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Facebook seems not to be paying app developer $160K in ad revenue

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Re: Facebook seems not to be paying app developer $160K in ad revenue

#101

Post by gubby »

skrebbel wrote: post #25
gubby wrote: post #21

I am not a lawyer. I think a mistake many people make in ongoing situations like these is contacting (and thereby deferring to) a companies 'support' channel. By asking them to reconsider, you almost subject yourself to their authority. If you believe you have a legal dispute, you should write to them officially, cc your legal advisor if you have one. Given the sums involved I would personally take professional legal…

I am not American. I read this sort of advice a lot here on HN and it always puzzles me. If I were to believe HN, the only way people ever do business in the US is through their lawyers. Or, at least, the moment there's some sort of misunderstanding or screwup there's always someone on HN who says "lawyer up!" and it's usually the top comment. Somehow, apparently, trying to sort things out the oldschool "hey we're bo…

I am not sure what being American has to do with anything. I am not American either.

I didn't suggest that the OP uses lawyers to resolve everyday trivial disputes. I suggested that given the sums involved, reaching out to low-SLA support channels repeatedly was probably not a good strategy.

I don't attempt to diagnose medical conditions myself, there are people who can do it faster and more accurately. It is perfectly legitimate to reach out for help in areas that you are not familiar with. I am guessing that given this was posted to Reddit in the first instance, the OP is not someone who is familiar with legal issues of this kind.

In this case especially, or any case where you believe you are owed money but the situation is uncertain or there is complexity, it is exceptionally easy to put a foot wrong in a way that prejudices one's case later. For example, admitting knowledge of a T&C that gives the other party the sole discretion in certain kinds of dispute resolution is an example (e.g an "our determination is final" type clause). "Yeah, I saw that term, but surely you can't be serious?".

Lawyers know about these things, and can offer advice about how to proceed, and more importantly how not to proceed.

Re: Facebook seems not to be paying app developer $160K in ad revenue

#102

Post by awiedmer »

downandout wrote: post #91
dandare wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Or at least some evidence. Any evidence. And no, possibility does not count as evidence.so,do you have any evidence for your extraordinary claims?

First, it's happened to me personally with $40k, and a friend of mine with $200k. Neither of us were sending them any invalid traffic. They seem to choose the publishers to whom they do this almost at random; another friend of mine makes over $100k/mo with them and has had no issues. Second, both the Business Insider article I linked to and a simple Google search for "Adsense lawsuit" will turn up scores of people th…

s/almost at random/via machine learning/

Re: Facebook seems not to be paying app developer $160K in ad revenue

#103

Post by downandout »

awiedmer wrote: post #102
downandout wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, it's happened to me personally with $40k, and a friend of mine with $200k. Neither of us were sending them any invalid traffic. They seem to choose the publishers to whom they do this almost at random; another friend of mine makes over $100k/mo with them and has had no issues. Second, both the Business Insider article I linked to and a simple Google search for "Adsense lawsuit" will turn up scores of people th…

s/almost at random/via machine learning/

If that's the case, then their machines have a learning disability, at least as applied in my case and those of a few people that I know.

Re: Facebook seems not to be paying app developer $160K in ad revenue

#104

Post by dang »

zandroid wrote: post #98

I think he is lying to promote his subredit.

On HN, we try to give others the benefit of the doubt, so please don't post comments that are unsubstantive and uncharitable.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12691967 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Facebook seems not to be paying app developer $160K in ad revenue

#105

Post by [deleted] »

skrebbel wrote: post #25
gubby wrote: post #21

I am not a lawyer. I think a mistake many people make in ongoing situations like these is contacting (and thereby deferring to) a companies 'support' channel. By asking them to reconsider, you almost subject yourself to their authority. If you believe you have a legal dispute, you should write to them officially, cc your legal advisor if you have one. Given the sums involved I would personally take professional legal…

I am not American. I read this sort of advice a lot here on HN and it always puzzles me. If I were to believe HN, the only way people ever do business in the US is through their lawyers. Or, at least, the moment there's some sort of misunderstanding or screwup there's always someone on HN who says "lawyer up!" and it's usually the top comment. Somehow, apparently, trying to sort things out the oldschool "hey we're bo…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook seems not to be paying app developer $160K in ad revenue

#106

Post by st3v3r »

tluyben2 wrote: post #86
annnnd wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for online advertising platform for a while and I must say it's difficult here to decide who to trust. In case of Google I would way G, but with Facebook... who knows. It is simply incredible what scammers do to get the money from advertisers (except delivering any value, that is) and what lengths they will go to to get "their" money. Of course G and FB can't reveal their countermeasures, so we must trust th…

If they indeed can distinguish between those then they surely are frauding publishers out of money. As they use the fraudulent clicks story a lot: if they can recognize them, why ban the publishers and not just remove those clicks/views? Makes no sense. It is just a perverse incentive and powerplay (after all these years there is no competition).

" if they can recognize them, why ban the publishers and not just remove those clicks/views? Makes no sense."

Not banning them is the move that doesn't make sense. You have someone who is purposefully trying to subvert the rules. Why oh why would you allow them to continue?

Re: Facebook seems not to be paying app developer $160K in ad revenue

#107

Post by st3v3r »

skrebbel wrote: post #25
gubby wrote: post #21

I am not a lawyer. I think a mistake many people make in ongoing situations like these is contacting (and thereby deferring to) a companies 'support' channel. By asking them to reconsider, you almost subject yourself to their authority. If you believe you have a legal dispute, you should write to them officially, cc your legal advisor if you have one. Given the sums involved I would personally take professional legal…

I am not American. I read this sort of advice a lot here on HN and it always puzzles me. If I were to believe HN, the only way people ever do business in the US is through their lawyers. Or, at least, the moment there's some sort of misunderstanding or screwup there's always someone on HN who says "lawyer up!" and it's usually the top comment. Somehow, apparently, trying to sort things out the oldschool "hey we're bo…

No one said anything about legal threats. However, these are contractual disputes. Contracts are legal documents. Therefore, it makes sense to have the people who would know the most about contracts, contract dispute resolutions, and contract law involved.

Re: Facebook seems not to be paying app developer $160K in ad revenue

#108

Post by st3v3r »

sdoering wrote: post #46
TillE wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hey we're both businesspeople But you're not. Facebook is about a billion times more powerful than you. You're not peers. They literally won't even talk to you.

No. You are peers. Both are businesses doing business. They have a business relationship. > They literally won't even talk to you. And exactly this is, why the system is broken. If you are the elephant in the room and you do not have to care for the flies even if there would be regulations protecting the flies then this is not a good situation. This would be some kind of Feudalism. At least in practice. To clarify: I…

Unless you're Oracle, Google, Apple, or Microsoft, you are not a peer with Facebook.

"To clarify: I know there exists rules and regulations. But if a big player like FB can just ignore them unless someone unleashes their lawyers, esp. if this other person is sitting half the globe away, then something is very, very broken and fucked up."

You're not wrong, but how would you cause Facebook to care? And you can't really say government, because that would require government to be looking over every single transaction. Ignoring the privacy/freedom aspects, that would take a huge amount of manpower that the government just doesn't have and isn't willing to fund.

Re: Facebook seems not to be paying app developer $160K in ad revenue

#109

Post by PhasmaFelis »

skrebbel wrote: post #25
gubby wrote: post #21

I am not a lawyer. I think a mistake many people make in ongoing situations like these is contacting (and thereby deferring to) a companies 'support' channel. By asking them to reconsider, you almost subject yourself to their authority. If you believe you have a legal dispute, you should write to them officially, cc your legal advisor if you have one. Given the sums involved I would personally take professional legal…

I am not American. I read this sort of advice a lot here on HN and it always puzzles me. If I were to believe HN, the only way people ever do business in the US is through their lawyers. Or, at least, the moment there's some sort of misunderstanding or screwup there's always someone on HN who says "lawyer up!" and it's usually the top comment. Somehow, apparently, trying to sort things out the oldschool "hey we're bo…

I totally agree than calling on lawyers should be a last resort. But the article says "I wrote them about twenty letters into every form or email I ever found." This is the last resort.

Re: Facebook seems not to be paying app developer $160K in ad revenue

#110

Post by st3v3r »

sashagim wrote: post #61
rplnt wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they didn't steal it either. They just didn't pay it out yet, it says pending. And even if it was canceled or whatever, "steal" is not the right word since they were never his money to begin with.

To me it seems that like with any contract, the money is his once he fulfilled his part of the deal (ad views/clicks). I agree that not payout out is not the same as stealing, but in this case it does seem awfully close since Facebook is acting as a middle man. If someone hires me to do a job for a 3rd party, gets paid for my work, but doesn't pass me my part - I'd call this stealing.

But if it was determined that the part you did was done fraudulently? That's essentially FB's position here. And their contract states that the remedy for that is account termination and forfeiture of the balance.
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