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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 enou

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 before a payday to claim a policy violation so that the maximum amount of traffic that the network will refuse to pay for is sent; and 3) Make the description of the policy violation so vague that a successful lawsuit is nearly impossible without significant pre-trial discovery efforts, which will be aggressively fought by the phalanx of attorneys employed by the ad network. What should be even more concerning to publishers in Google's case is the new "Valuable Inventory" policy [2]. In a nutshell, this essentially says that Google is the sole judge of whether or not your content is good enough to display ads against. If they decide at any time that it isn't, you will be banned and your earnings will be withheld. They've also implemented a policy forbidding ad placement that pushes down the site's content - an impossibility on mobile devices. The aim of all of this is to make all publishers technically in violation of one or more policies, which gives them unilateral discretion as to which publishers they choose to pay. It's sad, but not altogether surprising, that Google and Facebook are acting in the same underhanded way in the operation of their ad networks. The only way to avoid this kind of behavior is to use lower tier ad networks, which sadly produce lower RPM. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/google-search-ad-policies-cost-this-company-1-million-2014-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/google-search-ad-policies-cos... [2] https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/1346295?hl=en#Ad_limit_per_page https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/1346295?hl=en#Ad_l...

annnnd 10y ago
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.
- tluyben2 10y ago
  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).
  - dhimes 10y ago
    So if they are refusing to pay the publishers are they refunding the advertisers for clicks? If they are doing that then they can argue that they are doing their best.
    - annnnd 10y ago
      Can't say for Google, but we did. It is only fair. It is in interest of Google that the advertising market works for everyone involved (with a notable exception of fraudsters, of course).
  - annnnd 10y ago
    Because they must not allow publishers to try guessing which methods might be able to escape the scrunity of G. If they can recognize 99.997% of fraudulent clicks and fail at 0.003%, you can be sure that those 0.003 will soon balloon to 10% if publishers are allowed to experiment unchecked. But yes, it is a powerplay. They can afford this, so they do.
    - tluyben2 10y ago
      But it might not be the publishers: it can and often are competitors. It is quite normal that people, from all walks of life, ask me if I search for their company in Google, to click on competitors' adwords. If the small entrepreneur thinks like that then it is not a stretch (and I know companies who did just that) to think many are actually hiring people and bots to click on adwords and adsense of competitors.
  - 10y ago
malka 10y ago
I really hope that this kind of behavior Will kill ad on the internet.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
tluyben2 10y ago
Yes! Please read this as this is not FUD; people just tend to believe big corps like G and FB but yes, I (and I have seen this with many of my friends over the years) have missed $10000s of revenues because of this with Google. Vague reasons and policies right before payday, no one to talk or raise a dispute to. Canned responses and a closes door after. Luckily we survived. Unfortunenately it was not the last time; stupid of me right? It seems that is how Google makes a lot of money. And no, not bitter: I learnt to dislike ads for many different reasons because of it, also I learnt how to never treat my customers like that. No recourse, just screw you and thanks for the free money. I still would like an explanation from Google but as that will never happen... So indeed: I hope ads are dying. Facebook will be helping it along doing this. Edit; this is offtopic somewhat as this particular app might have been in violation. Just the blind believe that G&FB do not abuse their perverse interests (as in: there are more publishers than advertisers, many more) here seems weird. And for me, as far as I know, not true either.
dandare 10y ago
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?
- downandout 10y ago
  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 that have gone through precisely the same experience. This isn't an isolated incident, it's simply the way they do business.
  - awiedmer 10y ago
    s/almost at random/via machine learning/
    - downandout 10y ago
      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.
      - thesmok 10y ago
        Why? Did you manage to get your money?
- vonklaus 10y ago
  > extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This doesn't seem extraordinary. I commented the OP should provide more, and I was skeptical, but it doesn't seem extraordinary. In fact, given OPs post and the parent(and numerous others) anecdotes; it seems quite ordinary and logical.

annnnd 10y ago

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.

tluyben2 10y ago
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).
- dhimes 10y ago
  So if they are refusing to pay the publishers are they refunding the advertisers for clicks? If they are doing that then they can argue that they are doing their best.
  - annnnd 10y ago
    Can't say for Google, but we did. It is only fair. It is in interest of Google that the advertising market works for everyone involved (with a notable exception of fraudsters, of course).
- annnnd 10y ago
  Because they must not allow publishers to try guessing which methods might be able to escape the scrunity of G. If they can recognize 99.997% of fraudulent clicks and fail at 0.003%, you can be sure that those 0.003 will soon balloon to 10% if publishers are allowed to experiment unchecked. But yes, it is a powerplay. They can afford this, so they do.
  - tluyben2 10y ago
    But it might not be the publishers: it can and often are competitors. It is quite normal that people, from all walks of life, ask me if I search for their company in Google, to click on competitors' adwords. If the small entrepreneur thinks like that then it is not a stretch (and I know companies who did just that) to think many are actually hiring people and bots to click on adwords and adsense of competitors.
- 10y ago

malka 10y ago

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

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

tluyben2 10y ago

Yes! Please read this as this is not FUD; people just tend to believe big corps like G and FB but yes, I (and I have seen this with many of my friends over the years) have missed $10000s of revenues because of this with Google. Vague reasons and policies right before payday, no one to talk or raise a dispute to. Canned responses and a closes door after. Luckily we survived. Unfortunenately it was not the last time; stupid of me right? It seems that is how Google makes a lot of money. And no, not bitter: I learnt to dislike ads for many different reasons because of it, also I learnt how to never treat my customers like that. No recourse, just screw you and thanks for the free money. I still would like an explanation from Google but as that will never happen... So indeed: I hope ads are dying. Facebook will be helping it along doing this. Edit; this is offtopic somewhat as this particular app might have been in violation. Just the blind believe that G&FB do not abuse their perverse interests (as in: there are more publishers than advertisers, many more) here seems weird. And for me, as far as I know, not true either.

dandare 10y ago

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?

downandout 10y ago
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 that have gone through precisely the same experience. This isn't an isolated incident, it's simply the way they do business.
- awiedmer 10y ago
  s/almost at random/via machine learning/
  - downandout 10y ago
    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.
    - thesmok 10y ago
      Why? Did you manage to get your money?
vonklaus 10y ago
> extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This doesn't seem extraordinary. I commented the OP should provide more, and I was skeptical, but it doesn't seem extraordinary. In fact, given OPs post and the parent(and numerous others) anecdotes; it seems quite ordinary and logical.