That's true, it's always going to be a hard letter to get, and I'm sure that most of the time it's being sent to people who deserve to get it. I think a rewrite should simply dispense with the dire accusations, the fake politeness, and the implication that there's a significant human presence behind the individual decision. Don't waste people's time or patronize them, be direct about what's happening and acknowledge that there may be some kind of recourse if you want to work through the process. 'We're disabling your account because our algorithm told us to. We regret if this is an error, please see this page for more information if you feel this is the case.'
Yes, it's a nasty, no-easy-solution dilemma: Shugging off the spammers yet not mistreating the "false positive" decent customers that your algorithm bans.
What I find distressing (and would find even more so had I been the victim) is that Google refuses to to identify which part of TOS have been violated. Police and courts have to specify which parts of criminal code a defendant is accused of violating. Can we not get similar fairness from corporate America?
Are you afraid that such clarifications would give too much useful info to actual spammers?
Well, maybe a slight edge. But I might compare this to the dilemma that clarifying legal defendants their constitutional rights ("Miranda" in the U.S.) deprives law enforcement of some opportunities to tap some useful self-incrimination: It's part of the cost of valuing Constitutional rights. Would Google dare to offer its customers some Consumer Bill of Rights?
Google is in a contractual business relationship with its partners, not an hiring or governing relationship. The contract may suck, but does anyone sign up for AdSense because the contract is great?
