Korea ‘Adsense fraud’ scandal
p2pnet.net news:- The Korea Fair Trade Commission has imposed an injunction on Google following a complaint by a Korean Net company saying Google had unfairly terminated an Adsense contract over allegations of click fraud.
“According to the KFTC, Google’s business agreement violations include terminating the agreement between AdSense and the Korean company, failing to ensure payments and not providing advertisers with a right to appeal on the methods used to assess payments,” says CNET News, going on:
“Ciewoo Lee, who runs the Korean Internet vacation travel agency TourStar, said many advertisers complain about the actions of AdSense and are unhappy with Google’s one-sided terminations.
“Lee says no clear data is provided by the search giant to back up its actions.”
Nor are the Koreans alone in complaining about Google’s long-standing habit of cutting off sites without warning or explanation.
p2pnet was among a number which suddenly had their Adsense displays chopped for alleged, and never proven, click fraud.
In our case, it happened slightly more than a year ago and although we emailed various Google executives protesting our innocence and asking for details, we’ve never had a single reply.
But then, p2pnet isn’t the KFTC. In its case, “the decision from the Commission will be dealt accordingly, as soon as possible,” the Google representative said, states CNET.
For us it’s, ‘guilty until proven innocent’ with no means of proving innocence because Google flatly refuses to state the grounds for its decisions.
And there was worse.
We’d also been using the Google search code and without any warning to us whatsoever, when people entered a search query, instead of getting a result they saw:
Forbidden – Your client does not have permission to get ********* from this server. Client IP address: xx.xx.xxx.xxx
The website you’ve just visited has tried to provide you with search results from Google. Unfortunately, the site violates our terms of service so your search could not be completed.
As we said at the time, the implication was: p2pnet must have done something really nasty to merit that kind of treatment when in fact, we’d done absolutely nothing, least of all generating false clicks. Was, or is, the unsubstantiated, humiliating and incorrect claim that had p2pnet violated the ToS grounds for a lawsuit for defamation or libel?
Meanwhile, Google still owes us whatever had become due at the time of the termination.
Back in Korea, “A KFTC representative said any company that conducts business in Korea must practice under the country’s fair-trade laws,” says CNET.
Also See:
CNET News – Google trading fairly in Korea?, February 27, 2007
Adsense displays chopped – Google yanks p2pnet ads, February 1, 2006
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the end (of the Net) nigh?zze University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php | | And use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
