Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google AdSense leak?

pastebin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 176 posts

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#71

Post by programminggeek »

I did enough ad buying from AdWords and dealt with the changeover to "Quality Score" to know that Google cares a lot about raising their ad rates, but not having the perception of doing so.

The same goes with things relating to SEO and since AdSense sits at the intersection between SEO and AdWords, it is not at all surprising that some managers at Google would use the guise of "quality" to juice their numbers.

I don't know if it's true or not, but the story certainly lines up with my experiences with Google over the years unfortunately.

They deal with a lot of spammers and scammers, which is a legitimately difficult job, but they also are a giant megacorp out to make a buck, and that doesn't always mean they do the right thing.

Mostly I bet this gets swept under the rug and isn't investigated, which is a shame.

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#72

Post by HNaTTY »

oh_sigh wrote: post #19

If this is such a slam dunk, why not just go directly to the FBI or IRS? I'm sure there are tons of people in those orgs who would LOVE to smash google if they really were behaving in such an illegal manner. It seems a bit more realistic than hoping that they see this pastebin text, and decide to follow up on it, track you down, and get your statements on the record.

I guess the IRS isn't the right place to go because all that money is probably reported as income by Google. Too bad because IRS whistleblowers are eligible for a percentage of any amount the IRS is able to collect, and with a company as big as Google, that could be an earth-shatteringly large amount of money.

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#73

Post by aggronn »

icebraining wrote: post #47
scottydelta wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all this just false accusation then do you care to explain why google dont have any human interaction with their adsense publishers if the account is banned or suspended while their employees go around licking the asses of people using adwords as advertisers? I had my adsense account blocked for no reason and all the appeal went in vain without any human seeing my appeal. Now I am a major adwords advertiser for an…

If all this just false accusation then do you care to explain why google dont have any human interaction with their adsense publishers if the account is banned or suspended while their employees go around licking the asses of people using adwords as advertisers? According to the story this only started in 2009, when as far as I know they never had any human interaction with publishers, so that doesn't sound like a go…

I can't speak for 2009, but by 2012 large publishers definitely had account managers.

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#74

Post by spada »

benlarcey wrote: post #16

Whilst I've never used adSense much, this does corroborate with chatter in SEO/webmaster forums, especially around 2012. The paragraph on G analytics is also very interesting, it never seems to line up with other tracking tools like Piwik.

Seems that GA is always lower than Piwik and adsense is always much lower than GA.

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#75

Post by hosay123 »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #68

Everything about this post strikes me as a conspiracy-laden fake, from the typos to wrong terminology to untrue policies to the lack of specific names of people. I passed this pastebin to the ads side to confirm for sure, but I would treat this as completely untrue. Added: Yup, I'm hearing back from multiple people on the ads side that this is pretty much untrue from start to finish. Also notice that the "rmujica" ac…

I hate to break out the tinfoil, but do you have any reason to expect the Ads team would admit to you if any of this were true?

Secondly, I'd be impressed if after the China incident, you still had access to Ads mailing lists given that you work in Search, so it at least seems unsurprising that your searches would reveal nothing.

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#77

Post by Matt_Cutts »

sscalia wrote: post #54
tty wrote: post #23

The link went from being #3 on the frontpage to below #20 in a matter of minutes.

How dare anyone on HN attack Google.

It's a fake. It's an anonymous post on pastebin, submitted by a one-time account. The terminology is wrong. The policies are wrong. The post is full of typos. The post has almost no specifics, and the one specific thing they mentioned ("AQ3C") isn't real.

If this story isn't getting traction, then HN is doing the right thing here.

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#78

Post by btian »

hosay123 wrote: post #75
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #68

Everything about this post strikes me as a conspiracy-laden fake, from the typos to wrong terminology to untrue policies to the lack of specific names of people. I passed this pastebin to the ads side to confirm for sure, but I would treat this as completely untrue. Added: Yup, I'm hearing back from multiple people on the ads side that this is pretty much untrue from start to finish. Also notice that the "rmujica" ac…

I hate to break out the tinfoil, but do you have any reason to expect the Ads team would admit to you if any of this were true? Secondly, I'd be impressed if after the China incident, you still had access to Ads mailing lists given that you work in Search, so it at least seems unsurprising that your searches would reveal nothing.

It doesn't make any sense for ads team to lie. If the accusations are true, relevant employees can simply become a whistle blower, and collect bounty (i.e., a percentage of fine that Google will need to pay).

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#79

Post by hosay123 »

btian wrote: post #78
hosay123 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to break out the tinfoil, but do you have any reason to expect the Ads team would admit to you if any of this were true? Secondly, I'd be impressed if after the China incident, you still had access to Ads mailing lists given that you work in Search, so it at least seems unsurprising that your searches would reveal nothing.

It doesn't make any sense for ads team to lie. If the accusations are true, relevant employees can simply become a whistle blower, and collect bounty (i.e., a percentage of fine that Google will need to pay).

It'd require incredible certainty that any of this were illegal for an employee to risk their career going that route.. personally I'm not sure anything described in the pastebin is definitely illegal, but IANAL

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#80

Post by pgrote »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #68

Everything about this post strikes me as a conspiracy-laden fake, from the typos to wrong terminology to untrue policies to the lack of specific names of people. I passed this pastebin to the ads side to confirm for sure, but I would treat this as completely untrue. Added: Yup, I'm hearing back from multiple people on the ads side that this is pretty much untrue from start to finish. Also notice that the "rmujica" ac…

I have no idea if it is true or not, but it speaks volumes to the lack of transparency Google offers into the Adsense/Adwords programs.

The simple fact people will consider this plausible is the news.

Post reply on HN