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$11M settlement reached with Google regarding terminated AdSense accounts

adsensepublishersettlement.com

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Re: $11M settlement reached with Google regarding terminated AdSense accounts

#111

Post by namibj »

kuschku wrote: post #71
paulpauper wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you talking about the $100 threshold?

It was a 70€ threshold over here, but yes. I was waiting to cash out, and just days before I got a "oops it was fraud", and they decided to keep it all. It was my first negative experience with Google, and definitely not the last.

Go to your local police station and file a report for criminal fraud? If the police/DA/whoever just ignores it, or measurably doesn't care what comes out of it, you should be able to start legal action against them for what basically boils down to 'too incompetent for this job', which by the way is even possible for judges, but the bar for it is high, and won't be hit unless the judge was careless in his misbehavior.

Re: $11M settlement reached with Google regarding terminated AdSense accounts

#112

Post by ummonk »

downandout wrote: post #109

$11 million seems astonishingly small given the number of people that have been screwed by Adsense. If myself and one other friend received full payment for our closed accounts, we would consume about 2% of this fund by ourselves.

Have you not considered suing them yourselves?

Re: $11M settlement reached with Google regarding terminated AdSense accounts

#113

Post by mherdeg »

staplers wrote: post #52
tedivm wrote: post #39

When I was in college I had a website that I ran google ads on. I let a balance build up over time so I could use the money to buy school books. When I attempted to cash out Google (which up until that time had no problem profiting off of my site) decided that I was part of a clickfraud ring and refused to pay out the money. There was no way to appeal. Honestly, to this day, I am still far less likely to use Google s…

when it comes to customer support Do they have customer support? Last time I used my google account (a few years ago) to attempt to buy a Nexus, my transaction was flagged as fraud and I was locked out of my account.. I tried for a few days to find a way to contact anyone from Google.. never happened.. I eventually gave up and bought an iPhone and it was ironically the best thing that could have happened in that scen…

> Do they have customer support?

Two effective strategies I have seen are:

(1) Contact a friend who works at Google and show them the comical chain of correspondence showing how your simple, silly problem got even sillier over time. Convince your friend or friends to show an interest in the problem internally.

(2) Write a blog post about the problem and circulate it on social media (news.ycombinator and /r/programming front pages seem to work great).

Re: $11M settlement reached with Google regarding terminated AdSense accounts

#114

Post by chipperyman573 »

will4274 wrote: post #106
markdown wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do they have customer support? Their free services have no direct support channels, as expected. I wouldn't provide free support for free services either. I've received excellent support from Google for GSuite/Google Apps and Google Cloud over the years, both via chat and calls, usually out of their Ireland office. I live in Fiji and my account with them isn't worth all that much (~$100/month).

> Their free services have no direct support channels, as expected Why is this "as expected"? Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon all have direct support channels for free tier customers. They aren't as prompt, but it's only Google who doesn't have these things at all.

Do they?

* I don't believe Microsoft offers support for their free products to people who haven't bought an O365 licence, and instead you have to use their god-awful Microsoft Answers forum (they seem to change this up every few years though so this might not currently be the case). It's community support so if you're having an issue with your account this won't help you, but if you're confused about how to use a product Microsoft makes you might get a response.

* Apple doesn't have any free products (even if you have only downloaded free apps and listen to free audiobooks, you have to run it on hardware you purchased from them).

* Similarly, Amazon requires you to pay in one way or another (Buying an item, paying for prime to watch prime video, etc) to use any of their services. AFAIK AWS doesn't have free support.

* Facebook has a "help center" that's marginally more useful than Microsoft's, but it has the same problem... it's all community support so nobody can "pull up" your account to fix any real issues (like being locked out).

Re: $11M settlement reached with Google regarding terminated AdSense accounts

#115

Post by chipperyman573 »

namibj wrote: post #111
kuschku wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a 70€ threshold over here, but yes. I was waiting to cash out, and just days before I got a "oops it was fraud", and they decided to keep it all. It was my first negative experience with Google, and definitely not the last.

Go to your local police station and file a report for criminal fraud? If the police/DA/whoever just ignores it, or measurably doesn't care what comes out of it, you should be able to start legal action against them for what basically boils down to 'too incompetent for this job', which by the way is even possible for judges, but the bar for it is high, and won't be hit unless the judge was careless in his misbehavior.

Over 70€? You're better off working for a day at a minimum wage job. I'm not saying this is fair but the amount of work involved to (successfully) bring charges against someone who isn't following up on a claim you made would be way greater.

Re: $11M settlement reached with Google regarding terminated AdSense accounts

#116

Post by Radim »

checkyoursudo wrote: post #86
tedivm wrote: post #39

When I was in college I had a website that I ran google ads on. I let a balance build up over time so I could use the money to buy school books. When I attempted to cash out Google (which up until that time had no problem profiting off of my site) decided that I was part of a clickfraud ring and refused to pay out the money. There was no way to appeal. Honestly, to this day, I am still far less likely to use Google s…

I had something similar happen. I still remember the cancellation notice. It was like, "don't bother contacting us; this decision is final." No way to see why they thought my adsense account was a risk. No evidence. Just, "thanks for the referrals, now GTFO" No way for me to even try to prove that it wasn't me doing anything. I had been spending a bit of money on AdWords for my law office website at the same time. St…

Makes your blood boil, doesn't it? The injustice just in this thread makes me gnash my teeth :-)

> It was my futile and meaningless attempt at retribution, of course. :)

Don't say that! Each journey starts with a single step, as frustrating and futile as it may seem. And as this thread shows, many are already marching in the same direction. When enough frozen raindrops merge, even mountains move.

Anecdata: My customer experience with Google has been "OK" (a small paid G Suite account). I have no expectation of free support for their free services.

Re: $11M settlement reached with Google regarding terminated AdSense accounts

#117

Post by drawkbox »

Almost everyone involved in content creation and tech has a story about being kicked from Google Adsense.

What sucked about Google Adsense doing this is everyone started using Google, then got big and they killed off smaller web ad networks. Then they ripped the rug from under content creators that chose them where they cut them off.

It was a bad move, I sometimes think it was a big data move only to get people's personal information and get free tracking across the web of user activity.

It was definitely evil and the brick wall they setup for clarification was unnecessary and very cold.

Re: $11M settlement reached with Google regarding terminated AdSense accounts

#118

Post by RobAley »

ariwilson wrote: post #97
joering2 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly and that's one of not-so-many reasons I'm so happy for GDPR to kick in! Basically a big fuck you to Google: "give me all the data you have on me or I will report you and you may be on the hook for 4% of your revenue".

google.com/takeout

The reason you've been down voted is that takeout gives you all YOUR data that they hold, not THEIR data about you (which GDRP now says is mostly now your data)

Re: $11M settlement reached with Google regarding terminated AdSense accounts

#119

Post by downandout »

ummonk wrote: post #112
downandout wrote: post #109

$11 million seems astonishingly small given the number of people that have been screwed by Adsense. If myself and one other friend received full payment for our closed accounts, we would consume about 2% of this fund by ourselves.

Have you not considered suing them yourselves?

We have, but it would likely cost more than we are owed, and take years. We might also get attorneys fees, but that wouldn't be guaranteed, so it's kind of a "win the battle/lose the war" type of proposition.

Re: $11M settlement reached with Google regarding terminated AdSense accounts

#120

Post by _rrnv »

I had a 12-months old AdSense account with 300 GBP to withdraw. After I tried to cash out, Google banned the account for click fraud. If they were able to detect it, why didnt didn’t they do it on-the-fly and show my actual balance? This happened 10 years ago. Since then I was pretty sure Google is running a massive scam on the long-tail small publishers. Glad to know at least in US they lost a case...
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