that cat! ;-)

Hilarious picture!

We must observer there's no AdSense in the pic.

To protect against cat-click fraud, I believe that Google needs to acquire cat-detector technology from PawSense ...

http://www.bitboost.com/pawsense/

:-)