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Reports of cancellation of AdSense accounts

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Re: Reports of cancellation of AdSense accounts

#71
post #64
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that ads are the only ones to blame. I think the problem is with the web nature of the... Web. I just looked at a simple Wordpress plugin that implements a Call Now feature for mobile sites ( Call Now! ) and for some reason they include a bunch of scripts from PayPal and what not. The only solution to this is to have everything on a page come from the same origin.

> have everything on a page come from the same origin Would that really be so bad? It's not like you couldn't still hook into an ad network and all that, in fact if I were building something AdSense-like I would love to get API calls from the server instead of worrying about the browser. Things like WordPress could bake that into the server side and nontechnical publishers wouldn't have to even know the difference. O…

It's a problem of trust. If the impressions come from the publisher's server then the publisher is tempted to inflate that number.

Re: Reports of cancellation of AdSense accounts

#72
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take away all the flash ads, the ads that start music (!), the ads that start video (!), and I will not block the site. Stop splitting articles in 1000 pages because you need to cram more ads in and I will unblock the site. Stop pushing useless overlays and pop ups into my face and I will turn the adblocker off. My first visit to a website is always with the adblocker disabled. The second visit depends on what ads I…

On my phone, I switched from Chrome to Firefox because many websites had ads that used the phone vibrator, others redirected to the play store, etc. It's insane and you can't disable it from Chrome...

What? Android lets websites vibrate your phone and launch the Play store without permission? That's insane. This is one of the reasons I will never have an android phone.

Re: Reports of cancellation of AdSense accounts

#73
post #51
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't people like Appnexus and Openx alternatives? What am I missing?

Appnexus is a RTB platform and a DSP (and a whole lot of other things they do). OpenX is/was an exchange and is generally the #1 place for buying/selling dodgy af traffic. Neither does what Adsense does per se. What Adsense does is it reads the content of the page, and loads relevant ads from from its database of ads (things people put in adwords) and from GDN (also things people put in AdWords, and DBM, only they're…

Since you seem to know the industry well, what are the top resources (of any kind) to study the current state of online advertising for an advanced audience? Both from the technical side, and from the advertiser's business side. At a level that you would ideally know and learn if you were working as an executive in the industry.

Re: Reports of cancellation of AdSense accounts

#74
post #13

If you ever think about relying on Google for your business, this linked thread is a good reason not to. You are at the mercy of helpful volunteers while Google is stonewalling anyone from ever reaching them and getting help.

My mom called MS about a problem with Edge on Win 10 and they resolved it over the phone within 5 minutes of her requesting they call her. If google ever did that id be completely shocked. Do they even have a phone number?

It took me hours to get my Office 365 subscription resolved with Microsoft support. took talking to 3 different people who kept insisting on remotely accessing my PC, which even when they did they still couldn't fix it. Actually one of them told me that my subscription was a "trial version" when it was clearly not. In the end I managed to talk via email to a person who knew what they were talking about it and resolved the issue in a few minutes. I got the worst impression of Microsoft's support as a paying customer.

Re: Reports of cancellation of AdSense accounts

#75
post #34
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me provide you with some insight into your bewonderment: 1) I work in the Ad technology industry and i can tell you with confidence that ads are far from dead. The human logic of "We hate it, so it must not be working" is understandable but condradicting the actual data entirely. I look at this data on a daily basis and i can tell you that Ads have increased by a LOT in the last 10 years. They are also working fo…

As you're in the industry, I'd like to ask two "aggressive" questions in the spirit of genuine curiosity. That is, I am looking to learn a different POV from my own end-user anti-ad POV. Regarding point 1: >They are also working for the Advertiser better now than they did 10 years ago, as we are able to track and measure much better. What people haven't noticed is the fact that they have become more native, less intr…

Re point 2:

I get where you're coming from. The fact is, that margins on ads are incredibly small. Additionally, the % of people clicking on an ad is understandably low. Usually you get a CTR of 0.3% to 0.6% which for smaller, unpopular content providers isn't much. However, it is often just about enough to make ends meet. The problem is that low popularity is not enough to make anything additional or to even call it a business. With lower popularity you are indeed better off exploring other options like Patreon or well-targeted sponsorships. However, i was mainly talking about SME - type of content providers. Those with 2 to 5 people actually working as a "business". In the end, everyone notices the repercussions of adblocking, but i meant who is actually affected by it so badly that it puts their existence at risk. The lone streamer or blogger will notice it, but for him/her its so low anyways that it doesnt make that big of a difference anyways. The medium sized teams notice it, and for them it might just cut away their small margins so that they are now in the minus and can no longer sustain an actual business. The large corporations/companies certainly notice it, but they can sustain themselves although they are the ones fighting back the most, since they have the resources.

Re: Reports of cancellation of AdSense accounts

#76
post #20

This year we will stop using AdSense altogether. No support at all and the payouts have been declining every year. With the increase of ad blockers, even less encouraging to use ads in general. Sometimes I wonder, are ads as we know it, dead? Everyone hates it, has real usability impact and security risks. Didnt get the email though...

Let me provide you with some insight into your bewonderment: 1) I work in the Ad technology industry and i can tell you with confidence that ads are far from dead. The human logic of "We hate it, so it must not be working" is understandable but condradicting the actual data entirely. I look at this data on a daily basis and i can tell you that Ads have increased by a LOT in the last 10 years. They are also working fo…

Since you seem to know the industry well, what are the top resources (of any kind) to study the current state of online advertising for an advanced audience? Both from the technical side, and from the advertiser's business side. At a level that you would ideally know and learn if you were working as an executive in the industry.

Re: Reports of cancellation of AdSense accounts

#77
post #47
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Acceptable Ads program" is a label that covers up the extortion of Advertisers & Networks. Also, if the USER were actually controlling/deciding what is shown and what isn't then i would have 0 problems with it. However, so far their practice of who/what they allow and what not is arbitrary at best. Im not talking about the automatic acceptable ads program. I'm talking about their closed-door deals that have been goi…

I'm not sure what kind of hard stuff you're on, but a claim that AdBlock Plus has a keylogger is a pretty damned bold one, and you're going to need to back that up with some heavy duty proof. Here's the codebase[1], feel free to point out where in there it is so you can be headline news on HN/Reddit/{Insert News Outlet} tomorrow. Maybe you will be the one to finally kill AdBlock Plus, wouldn't you like that? 1: https…

That AdBlock Plus has a key-logger is still possible in the context of certain browsers, which have RPC APIs, flag setting and live updating capabilities.

This would allow this to be done remotely, and without a user being aware as happened, when a very popular browser downloaded a binary blob, which was noticed by Debian maintainers. Read Chromium's privacy policy. There is nothing that would legally preclude them from doing this.

Also, an older supporting example of company greed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavasoft#Controversies

Re: Reports of cancellation of AdSense accounts

#78
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the user controlling which were "acceptable" is a good idea, but that's basically whitelisting. My first thought was to have a crowd-sourced list of acceptable ads, but that's pretty easily gamed. Then, it becomes a race between the adblock developer and the people trying to disrupt the system and that's a lot of work just to decide what's acceptable.

With a decent ad blocker or two, the experience is user controlled. No adverts. The fact the people will pay money to block bs and spend time and money to achieve this should provide a clue to advertisers. I go out of my way to avoid products that advertise to me. Hopefully no break though, but as a general rule, if I want a product, I'll seek something out.

Are you saying that you avoid companies that use advertisements to promote their products, or products that have advertisements to fund itself?

Re: Reports of cancellation of AdSense accounts

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On my phone, I switched from Chrome to Firefox because many websites had ads that used the phone vibrator, others redirected to the play store, etc. It's insane and you can't disable it from Chrome...

This. That damn vibrate is so annoying. Especially as someone who wakes up 30 mins before my alarm, and decides to read news on my phone with my wife asleep next to me.

Here, and people say that Apple is holding back 'the open web' by not implementing all these web standards.

Maybe people will start realising why...

Re: Reports of cancellation of AdSense accounts

#80
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take away all the flash ads, the ads that start music (!), the ads that start video (!), and I will not block the site. Stop splitting articles in 1000 pages because you need to cram more ads in and I will unblock the site. Stop pushing useless overlays and pop ups into my face and I will turn the adblocker off. My first visit to a website is always with the adblocker disabled. The second visit depends on what ads I…

On my phone, I switched from Chrome to Firefox because many websites had ads that used the phone vibrator, others redirected to the play store, etc. It's insane and you can't disable it from Chrome...

Holy shit, is that actually a thing? Ads that can make your phone vibrate? Does it affect iOS or Android or both?
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