p2pnet - rss feed: Adsense, p2pnet and ‘fake clicks’
p2p news view / p2pnet: I’ve had it with Google the Good. And you can read that as Google doesn’t want to know me any more, or that I don’t want to know it. Works either way.
I’ve been banned from using Google Adsense. The reason? I generated spurious clicks.
I didn’t, but that’s beside the point. Guilty until proven innocent and unless I’m willing to grovel to Google, there’s no redress.
Moreover, the company is witholding money it owes me.
I already knew I wasn’t alone in being treated in this offhand manner. I’m aware of two other sites, one prominent and one very prominent, that were also taken off the Adsense list for supposedly causing fake clicks to be generated. I also know there was no truth in either claim.
Google says it’s protecting its advertisers, but it seems the practice is common and, conversely, through it, Google may actually be depriving clients by stopping genuine potential buyers from reaching their sites.
The guy who writes Off The Top of my Head blog was also banned.
I wuz banned frum assent for no reason! How do I get my acct back Plzzzz Help!!!
The above is a quote from yet another debarred Adsense site, and it comes in the OTTOMH post, which goes on:
“There are so many posts like this that I thought I would address the issue from both an analytical and personal standpoint. To debunk some of the myths going around that people are banned for no reason and even more to the point that these bannings of accounts (more of a suspension really) are completely and easily reversible provided there has been no violation of the Google Terms of Service.”
Further down, he says he was banned in August, 2005. “The official reason was invalid clicks,” he writes, “but as we all know, that is a catchall phrase and does not neccesarily mean ‘clicking on your own ads’ (Although thats most common). The actual reason was because I was featured on a Radio Show syndicated throughout the world. This show sends out a newsletter which goes out to a few million people so its routine that your site goes down as all that traffic hits you. I was prepared for that aspect but I never thought to notify Google about the feature.
“Now I can’t discuss specific days and CTR’s as I do not want to violate the Google TOS. However, I will talk about monthly numbers which is allowed and will give you an idea on the numbers involved and why it was signifigant enough to get red flagged. In the month before that feature I had done $1,800 with the majority of that being the affected site. The month in which I received my ban I did $7,800 (I was down for around 7-8 days due to the ban otherwise I would have probably hit 5 figures) on what was around 500,000-600,000 impressions. This is quite a signifigant difference, made even more problematic by the fact that most of these carried blind refferers seeing as how they got to the site through their email client.”
“Now on to how I was actually able to get the account reinstated,” says the blog’s author.
“I want to take this chance to reiterate that I never violated the TOS. That means I didn’t click on any of my ads ever (even by accident) nor where there any other violations. This is important because your strategy may differ slightly if you made a “mistake” and clicked one of your ads or something similar.”
OTTOMH’s article gives a detailed run-down of what to do to convince the company that it was wrong in dumping you without any kind of warning, and without any decent explanation, on the incorrect assumption that’d you ‘violated’ their Terms of Service.
His last is, “Don’t Post About Your Experiences Publicly - A human review takes time so posting to a forum with all your details can only hurt your case for reinstatement.” And he adds:
“I have spoken to probably around 20 people who were banned in similar circumstances and every single one got their accounts back with full reinstatement of funds.
“Best of Luck on Your Crusade!”
Too late for me, then. It would seem I’ve blown it, even if I was willing to go through a tortuous, unjust process to achieve reinstatement. I’ve posted about my experiences publicly.
And as I said in my first story on this, Google also deliberately embarrassed p2pnet in public: “The take-down email was private. But there was also the Google search bar and for hours, until I had an email about it, in fact, every time someone tried to do a search they saw, ‘Forbidden’ and, ‘;Unfortunately, the site [p2pnet] violates our terms of service so your search could not be completed.’ Amazingly, Google even published my IP address.”
For now, far from me having to make Google believe me, I think Google owes p2pnet an apology or, at the very least, whatever amount was on the payments clock when it summarily disconnected the site.
I realise I’ll be slagged for making a big deal out of this. But to me it is a big deal. The Google earnings aren’t the thing. They weren’t significant. It’s the principle.
Why should any entity, including Google, be allowed to publicly and privately victimize someone on an assumption?
(Thanks, Del, anduril 33b, Method77, Tom, Masha, Mick and Tony)
Cheers!
(PS - Nope. 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.)
Also See:
I’ve been banned - Google yanks p2pnet ads, February 1, 2006
haven’t heard back - Google yanks p2pnet ads: II, February 4, 2006
February 11th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
i wouldn’t hold your breath either
February 11th, 2006 at 11:44 pm
Your smacking your head against are brick wall bud.
February 12th, 2006 at 3:25 am
If they have not given you money you earned, sue them….
February 12th, 2006 at 5:21 am
I think you are making far better sense here on this site about Google and their fake “click fraud” excuse to remove folks than you will ever get out of them. It isn’t that they can’t prove the case of falsity. They have the data to do so, they also know if they are wrong or not. It isn’t about that and most likely never was. The blanket “click fraud” is the excuse to dump accounts that they feel are costing them money.
They get better exposure from small sites that carry the same ads all over the place than one site with a large following. The small sites have a smaller price tag, simple economics. It’s something they aren’t going to put into writing else they don’t have a way out. This is nothing but a blanket excuse to do the dirty work. Since they already have the data to prove or disprove it, it isn’t a matter of lack of data. It’s a matter of covering their tracks. Google has gotten the big business swelling of the pants. It shows not only in this issue of what they call click fraud but it shows in other places like China where they are quite willing to turn over someones data to do business.
Less and less do I like to use Google. Items like this and like the Chinese involvement make this choice easier and easier. In other places I have sometimes some influance. I will be making sure my voice is heard over this matter of click fraud down the line. Damn I hate big brother!
February 12th, 2006 at 5:26 am
fuck ‘em man- join adbrite:
http://www.adbrite.com/mb/?spid=8194&afb=110_32_01
February 12th, 2006 at 11:49 am
It isn’t your fault
Thay don’t agree with you, so must work for the RIAA.
Internet Rule #17
February 13th, 2006 at 6:38 am
Have you noticed that you lost that account right about the time that google bowed before the wall of China? You show on your China related stories how the Chineese people can circumnavigate the blocking that China does, google may have taken your account out because they did not want to offend their red leaders. Just my humble opinion…. Gizmo.
February 13th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
Seems to me that when they made a public statment (on your own site no less) when attempting to use the google search, that P2P violated the ToS that would be grounds for a lawsuit for ungrounded slander or libel
definition
li·bel (lī’bəl)
n.
A false publication, as in writing, print, signs, or pictures, that damages a person’s reputation.
The act of presenting such material to the public.
February 13th, 2006 at 5:23 pm
Good job on informing the rest of us Jon.
Sure, I agree with those that say, “who cares? Fuck them. Get some other ad” but I have to add that informing the others is more helpful than forgetting the whole thing.
www.beatking.com
February 13th, 2006 at 6:26 pm
This sounds way out, but does anyone think that the fact that MediaSentry sometimes watches this site have anything to do with this.
I say this about MediaSentry because with Peer Guardian I have been getting hit after hit when I come to this site. That is on two different computers in very different locations.
February 14th, 2006 at 6:13 pm
There is a script available to generate fkae clicks which appear to originate from a specific site,tested it on p2pnet - guess it works!
July 27th, 2007 at 8:16 am
[…] And Google Adsense banned him for generating “spurious clicks” (aka cheating). He says he’s innocent, and we believe him, but Google won’t budge. They say they’re protecting their […]
July 28th, 2007 at 8:00 am
It’s a real problem, man. Some of my friends have good sites which generate more than 5000 hosts per day and they often have letters from adsense support about invalid clicks. Fuck em, man.