Ya i asked them why as well and felt the same vibe

But google is only 30% of online traffic so lets go grab the other 70% :-)

also i thought they credit your account before they bill you? did this change before their rampage?

Okay, this is kind of hard because we're all so used to it now and it's become an actual dictionary-defined word, but try to think back to before it existed. Let's say an old business associate asked your opinion on a company name he/she envisioned being taken seriously enough to eventually become the biggest name on the Internet, and that name was "Google".

I'd have called that egregious...and preposterous too.

Not to make light of the issue, but it's so impossible to fathom what's going on in the minds of the people who perpetrated this bizarre course of action that my brain goes wonky just thinking about it. It's like they don't even seem to care that their position is so beyond the reach of rational thinking that they toss out words like "egregious" as if it's supposed to mean something. Ya gotta think it will eventually and inevitably come back and bite them in the ass, doncha?