
Reports of cancellation of AdSense accounts - gragas
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/adsense/9HiD0kMYU_U;context-place=topicsearchin/adsense/account$20cancelled
======
spiderfarmer
According to their terms, Google can cancel any account at any time without
having to offer an explanation. They also have a history of not replying to
publisher problems at all. The whole 'Official' Adsense forum is run by
volunteers and it's near impossible to speak to a real person.

Even if they are hacked and thousands of accounts are cancelled I don't think
Google will respond.

I would so, so love to see a big player start a modern Adsense alternative.

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

~~~
chewxy
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 pictures). The GDN bit has always been a bit
icky IMO.

So, no, they aren't alternatives. Chiticka and others WERE alternatives, but
there was a quality control issue (also supply side issues, because Google is
a HUGE brand) which led to their eventual demise and/or pivots to waaaay
dodgier practices like popunders.

~~~
djhn
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.

~~~
x0x0
I actually wrote a 10 page article on this for an internal audience. If people
are interested I could clean it up and post it somewhere. Otherwise, the
knowledge is scattered over blogs, ad exchanger, etc.

~~~
angry-hacker
I'm interested. Please let me know if you publish it. Trying to get a better
understanding about the industry, but the information is hard to find or
scattered all over the Web.

------
maaaats
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.

~~~
bitJericho
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?

~~~
oneloop
I'm a "small but not insignificant" adsense publisher. I have in the past
received phone calls from an account manager on the phone. I have the phone
number they called from, but if you call them it always goes to voice mail.
They can call me but I can't call them.

~~~
iheartmemcache
Account manager John's noticed your spending has gone down by 5% each month
for the last quarter, flagging you in their CRM as a member to reach out to
'to help you out, in case you have any questions!' Casinos do the same thing
by profiling high-rollers who haven't visited in a while ("well we just happen
to have a Gulfstream ready for you, sir, and the Villa suite opened up too!").

------
jasonwen
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...

~~~
t0pz
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 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 intrusive and more relevant altogether. I am not talking about your
flashy ads that you encounter on your various pirating sites and other places
that Adsense blocks to begin with.

2) Adblock: Adblock is a big scam. While the average user sees the value (just
for them) they do not understand what it is causing and how it is developing.
Let me enlighten you: First of all, adblock has destroyed a significant number
of small bloggers, content-writers, and other publishers, as especially those
were struggling to stay above water. On the other hand, one of the most
prevalent Adblockers out there (i wont name) is now ironically making money by
selling its Adblock space to certain Advertisers & Networks to show Ads (ha!
ha!). This is literally the behavior of modern-day pirates. You have an
economy of trade-ships crossing the seas, and then a pirate ship comes along,
blocking your passage making you pay taxes/goods in order to carry on. Sound
familiar? Yea... everyone loses, except the average internet user who won't
care until all their content either a) disappears b) deteriorates in quality
or c) becomes a paid service

~~~
Sir_Substance
>First of all, adblock has destroyed a significant number of small bloggers,
content-writers, and other publishers, as especially those were struggling to
stay above water.

People used to do that for free because they cared about the content they were
writing, rather than because it was making their daily bread.

I distinctly remember the quality of writing during this time being much
higher than it is today.

~~~
noxToken
You pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Written content was either managed by major news outlets or by hobbyists. I
can still remember reading many blogs in 2009/2010 by hobbyist who just wanted
to spread their experience with the hobby or craft. Most had no advertising.
Those that did had the small, occasional unobtrusive banner ad. All of the
links to follow were to other blogs by those who proved to the writer that
their blogs were topical and without cruft.

Then the paid blogging boom took off. People realized they could churn out
crap most of the time with the occasional heavy hitter[0]. Keep readers coming
back to a mediocre blog plastered in ads for a minimal amount of effort and
get paid.

Note: This isn't a shot at Atwood. I'm agreeing with him.

[0]: [https://blog.codinghorror.com/how-to-achieve-ultimate-
blog-s...](https://blog.codinghorror.com/how-to-achieve-ultimate-blog-success-
in-one-easy-step/)

~~~
mahranch
> _I can still remember reading many blogs in 2009 /2010 by hobbyist who just
> wanted to spread their experience with the hobby or craft. Most had no
> advertising. Those that did had the small, occasional unobtrusive banner ad.
> All of the links to follow were to other blogs by those who proved to the
> writer that their blogs were topical and without cruft._

You make it sound like every hobby website wasn't out to make money. What
you're describing are the exceptions, not the rule. And they weren't as
numerous as your comment indicates. An RC airplane website/forum had ads or
deals with companies selling planes, marijuana websites (anyone remember
overgrow.com back in 2001?) had deals with seedbanks and marijuana supply
companies. Very rare was the hobby website that operated without sponsorship
or some form of money generation mechanic. Not to mention, hosting back then
was much more expensive. Today it's cheaper than dirt but that wasn't always
the case.

~~~
noxToken
I was speaking strictly about blog sites not forums. Frost is the New Black[0]
is one such site that's cruft free and about the hobby. Granted, it's now
defunct, but it's an example of what I mean. Big Bear Butt[1] is another.

Sites like the one you mention have always existed. I was part of a major
video content forum back in the mid 00s, and even we had the flashy ads with a
circle of affiliates like Shoosh, Kill Some Time, etc. I'm not so naive to
think that the '09 web was a place without obtrusive ads and small, optimized
web pages.

[0]:
[https://frostisthenewblack.wordpress.com/](https://frostisthenewblack.wordpress.com/)
[1]: [https://thebigbearbutt.com/](https://thebigbearbutt.com/)

------
robk
Seems like one of the auto-cancel scripts (probably one of the ones for fraud
purposes) may have gone off the rails over the holiday. AdSense Ops is indeed
global but presumably they're asking the PM/Eng team in Mountain View what's
going on, since they wouldn't normally have too much visibility into these
kinds of scripts except maybe some automated account notes the script leaves.

Because of the holiday I doubt anyone is in MTV to formulate a fix & response
fast enough as it would likely involve corp comms, PM, PMM and other teams
(besides eng to actually fix the issue). No excuses for it, but I'd be
surprised if it wasn't being worked on now as surely someone probably had to
come in last night to begin the triage.

(former AdSense PM)

------
kyriakos
I've had a domain banned on adsense 8 years ago for something a user posted. I
still can't speak to a human to help me get it unbanned.

~~~
waterphone
My entire account has been banned for 6+ years for someone else clicking on my
ads in a way that they claimed was fraudulent. Appeals and offers to turn over
server logs all got rejected.

------
fahrradflucht
Isn't it a bit surprising that a company like Google can't give any helpful
support for such an issue just because there is a holiday in the US? I mean
AddSense has customers all around the globe...

~~~
ctpide
It's not that they can't - it's probably more that they don't want to and
think they shouldn't. Show me one Google Service that actually offers decent
support (apart form their more recent adventures as Google Fibre ISP).

~~~
jpatokal
Easy: All of the Google for Work products, namely Google Maps, Cloud Platform,
Search, Android or Chrome.

[https://www.google.com/work/](https://www.google.com/work/)

Yes, they're all paid services and some require you to explicitly purchase
support on top, but in exchange, you get access to engineers who can go down
to the source code and actually _fix_ issues.

(Disclaimer: I'm one of these engineers.)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Have you ever used the customer support?

~~~
x0x0
Google has excellent support for adsense if you're a large account. At least
in my experience at a former employer.

~~~
johan_larson
That sounds right. The principal business model for AdSense is that it is
cheap and profitable because it is self-serve and automated. That's why there
is no in-person support.

I think things changed about five or so years ago when they began offering
support for their largest accounts.

Maybe there is a business model in this mess. Set up an ads business that
feeds traffic to AdSense, but with a markup. Use that markup to provide actual
support. The support would be mostly from internal staff, but the hardest
questions would go to Google. And they'd be willing to do this, because of the
collective size of the aggregated deal-flow.

------
gragas
I received an email claiming my AdSense account has been cancelled. I never
opened an AdSense account to begin with.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Possibly a variant on the old "You need to update your Wells Fargo (or
wherever) account information" scam. They blast it out to a zillion people at
random, many of whom don't even have accounts at Wells Fargo. That doesn't
matter -- many of them do. And of those who do, some will be naive enough to
follow the link and hand over their credentials.

~~~
relix
Accounts are actually cancelled so no, that's not it.

~~~
Turing_Machine
It's entirely possible that a scammer would exploit a real large-scale
cancellation by sending zillions of fake cancellation messages. In fact, that
would make the scam work better. If the intended victim a) has an AdSense
account and b) has heard of the (real) cancellations, he's probably going to
be much more likely to click on the fake cancellation message.

~~~
relix
Good point, nicely thought out.

------
M4v3R
I have received that email as well. I did have an AdSense account 10 years
ago. The email seems legit (came from products-noreply@google.com), the only
two links it contains are opening
[https://support.google.com](https://support.google.com)

------
Adverblessly
If you follow the link now you'll see they pinned a response about 30 minutes
ago that links to
[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/adsense/hy0cC...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/adsense/hy0cCKvnR90)

It basically says WAI :S

------
djsumdog
It's more likely someone rolled out an update with a bug that sent e-mails use
the wrong account criteria.

------
chetangole
OFFICIAL UPDATE from Google :
[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/adsense/hy0cC...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/adsense/hy0cCKvnR90)

~~~
blakeyrat
They could have saved a lot of confusion by simply putting those few sentences
on the email itself.

But that would require Google to have some ability to empathize with human
beings.

------
tedchs
Inaccurate headline. Subject line of forum thread is: Just received and Email
saying "Your Google AdSense account was recently cancelled"

~~~
ctpide
Have to agree - there is no indication (apart from one person speculating
about it) that this had anything to do with hacking Google AdSense.

~~~
cocotino
Hence the question mark

------
ggggtez
I think it's pretty clear this is not a hack. Please reserve your need to
argue about ad block, which is way off topic and irrelevant...

~~~
adsense_is_crap
The apathy of you, and most other users is as shocking to me as the the greed
that is undermining our privacy. To them, our data which constitutes your
identity, is a commodity.

Unless we confront this status-quo that is the greed that would reduce you to
a fucking "click impression"s your privacy, dignity and experience will be
dominated by a culture of selling to you.

All this to say, @gggtex, that Adsense and its ilk's destruction are far from
"irrelevant".

~~~
worg
Disclaimer: I block ads, I don't run any ad on any place whatsoever, I think
we users must be in control of our data. That said, @ggggtez point is really
relevant, this thread is about technical difficulties on adsense (maybe a
hack, although I don't think so) so this is not the place to bring our ad
political views, let's keep the talk on topic.

------
salomelunarojas
I got it as well but I don't have an Adsense account... It went to inbox
though and the headers seemed legit.

~~~
artf
same here

------
Animats
SEO blogs report massive numbers of AdSense cancellations with no explanation.
It hasn't hit the mainstream press yet. It probably will by noon. Some
customers report getting a "violation notice" from Google, but then look at
their AdSense dashboard and find no violation listed.[1]

[1] [https://www.seroundtable.com/google-adsense-cancels-
massive-...](https://www.seroundtable.com/google-adsense-cancels-massive-
number-of-accounts-22336.html)

------
tunesmith
I have a site where I earn a few cents per month from AdSense. It was getting
close to $100, where it would have been auto-deposited into my bank account.
It was basically set and forget, so I hadn't logged in for a while. I got an
email that my account had been deactivated for not being an active user, and
my "between $50 and $100" was being sent to my state government as an
unclaimed fund. So now I have to fill out a stupid state form and spend $12 on
a notary to get my between $50 and $100.

Did Google email me that my account was _about_ to become de-activated, and
that I could keep it active just by logging in? No.

~~~
tbirdz
You might not have to spend that money on a notary after all. My bank offers
free notary services for all its account holders, and it seems like most banks
offer this service as well. Try contacting your bank and see if you can save
the $12.

------
rurban
And nobody of those users was able to follow the support request and provide
the headers for the emails. Oh my. That's what you get when you don't provide
a support email, just a dumb forum.

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supercoder
I got this email...

~~~
bonestamp2
+1

------
vblord
I'm getting an error when I try to register my website with adsense, but like
others have stated... there is no support contact for people making <
$25/week. What are the best alternatives to adsense for a website?

------
makuchaku
I have escalated this to folks I am friends with at Google. They are looking
into it.

~~~
zalezale
Any news?

------
djt
My account got deleted and i've spent over $7 in the last 2 years and disabled
adverts this week and it got deleted. If I can't get my data back then doubt
I'll ever use Adwords again...

------
benologist
My Adsense was cancelled today, thought it was odd but I can't really imagine
trying to build my life around serving ads again... I think we never even used
it so maybe it's related to inactivity?

------
zalezale
Same thing happened here. On a google for work account where I never used
adsense. After the appeal, I received an email saying that my account wasn't
banned for 'invalid activity'...

------
n4gn
Seems to me like some smart person/persons would be able to build a
cryptocurrency-based competitor to AdSense.

------
amluto
This is off topic, but: do any of the ad networks permit placing the ad script
in an iframe, either sandboxed or with a separate origin? The fact that the ad
network gets all your secrets and can (itself or via malicious ads) compromise
your site or your users' browsing experience (location.href changes, anyone)
is pathetic.

~~~
Animats
Google does not permit placing their ads in an iframe.[1]

[1]
[https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/3394713?hl=en](https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/3394713?hl=en)

------
makuchaku
Even i got this email.

------
Animats
While waiting for Google to resolve this, I suggest reading Kafka's "The
Trial", or the Beckett's "Waiting for Godot".

------
adsense_is_crap
I don't always comment on HN threads but when I do it is so that I can
publicly express my utter delight that somebody might be trying to destroy
this horrible company!

Thank you, state actor, anti-sec hackers or basement dweller!

