More Google AdSense crap
p2pnet news view Advertising | P2P:- “I still haven’t heard back from David Krane, corporate PR; Michael Mayzel, advertising PR; Nathan Tyler, technology, PR; Eileen Rodriguez, consumer PR; or, Debbie Frost, international PR.)”
That was a ‘PS’ to a post on the fact Do No Evil Google falsely accused p2pnet of trying to swindle it by generating fake clicks on its Adsense nonsense.
We contacted each of the above-mentioned executives not once but several times asking for an explanation.
In part, we said »»»
p2pnet`s stance has created enemies and I`m writing to you to suggest Google may have been used as a weapon of attack. As a reader said to me in an email, All you have to do is go to a competitor`s site and keep clicking on the Google Ads on their pages – mission accomplished. And as another reader says in a comment post,
… I wonder, if the supposed bogus clicks can get a site booted off adsense … doesn`t this mean that anyone can get anyone else`s ads pulled just by running a script against their site. Businesses could do this to competitors. Maybe some party that dislikes the content has `framed` you with automatic clicks. [http://p2pnet.net/index.php?page=comment&story=7791&comment=33169].
If you`d care to reinstate my account with an apology, and agree to pay me the money you owe me, I`ll immediately close the account. That way, we can at least part company with no bad feelings, on my part, anyway.
Did we get a reply? Nary a one.
As Dan Tynan sums it up, “Google makes its decisions, and we either obey or suffer the consequences. Case closed.”
He goes on »»»
Mac developer M. P. found this out the hard way last June when, practically overnight, Google stopped carrying search ads for one of his company’s new products. The reason? They claimed his ads were infringing on Apple’s trademarks. As a longtime member of Apple’s Developer Connection, M. P. begged to differ.
He even got Apple’s attorneys to say as much in a letter to Google.
Google responded with a thank you note to the Apple attorney but did not reactivate the ads. When we asked about the ads, they wrote to say they didn’t get the letter. I guess they didn’t see the cc to us in the note to Apple. We asked Apple to send the letter again. As before, after receipt of said authorization, a note from Google to Apple acknowledging the authorization and then nothing.
M. P. tried again to get Google to reinstate the ads, resubmitting them multiple times for further review.
Weeks passed.
Finally, nearly two months after the de-activation, his ads were quietly reinstated. That was too late for his company, which had designed a Google-centric marketing plan for an upcoming trade show.
In the search ad business they call this getting “Google Slapped.”
Last month, the New York Times ran a profile of Sourcetool.com – a “business-to-business search engine” that also found itself on the bad side of the G-men.
Sourcetool owner Dan Savage had been spending about $500K a month on Google AdWords to drive traffic to his site, and pocketing a little over $600K per month in pay-per-click AdSense revenue — a tidy little profit.
One day Savage woke up to discover his traffic had fallen off a cliff. After some digging, he discovered ads that used to cost him 5 cents per click now cost a minimum of $5 dollars per click which means Google had stopped displaying them.
Savage says when demanded to know why he’d been singled out for this treatment, Google told him to go away.
Savage believes Google saw his site as a competitor and was jacking up its prices to put him out of business. The more likely reason is that Google didn’t like Sourcetools’ business model; it’s an “ad arbitrage” service that acts as a middle man between Google ads and consumers. Its profit is the difference between what it pays for ads and what it collects from clicks.
Along with malware and data collection sites, ad abitragers fall into Google’s blacklist for “poor landing page quality.” Of course, Google is still happy to take their money, it just wants a lot more of it.
I’d have more sympathy for Savage if Sourcetool wasn’t so godawful. It’s really just a series of nested directories, with unalphabetized listings that are often incomplete or inaccurate. It took me seven or eight clicks on average to reach an actual URL for a company. You could find them all a heckovalot easier using — yes — Google.
Still, thousands of online businesses are totally dependent on Google. When the search giant changes its policies or even its search algorithms, entire companies can get chewed up in the process. But the problem is not with Google’s algorithms as much as its accountability – or lack thereof.
Google makes its decisions, and we either obey or suffer the consequences. Case closed.
This is one reason Microsoft and others are lobbying so heavily against the Google-Yahoo ad deal because it would remove the last barrier to Google world domination.
In other words, it’s Google’s world, we just click in it. And if you don’t like it, well, go start your own Internet.
Dan Tynan – Tynan on Technology (beta)
[Tynan slugs his personal blog 'Tech talk without the usual BS.' He's been writing and editing stories about technology and its discontents for more than 20 years. During that time he's been an editor in chief and an executive editor for national magazines, written for more than 50 publications, and taken home a closet full of awards. He's also the author of Computer Privacy Annoyances, soon to be a major motion picture starring Ashton Kutcher.]
[This post originally appeared on Infoworld's Notes From the Field blog.]
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October 18th, 2008 at 11:01 am
since it’g going to be a very tough fight for a small claim against a company as big as Google, maybe a class-action suit is the way to go.
October 18th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Indeed, I have seen my costs for certain adwords skyrocket in the past few months for the advertising I do in my day job. It’s to the point where we (along with a couple of friendly competitors) have ditched many of them altogether)
October 20th, 2008 at 9:28 am
I’d like to know how much money Google stole from p2pnet.
October 20th, 2008 at 10:00 am
^^ So would I
But they didn’t steal it: they just failed to pay what they owed.
Cheers!