4 ms·

I don't get why everyone is so upset at Google here? The guy admits to committing click fraud and then gets shut down. As someone who spends a bit of money on

by ryanto 16y ago

I don't get why everyone is so upset at Google here? The guy admits to committing click fraud and then gets shut down. As someone who spends a bit of money on adwords I am pretty happy to see Google is active in enforcing these policies.

cincinnatus 16y ago
Where exactly does he admit to click fraud?
- ryanto 16y ago
  > As part of the deal, and as a way of involving the sailors, I tell them about the revenue for the project which all comes from the website. The more the website earns the more sailing I can do, the more films they see. > Oh yes, I was also running little blocks of adverts provided by Adsense and, yes, I told my subscribers that I got some money if they visited the websites of those advertisers – all of whom were interested in selling stuff to sailors. So basically, I am paying for his boat project. People are clicking the ads in order to see his project continue, not because they are interested in the product. Sure, the correlation between users clicking the ads and users interested in the product is going to be a lot closer to 1 than -1. However, that does not justify what is going on... at the end of the day users are clicking the ads so he gets more money, not because they are _absolutely_ interested in the product. I really don't know what else to say about this. Google makes it pretty clear that you cannot do this. Just because he didn't read the T&Cs and just because he is doing videos isn't going to give him a free pass. I think google handled the situation poorly. They should pay him some amount, like the expected CTR for the ads that were displayed on his site. As far as Google never doing business with him, I think thats fine and correct... think of the big picture here.
  - rossjudson 16y ago
    It's not _entirely_ clear that asking users to click on ads is prohibited. That phrase is in section 11 a) ii, in the _Payment_ area, not in section 5, which lists Prohibited Uses. Perhaps it should be. Of interest is section 11's withholding clause, which states that the withholding is "pending Google's reasonable investigation". I don't know why it's there, if Google can terminate at its sole discretion at any time (which is can, according to Section 6). I think it's there to throw some legal chaff in the air and make it _seem_ like there's some protection, so the agreement isn't entirely one-sided. Section 11 (which provides a vague promise of investigation) does NOT survive termination of the agreement, according to section 6. So termination means the investigation is over, and means it never actually has to take place. A fair agreement might require Google to return, to advertisers, confiscated funds. A fair agreement might also create a "suspended" state for an account, preventing termination until the results of a "reasonable investigation" are available. Of course, IANAL. I am just reading what is there, which is what most of us have to do. Looks to me that Google can confiscate any funds it wishes, then terminate.
    - ryanto 16y ago
      > In order to ensure a good experience for users and advertisers, publishers participating in the AdSense program may not: > Encourage users to click the Google ads using phrases such as "click the ads", "support us", "visit these links" or other similar language. from: https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=48182 https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#... I agree with you though, not everything is entirely clear. There is no way Google can make a statement for every case that can possibly happen. They come up with these general rules followed by a 'we can do whatever we want' catch all. I feel like I am defending Google way too much. I think the could have handled it a lot better, that said - I do think the end result was correct and I am not ready to scream google is evil like most people here seem to be doing.
      - rossjudson 16y ago
        I don't think Google is evil. I do think they exhibit (or have exhibited in the past) a pretty callous disregard for the devastating effects their careless customer service can have on small businesses. If "don't be evil" means anything, it means they have a <i>duty</i> to exhibit proper diligence when applying their policies. It all boils down to automation and cost savings. Google has to operate at an incredible scale. To drive the big bus they've decided they just need to run over people (businesses) some of the time. Back then I would have paid $10 or $20 just to be able to talk for 5 minutes to a human being. They could at least provide that option (and maybe they do, now).
- dedward 16y ago
  not click fraud, but a violation of the TOS of adsense.
jshen 16y ago
If a user of my site asks me how the ads work and I say that I get paid if users click them ... Is that click fraud?
- ryanto 16y ago
  No, but its getting very close to the gray area/fine line. If you are encouraging the user to click your link for some reason other than him being interested in the product - then it is click fraud. Example of click fraud: I get paid when users click my ads. The more money this website makes the less time I have to spend working hourly at Starbucks. Less time at Starbucks means more time working on my website, writing content, and making videos. Btw, he says he was doing this in his blog post.
  - brisance 16y ago
    That is exactly the opposite definition of fraud. From Merriam-Webster: a : deceit, trickery; specifically : intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right b : an act of deceiving or misrepresenting : trick Where was he deceiving or misrepresenting the situation? The fact is that there is no tractable way for Google to separate people who are interested in supporting an ad-driven business from those who really are creating false ad traffic for financial gain.
    - ryanto 16y ago
      > Where was he deceiving or misrepresenting the situation? He is deceiving the advertisers. They are paying for people interested in the ad, thats not what they are getting. > The fact is that there is no tractable way for Google to separate people who are interested in supporting an ad-driven business from those who really are creating false ad traffic for financial gain. Correct, but we can look at the average CTRs of other sites/blogs that focus on the same subject. That should give us a good understand of foul play (yes, of course there will be some false positives).
      - 16y ago
BrandonM 16y ago
But the vast majority of the seized funds are from a source that is demonstrably not click fraud (his Youtube videos). The author shows the injustice of Google's heavy-handed, binary method of labeling people fraudsters and taking thousands without a fair hearing.

by ryanto 16y ago

cincinnatus 16y ago

Where exactly does he admit to click fraud?

ryanto 16y ago
> As part of the deal, and as a way of involving the sailors, I tell them about the revenue for the project which all comes from the website. The more the website earns the more sailing I can do, the more films they see. > Oh yes, I was also running little blocks of adverts provided by Adsense and, yes, I told my subscribers that I got some money if they visited the websites of those advertisers – all of whom were interested in selling stuff to sailors. So basically, I am paying for his boat project. People are clicking the ads in order to see his project continue, not because they are interested in the product. Sure, the correlation between users clicking the ads and users interested in the product is going to be a lot closer to 1 than -1. However, that does not justify what is going on... at the end of the day users are clicking the ads so he gets more money, not because they are _absolutely_ interested in the product. I really don't know what else to say about this. Google makes it pretty clear that you cannot do this. Just because he didn't read the T&Cs and just because he is doing videos isn't going to give him a free pass. I think google handled the situation poorly. They should pay him some amount, like the expected CTR for the ads that were displayed on his site. As far as Google never doing business with him, I think thats fine and correct... think of the big picture here.
- rossjudson 16y ago
  It's not _entirely_ clear that asking users to click on ads is prohibited. That phrase is in section 11 a) ii, in the _Payment_ area, not in section 5, which lists Prohibited Uses. Perhaps it should be. Of interest is section 11's withholding clause, which states that the withholding is "pending Google's reasonable investigation". I don't know why it's there, if Google can terminate at its sole discretion at any time (which is can, according to Section 6). I think it's there to throw some legal chaff in the air and make it _seem_ like there's some protection, so the agreement isn't entirely one-sided. Section 11 (which provides a vague promise of investigation) does NOT survive termination of the agreement, according to section 6. So termination means the investigation is over, and means it never actually has to take place. A fair agreement might require Google to return, to advertisers, confiscated funds. A fair agreement might also create a "suspended" state for an account, preventing termination until the results of a "reasonable investigation" are available. Of course, IANAL. I am just reading what is there, which is what most of us have to do. Looks to me that Google can confiscate any funds it wishes, then terminate.
  - ryanto 16y ago
    > In order to ensure a good experience for users and advertisers, publishers participating in the AdSense program may not: > Encourage users to click the Google ads using phrases such as "click the ads", "support us", "visit these links" or other similar language. from: https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=48182 https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#... I agree with you though, not everything is entirely clear. There is no way Google can make a statement for every case that can possibly happen. They come up with these general rules followed by a 'we can do whatever we want' catch all. I feel like I am defending Google way too much. I think the could have handled it a lot better, that said - I do think the end result was correct and I am not ready to scream google is evil like most people here seem to be doing.
    - rossjudson 16y ago
      I don't think Google is evil. I do think they exhibit (or have exhibited in the past) a pretty callous disregard for the devastating effects their careless customer service can have on small businesses. If "don't be evil" means anything, it means they have a <i>duty</i> to exhibit proper diligence when applying their policies. It all boils down to automation and cost savings. Google has to operate at an incredible scale. To drive the big bus they've decided they just need to run over people (businesses) some of the time. Back then I would have paid $10 or $20 just to be able to talk for 5 minutes to a human being. They could at least provide that option (and maybe they do, now).
dedward 16y ago
not click fraud, but a violation of the TOS of adsense.

jshen 16y ago

If a user of my site asks me how the ads work and I say that I get paid if users click them ... Is that click fraud?

ryanto 16y ago
No, but its getting very close to the gray area/fine line. If you are encouraging the user to click your link for some reason other than him being interested in the product - then it is click fraud. Example of click fraud: I get paid when users click my ads. The more money this website makes the less time I have to spend working hourly at Starbucks. Less time at Starbucks means more time working on my website, writing content, and making videos. Btw, he says he was doing this in his blog post.
- brisance 16y ago
  That is exactly the opposite definition of fraud. From Merriam-Webster: a : deceit, trickery; specifically : intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right b : an act of deceiving or misrepresenting : trick Where was he deceiving or misrepresenting the situation? The fact is that there is no tractable way for Google to separate people who are interested in supporting an ad-driven business from those who really are creating false ad traffic for financial gain.
  - ryanto 16y ago
    > Where was he deceiving or misrepresenting the situation? He is deceiving the advertisers. They are paying for people interested in the ad, thats not what they are getting. > The fact is that there is no tractable way for Google to separate people who are interested in supporting an ad-driven business from those who really are creating false ad traffic for financial gain. Correct, but we can look at the average CTRs of other sites/blogs that focus on the same subject. That should give us a good understand of foul play (yes, of course there will be some false positives).
    - 16y ago

BrandonM 16y ago

But the vast majority of the seized funds are from a source that is demonstrably not click fraud (his Youtube videos). The author shows the injustice of Google's heavy-handed, binary method of labeling people fraudsters and taking thousands without a fair hearing.