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Google AdSense leak?

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Re: Google AdSense leak?

#81

Post by aggronn »

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'm not sure why you think working at Google lends you any credibility in this discussion. To me, your continued discussion here does not help Google's position at all.

Are you authorized to act as a spokesperson on Google's behalf? If these accusations are true and someone thought it warranted a class action lawsuit or otherwise, would you really want to be so visibly commenting on it?

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#82

Post by Matt_Cutts »

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.

hosay123, I've worked with the people this post talks about since 2005. Even though I'm the head of the webspam team, I'm familiar with how AdSense deals with fraud.

For example, I often see disgruntled publishers complaining on the web, and from time to time I've followed up on specific blog posts to get the other side of the story. In addition, the group that manually fights webspam at Google is a sibling organization to the group that fights adspam.

Finally, I passed these claims directly to the ads side and so far I've gotten three (now four) different "this is fake" responses from people I trust and have worked with in different capacities for years, including an engineer that I worked with in search quality who later went to work in ads.

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#83

Post by guyzero »

aggronn wrote: post #73
icebraining wrote: post #47

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? 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.

Large publishers have had account managers since 2008 and earlier. But you have to be pretty large.

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#84

Post by Matt_Cutts »

aggronn wrote: post #81
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'm not sure why you think working at Google lends you any credibility in this discussion. To me, your continued discussion here does not help Google's position at all. Are you authorized to act as a spokesperson on Google's behalf? If these accusations are true and someone thought it warranted a class action lawsuit or otherwise, would you really want to be so visibly commenting on it?

aggronn, I've been debunking conspiracies about Google since 2001 ("buying ads on Google makes you rank higher/lower"). I believe there's value in commenting on untrue claims quickly to nip them in the bud. As a long-time employee with a close perspective on the post, I can tell you from personal experience that the terminology is incorrect and the allegations are completely at odds with my direct experience. I'm also hearing multiple, strong confirmations from the ads side that this post is completely fake.

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#85

Post by DoubleMalt »

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…

So can you confirm that specifically:

a) There is no list of accounts that is protected from scrutiny?

b) There is no group of accounts that is watched very closely for violation of terms?

c) That bans happen almost always shortly before a payout would be due?

The description of the latest known policy in place reads as it is carefully tweaked to be defensible even in a court of law, so even if the "leak" is true, I am not sure if a class action lawsuit has a chance.

To skew the outcome in Google's favour is basically guaranteed if bonuses and goals drive the team members to interpret the procedures in a way that a impartial observer might interpret as unfair.

(using a throwaway account for whistle blowing does make sense, and not necessarily reduces credibility)

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#86

Post by dzhiurgis »

DrJosiah wrote: post #40

If you are going to sit around and "see what happens" for 3 years, you talk to a lawyer. You gather evidence. Emails, text chats, etc. You audio record meetings and conversations with people (subject to lawyer advice). You collect enough information over a long enough period of time so that an investigator can trivially search a dumped archive of email to verify your claims. But we are supposed to believe someone who…

While the story is fake, it still very well illustrates how powerless people are against Google.

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#88

Post by Donzo »

Why would they take all of your earnings for one month instead of 1/3rd to infinity?

That's just dumb.

That said, I have noticed AdSense policy enforcement ratcheted up, but protecting the advertisers is in everybody's best long term interests.

My experience with AdSense policy enforcers was fair.

I preferred having ad units that encouraged unintentional clicking, I made more money like that, but I understand why they made me change it.

Having made my ads less blended to the site, I have had no issues since.

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#89

Post by aggronn »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #84
aggronn wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you think working at Google lends you any credibility in this discussion. To me, your continued discussion here does not help Google's position at all. Are you authorized to act as a spokesperson on Google's behalf? If these accusations are true and someone thought it warranted a class action lawsuit or otherwise, would you really want to be so visibly commenting on it?

aggronn, I've been debunking conspiracies about Google since 2001 ("buying ads on Google makes you rank higher/lower"). I believe there's value in commenting on untrue claims quickly to nip them in the bud. As a long-time employee with a close perspective on the post, I can tell you from personal experience that the terminology is incorrect and the allegations are completely at odds with my direct experience. I'm als…

I'm just questioning whether its ethical for you to 'quickly nip them in the bid'. Most people reading this discuss have no idea what role Google plays in the day to to day operation of the advertising industry, and I think its improper for Google to be the first voice that they hear when they're exposed to accusations like this.

This shouldn't need to be nipped in the bud by a google spokesperson. The only way you're going to do that in a legitimate way is if a third party comes in to investigate it.

I doubt thats going to happen, but I think this accusation is not obviously impossible, and because of that, if the consensus becomes "no, google would never do this", I don't want it to be because of a whitewashing effort by google. I want it to be because no one has any reason to believe this is actually the case.

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#90

Post by guyzero »

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.

And no one on an SEO forum would ever try to get questionable traffic to their site for the purposes of pumping up AdSense revenue.
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