Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified? • Hacker News Board

Re: Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified?

#111

Post by adsense_banned » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 3:52 PM UTC

I was banned 4 days before payout, and not only was my $120,000 taken and "refunded to advertisers", but they retroactively debited my account for an additional $200,000 leaving me a negative balance that I had to pay off (basically show free ads) once they re-enabled me about a month later after many appeals. All told this cost me roughly half a million in their "refunds" and my month of not being online.

And the reasons for my ban could not have been flimsier. Since then it has even been admitted to me by adsense policy team members that it was basically a mistake, though not in those words, as they could never give me a concrete reason, so they blamed it on an older implantation of some of their code... An implementation that an adsense support rep had suggested I use just a few months prior.

Re: Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified?

#112

Post by colechristensen » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 3:53 PM UTC

justizin wrote: post #103

colechristensen wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't fraud. The legal requirements for such are subtle and numerous, but basically require knowledge and intent which are difficult to prove and unlikely in most or all of these scenarios. Google has to do it's best to serve it's customers on both sides, those who display ads and those who pay for advertisers. Cheating exists, the mechanisms to mitigate that cheating aren't perfect, and each side loses some as a…

"each side loses some as a result" Side 1: advertisers, budget: millions Side 2: small content providers, revenue: hundreds There's no way that's balanced.

This is silly and incorrect. Some advertisers have budgets of millions, some tens or hundreds of dollars. Just like some content providers earn millions and others tens or hundreds.

Re: Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified?

#113

Post by jordsmi » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 3:53 PM UTC

mandlar wrote: post #12

fara wrote: post #2

I use AdMob for a mobile game I made. After successfully using it for years I got a notice that Google had bought the company and that my account would now be an AdSense account. I started earning money there and when I reached the 100usd amount, with no explanation at all I got banned. I filled up contact forms but not reason was given to me. They just said that I was not going to have my money since it was going to…

I had a very similar issue. I signed up for AdMob and right before I was payed out they banned my account for "click fraud". This was a legitimate app, no tricks to try and get people to click the ads. I just displayed an ad banner at the bottom of the Android app. I ended up just rolling my own custom in-house ad system and just cross-promote my other apps. I make more money from selling pro versions of my apps anyw…

I think the problem is due to their rules they can really ban you for anything. Maybe ad placement is in a spot where people can click it by accident often. Well those multiple clicks are now click fraud in the eyes of google.

Re: Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified?

#114

Post by sbashyal » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 3:56 PM UTC

Here is a bar chart for this poll result using HNChart - an app I built to visualize Hacker News Polls: http://hnlike.com/hncharts/chart/?id=7672910

Re: Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified?

#115

Post by mostafaberg » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 3:59 PM UTC

I used AdSense on my Facebook App inside iFrames (which was the only way to do it back then in (2009->2010) I made around $2k to $4k monthly, got banned a couple of weeks before the payout cycle, I contacted them and filed two appeals, both were rejected and no reason was given besides that I wasn't complying with the rules, that was back in 2010'ish as I recall, right after Facebook forced the approved list of advertisers (Adsense wasn't in the list)

Re: Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified?

#116

Post by joyofdata » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 4:03 PM UTC

I am wondering about this:

Why not paying out expected clicks according to a forecast based on click data prior to the alleged fraud?

That should be a fair compromise IMO

Re: Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified?

#117

Post by zatkin » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 4:10 PM UTC

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #26

pja wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say you don't agree with a particular site that's using adsense. You could (for instance) have you and all your friends click over and over again on the ads on that site, which Google will quickly flag as fraudulent. Any site that attracts a large number of fraudulent clicks is going to get their AdSense account banned. The site owner has no recourse if this happens to them: they agreed to it when they signed up in t…

Say you don't agree with a particular site that's using adsense. You could (for instance) have you and all your friends click over and over again on the ads on that site, which Google will quickly flag as fraudulent. Is it really that easy to put a gun to any random adsense user's head?

I have lost respect for Google in the sense that they are incapable of responding to people in a timely fashion on bans that could be potentially wrongful.

Re: Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified?

#118

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 4:11 PM UTC

adsense_banned wrote: post #111

I was banned 4 days before payout, and not only was my $120,000 taken and "refunded to advertisers", but they retroactively debited my account for an additional $200,000 leaving me a negative balance that I had to pay off (basically show free ads) once they re-enabled me about a month later after many appeals. All told this cost me roughly half a million in their "refunds" and my month of not being online. And the re…

That's enough money to sue over.

Re: Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified?

#119

Post by anoncow » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 4:13 PM UTC

anthony_franco wrote: post #107

pjc50 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So ... what happened when you followed it up?

Emailed the contacts I made at the AdSense event, they said they'd look into it but never responded. Contacted my friends at Google who referred me to other AdSense employees, those contacts also ended up no longer responding to emails. Going through the usual appeal process just returned automated messages, which also ended up in a dead end. So eventually we just moved on. Funny enough, I was able to dig up an old b…

That sounds extremely bad business. The display network, I presume, must be a sizable source of revenue. Basic email support with a turnaround time of say a week for accounts which have already earned some money is the least a publisher can expect. We need more competition.

Re: Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified?

#120

Post by Udo » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 4:14 PM UTC

I never used AdSense, yet my repeated attempts to do so over the years lead me to believe that I'm banned as well.

They don't say so explicitly, but for some reason the signup process always ends in an endless loop or in a "stand by for review" message. I can't for the life of me figure out what the problem is and messages to support have - of course - gone unanswered.