ThrowSpecificExceptions
Base exception classes should be treated as abstract. If the exception is intended to be caught, throw a domain-specific exception. Otherwise, prefer a more specific exception for clarity. Common alternatives include: AssertionError, IllegalArgumentException, IllegalStateException, and (Guava's) VerifyException.

Severity
WARNING

The problem

  1. Defensive coding: Using a generic exception would force a caller that wishes to catch it to potentially catch unrelated exceptions as well.

  2. Clarity: Base exception classes offer no information on the nature of the failure.

Suppression

Suppress false positives by adding the suppression annotation @SuppressWarnings("ThrowSpecificExceptions") to the enclosing element.