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Google AdSense leak?

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Re: Google AdSense leak?

#131

Post by Taffy1957 »

aiiane wrote: post #112
halayli wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt, given your high profile job and your authority at Google, asking people directly whether there's any truth to this post or not will not reveal the truth. No one wants to lose their job or get involved in this and the easiest path out for them is to tell you that no it's not true.

> Matt, given your high profile job and your authority at Google, asking people directly whether there's any truth to this post or not will not reveal the truth. Actually, that's a damn good way to get the truth at Google.

Matt, correct me if I'm wrong, but you work in a completely different department to Adsense & therefore it is quite possible that you are completely unaware of what takes place with Adsense.

1. I think you will also agree that the Internet is riddled with stories of publisher accounts being closed down prior to payout & without any explanation whatsoever!

2. Google's own webmaster's forum is brimming with questions relating to the mismatch between traffic figures quoted by Google analytics & other 3rd party software.

3. And last but not least, we all know that it is nigh on impossible to contact Google direct & get a straight & sensible answer to any question pertaining to your Adsense account! (Not what I'd call transparency)

Personally I think there is more than enough here to cast doubt & if Google wants to be seen as squeaky clean, then investigation by an outside authority is going to be the only answer IMHO!

Taffy

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#132

Post by dave_94302 »

pgrote wrote: post #80
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.

Right. The fact that people consider this plausible is Bad News for Google.

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#133

Post by fastolfe »

Taffy1957 wrote: post #131
aiiane wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Matt, given your high profile job and your authority at Google, asking people directly whether there's any truth to this post or not will not reveal the truth. Actually, that's a damn good way to get the truth at Google.

Matt, correct me if I'm wrong, but you work in a completely different department to Adsense & therefore it is quite possible that you are completely unaware of what takes place with Adsense. 1. I think you will also agree that the Internet is riddled with stories of publisher accounts being closed down prior to payout & without any explanation whatsoever! 2. Google's own webmaster's forum is brimming with questions r…

I think a lot of the skepticism here is drawn from the experience people have with companies that are culturally very different from companies like Google. Those companies are intensely management-driven, heavily siloed, and have very little internal inter-departmental communication that doesn't go through a layer of management. Difficult questions never get asked because management doesn't want to make waves or risk their fiefdoms. Documentation is hidden by access controls. Employees keep their heads down and do what they're told.

Bay Area tech companies such as Google are culturally very different from this. The silos largely don't exist, and management is not used as a way to funnel and control communication. Internal candid dialogs of surprising vigor can be found about any controversial issue. People are not afraid to ask pointed questions to high-ranking people. Policies and documentation are widely accessible.

It is, quite frankly, unthinkable that something this wrong and this blatant, involving thousands of people, would be allowed to happen for years in a culture such as this. And in a company like Google, "asking around" is indeed productive and would result in open and honest responses.

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#134

Post by fastolfe »

ewillbefull wrote: post #17

Funny; back in 2010 this exact thing happened to a company I worked at. The day before payout (for the previous month ) our AdSense account was banned. So we lost 2 months worth of ad revenue. They completely ignored all of our emails and we had to move to another ad provider immediately.

On average, how often do you think accounts will be banned on the day before a payout, assuming no malintent on Google's part?

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#135

Post by rodmix »

As a security researcher I can confirm the existence of bullet-proof AdSense accounts mentioned in the leak.

There are some big accounts which can break TOS not being banned.

For example, localmoxie.com, a high traffic[1] malware[2] site uses AdSence [3].

1: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/localmoxie.com

2: https://www.google.com/search?num=100&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&safe...

3. Jan 2014 http://archive.today/jsfNy Apr 2014 http://archive.today/AkpoO

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#136

Post by fastolfe »

justanotherlurk wrote: post #52
Greenisus wrote: post #34

I'm inclined to believe this, but I'm skeptical of Google Analytics numbers being deflated. Wouldn't people notice the data not being consistent with other tools or their own web server logs?

It's funny you mentioned this. I was researching Piwiks as an analytics tool today. In a few of the articles, they gave reason to use Piwiks because it shows more traffic than Google Analytics does, with graphs to demonstrate. These were articles from over the past few years. DDG or google search "piwiks analytics better than" and you'll likely see the same articles. I've also seen on many SEO forums that people have…

"... automating account bans past a certain earning threshold ... seems easy to implement, with a massive earning"

More earnings than not banning them and letting them continue to make money for Google?

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#137

Post by nolok »

nivla wrote: post #109
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 am not sure about the claims made on the post but there was something else that caught my eye a while back. I registered for Adsense when starting a side-project. I tried my best to follow all the requirements such as only 3 block of ads per page, no self clicking even if the ad was relevant to you etc. Since it was relatively new, it din't have much traffic. Then it started booming but it wasn't predictable by any…

> Adsense is by far the best paying ad-network but if it had less shady tactics and better support I would have definitely put it on my recommendation list.

AdSense is the best paying network because it behaves this strictly. Advertiser give a larger amount of money per clic in exchange for a much higher guarantee that a clic is a clic.

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#138

Post by nevi-me »

robin69 wrote: post #130
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There you go bringing reason to a conspiracy discussion. :) For what it's worth, I immediately searched for "aq3c" within Google and within my email--no matches found there either. In my estimation, this post is absolutely fake.

In whole explaination it seems like you ae defending Google. :). and why will anyone comeup with his original identity. The Leaker:P is also smart guy SIR. :)

Who else should defend his employer? Someone external who doesn't have any resources to follow?

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#139

Post by jfoster »

adsenseclient wrote: post #94
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…

Hi Matt, We are a large and an absolutely legitimate publisher, that have been pestered and taunted by AdSense since 2009. Look at the history of this handle: it was created out of spite of the treatment we were given by the AdSense team. If there was no strong bias of INNOCENT publishers against TAUNTING and making conducting our business difficult by semi-anonymous AdSense threats from no-reply email addresses, thi…

If you're a large publisher you have options other than AdSense. Why stick with them if they are the way you say?

Re: Google AdSense leak?

#140

Post by Ntrails »

amgin3 wrote: post #93
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.

Furthermore, How do we know Matt_Cutts is even telling us the truth here? Not saying he is lying, but as he is a high ranking Googler, I doubt he would risk his career to confirm such a huge leak about his employer. It could very well be that Google has tasked him to deny any such information that could damage Google's reputation. Simply put, we cannot 100% trust anything that someone with a stake in the company in q…

Welcome to the internet, all of the things you read here may or may not be true.

What is one to do in these treacherous times? The same thing you do with every other interaction you have with people. Weight the information provided with credibility factors based on context, delivery, bias, historical data about the source etc etc.

Either Mister Cutts has built up credibility for you over his many contributions, or he has not. That's your call.

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