Australians use them more than any other websites and to many they have become essential services, oiling the wheels of life and commerce at the click of a mouse.
But when Google or Facebook no longer wants you, it can be all but impossible to find out why, as internet entrepreneur Mark Bowyer and others have found to their cost.
Earlier this year Google banned ads from his travel website, Rusty Compass, because it said the site "poses a risk of generating invalid activity".
Almost four months and an appeals process later Bowyer is none the wiser as to what that means but is acutely aware of his dependence on an "arbitrary, algorithmic, human-free" service.
At every step Bowyer has been forced to communicate with the company through its website.
"I feel utterly powerless," says Bowyer, who says he is daunted by how much he depends on Google's services for his fledgling business - a website that offers independent travel advice to travellers to south-east Asia - from powering the search engine, providing analytics and directing traffic its way.
He is still unable to fathom what ''invalid activity'' Google is referring to, speculating that because a large proportion of his traffic comes from Asia - where ''click farms'' are often located - Google suspects he might be paying people to click on his ads.
"Of course, Google has the right to decide who it does business with. It doesn't have the right to terminate commercial arrangements mid-stream, withhold funds due, and run a closed appeal process that provides no information to the appellant," says Bowyer, a co-founder of the travel firm Travel Indochina.
Google has "redistributed" the $120 he earnt from advertising back to advertisers. He has consistently denied click fraud, even posing the rhetorical question to Google in his appeal: "Why would I take such a risk for such a low return?
"Since Google enjoys such extraordinary market power, it should be serious about its internal processes and the transparency and credibility of its appeal processes. And, pardon my naivety, but the introduction of a human face would be a good start."
Bowyer's dispute is similar to the three-year-long one the founder of the Aussie Tech Head podcast and website, Glenn Goodman, has had with Google over his Adsense account.
In 2008 Goodman accrued $100 in revenue from Google ads in the first six months of his business. But on the eve of getting the first payment he was suspended. Since the suspension he has submitted online appeals once every 12 months up until this year, when he phoned Google's Sydney reception. The receptionist merely advised him of the Adsense appeals procedure. ''I have given up,'' he says.
Like Bowyer, he says he's never clicked on his own ads and has no idea why he was suspended.
"It is very frustrating and to this day I do not know why my account was targeted," he says, adding that it has affected other methods of receiving ad revenue through Google such as through the video-sharing website YouTube and Feedburner, which inserts ads into RSS feeds.
"I was well aware of fraudulent clicks, and it wasn't due to this. It is due to another reason that at this stage is only known to Google.''
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