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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

#71

Post by downandout »

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…

Unfortunately the financial issues caused by the withholding of the payment may put some publishers in a position where they simply can't afford legal help. If it's just a person that had an article or app go viral unexpectedly, and they never receive a payment, they may well not have the money or years required to take on a multi-billion dollar corporation. They'll be upset, but they'll just move on. Facebook and Google know this, which is why they do it to people all the time [1].

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/google-search-ad-policies-cos...

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

#72

Post by codelike »

roryisok wrote: post #70

this might seem silly or off topic, but one of the many things I love about HN is that the mods (I assume) rename thread titles to be a little clearer and less cryptic. This morning the title of this post was "Facebook stole my $160000 For those who use Facebook ads in their Android apps" - incorrect grammar, and stripped punctuation made this a pain to process in my sleep-deprived brain. I'm delighted to see it's no…

Yes, in this case it was a good change.

On the other hand, some of the mods' title changes significantly reduce the information content, as for example the title that was changed for that other thread today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12690853

Originally that title was something like "Microsoft SQL Server 2016 in Docker", which gave some helpful context. But they replaced that with: "Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Express", a change that was not helpful at all, since it sounds like a product announcement of SQL Server 2016 now.

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

#73

Post by rplnt »

akhatri_aus wrote: post #58
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.

This is an interesting interpretation of (possible) theft. What if Facebook has no intention of paying it out?

I'm pretty sure Facebook would be covered if they decided not to pay, I doubt the developer even read the ToS, let alone understood it.

But to the point, "steal" is to take something. If you didn't ever own it, I don't think it can be called stealing.

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

#74

Post by annnnd »

downandout wrote: post #62

Google, through its Adsense program, has turned this kind of behavior into an art form [1]. Facebook must have decided that their legal team is now strong enough to perform the same scam without legal consequences. The elements of the scam are essentially the same between the two: 1) Pay on a net-30 basis, so that in most cases publishers send two months of traffic before they are paid; 2) Wait until the last minute…

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 them blindly... But I believe Google has no problem distinguishing between legitimate ad shows/clicks (not that I approve of this invasion of privacy, but that's the way it is).

I do understand the risk publishers are taking (it might be someone else making fraudulent clicks which could get them banned), but I don't think there is a better way.

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

#75

Post by TeMPOraL »

jondubois wrote: post #67
ohashi wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A complete shame, but this isn't new. This is the digital equivalent of call your local paper and kick up a fuss.

This is quite different because local newspapers are able to bring more issues to the public attention than a single centralized news source can. I think that's the danger of globalization; a lot of people don't read local news anymore.

Because that's globalization - for better or worse, your "local" neighbourhood is in fact (almost) the whole world.

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

#76

Post by chii »

vonklaus wrote: post #64
jondubois wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it captures what is happening with society. If you're not famous, then you have effectively no legal rights unless something REALLY REALLY bad happens to you. This is only going to get worse as the total number of violations by corporations increase and the media can no longer keep up with most of them - Only the most vile/blatant breaches will be punished. I can easily imagine that in 20 years, there will be…

Well, to some extent the OP is an edge case-- not every "little guy" gets his grievance any visibilty. However, twitter, reddit, HN, 4chan, and a blogs of all types make it possible to appeal to the public. 20 years ago the same thing occurred, but with less recourse. A company can have its image litigated in public and that can be good

20 years ago, there's less surface area for which you could be grieved on by a bigger corporation.

Today, where a lot of long tail exists within ecosystems (such as the various app stores), its much easier for a corp to do wrong, and not get punished as each individual infraction is much smaller, but occurr in larger numbers.

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

#77

Post by malka »

downandout wrote: post #62

Google, through its Adsense program, has turned this kind of behavior into an art form [1]. Facebook must have decided that their legal team is now strong enough to perform the same scam without legal consequences. The elements of the scam are essentially the same between the two: 1) Pay on a net-30 basis, so that in most cases publishers send two months of traffic before they are paid; 2) Wait until the last minute…

I really hope that this kind of behavior Will kill ad on the internet.

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

#78

Post by [deleted] »

downandout wrote: post #62

Google, through its Adsense program, has turned this kind of behavior into an art form [1]. Facebook must have decided that their legal team is now strong enough to perform the same scam without legal consequences. The elements of the scam are essentially the same between the two: 1) Pay on a net-30 basis, so that in most cases publishers send two months of traffic before they are paid; 2) Wait until the last minute…

[deleted]

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

#79

Post by mschuster91 »

willvarfar wrote: post #4

Sad that the reddit advice is: [–]guitartrashmaster 45 points 4 hours ago Dude post on hacker news trust me perma-linkembedsavereportgive goldreply [–]VikingIV -2 points 45 minutes ago This. Its the same with google; the only way for devs to get any kind of traction is by kicking up a fuss on HN. Its crazy that it has to be this way.

> Its the same with google;

Insert any other tech company here. Facebook, Twitter, Apple (Radar!)... they only react upon massive public outrage.

Actual user support staffed with humans instead of autobots costs insane amounts of money, and this is why the mentioned companies don't have user support, with an exception for paid add-ons (e.g. ads, Google Apps for Enterprise, Apple Care).

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

#80

Post by Beltiras »

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…

If a company stonewalls your apparently legal claim for remuneration of services or delivery of product then you should at the very least turn to a collection agency. This case will probably require a lawyer.
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