
$11M settlement reached with Google regarding terminated AdSense accounts - smartician
http://www.adsensepublishersettlement.com
======
tedivm
When I was in college I had a website that I ran google ads on. I let a
balance build up over time so I could use the money to buy school books. When
I attempted to cash out Google (which up until that time had no problem
profiting off of my site) decided that I was part of a clickfraud ring and
refused to pay out the money. There was no way to appeal.

Honestly, to this day, I am still far less likely to use Google services (I
won't touch Google's Cloud, for instance) because of how bad that experience
was. The stress of being a college student who needed that money was
definitely a multiplier, but at the end of the day I don't think it's possible
to expect Google to do the right thing when it comes to customer support-
especially when they can directly profit by hurting them.

~~~
staplers

      when it comes to customer support
    

Do they have customer support? Last time I used my google account (a few years
ago) to attempt to buy a Nexus, my transaction was flagged as fraud and I was
locked out of my account.. I tried for a few days to find a way to contact
anyone from Google.. never happened..

I eventually gave up and bought an iPhone and it was ironically the best thing
that could have happened in that scenario.

~~~
markdown
> Do they have customer support?

Their free services have no direct support channels, as expected. I wouldn't
provide free support for free services either.

I've received excellent support from Google for GSuite/Google Apps and Google
Cloud over the years, both via chat and calls, usually out of their Ireland
office.

I live in Fiji and my account with them isn't worth all that much
(~$100/month).

~~~
will4274
> Their free services have no direct support channels, as expected

Why is this "as expected"? Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon all have
direct support channels for free tier customers. They aren't as prompt, but
it's only Google who doesn't have these things at all.

~~~
chipperyman573
Do they?

* I don't believe Microsoft offers support for their free products to people who haven't bought an O365 licence, and instead you have to use their god-awful Microsoft Answers forum (they seem to change this up every few years though so this might not currently be the case). It's community support so if you're having an issue with your account this won't help you, but if you're confused about how to use a product Microsoft makes you might get a response.

* Apple doesn't have any free products (even if you have only downloaded free apps and listen to free audiobooks, you have to run it on hardware you purchased from them).

* Similarly, Amazon requires you to pay in one way or another (Buying an item, paying for prime to watch prime video, etc) to use any of their services. AFAIK AWS doesn't have free support.

* Facebook has a "help center" that's marginally more useful than Microsoft's, but it has the same problem... it's all community support so nobody can "pull up" your account to fix any real issues (like being locked out).

~~~
code_duck
Apple makes some software available for other platforms without charge, such
as Safari for Windows.

~~~
chipperyman573
Do they offer support for it? I am really asking, I have no idea. I would
assume they don't

~~~
code_duck
I have no clue. I don’t know what support people would think they need for a
browser, but computer illiterate people expect some crazy things.

------
jezzadebate
This one still stings, even though it was years ago. I built and ran a mobile
sports news application, we amassed millions of users and were written up in
several publications.

One day our AdSense account was disabled, no warning, no nothing. We had never
resorted to a single 'trick' or 'hack'. Nobody at Google could even tell us
what exactly we were supposedly accused of.

After months of escalation, the final word was "we cannot tell you what you
have allegedly done, we will not re-instate your account, you may not appeal
any further".

~~~
Zhenya
Did you involve legal council?

~~~
pvg
You need at least a coven or cabal to take on Google, council isn't going to
cut it.

~~~
cortesoft
Well whoever filed this lawsuit seems to have succeeded.

~~~
pvg
Plaintiffs were represented by Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, a Limited
Liability Presidium.

~~~
sah2ed
> ... a Limited Liability Presidium.

Shouldn't that have been Limited Liability Partnership? Autocomplete fail?

~~~
pvg
No.

------
Tpsoc
This was years ago for me, but as bad as it is losing the amount earned, it
was just the lack of response when trying to understand why you were
terminated. I had no idea why I was banned. I didn't employ any shady tricks.
The only thing I noticed in the few weeks prior to the account banned was a
higher CTR.

I actually emailed Adsense support at that time to let them know that it was
out of the ordinary for my site.

Additionally, I also had an account on the CPA affiliate side of things with
the same account that was banned because it was tied with the Adsense email
account.

~~~
bridanp
Same for me here. The lack of response was ridiculous. I would have loved to
been told what was wrong or why the ban so I could at least try to resolve the
issue somehow. But the only thing I received in return was that the decision
was final. I noticed a higher CTR prior to the ban, but nothing else out of
the ordinary.

I had Webmaster tools and Analytics on site, so after the ban I could still
research backwards, and could not find anything that was out of the ordinary
other than the CTR was just a bit higher.

Eh, it seems this is still a bit of a sore subject for me. I lost a good bit
of income from this decision, and it hurt at the time. Looking back, I'm glad
I don't gain income from this any longer. It just seems like a scam. I started
out using my websites as a place to teach and inform and the different
subjects I have knowledge and interests in. But trying to blend keywords in so
that Google and the other ads I ran could get high quality "eyeballs" on my
content really became an inauthentic experience.

~~~
Tpsoc
I'm glad I don't gain/depend on income from adsense any longer as well. Moved
on to CPA and then SaaS.

------
Ensorceled
I get the "We think your business is a scam and so we are terminating our
relationship" but I don't understand why "... and we'll keep the money."
doesn't result in criminal charges.

~~~
smartician
What's even worse is that they won't tell you what you allegedly did wrong.
You can appeal, but you have to guess what you did wrong and provide evidence,
but you can't even access your click data anymore since you're now locked out.
It's like being in a relationship with a psychotic person.

~~~
joering2
Exactly and that's one of not-so-many reasons I'm so happy for GDPR to kick
in!

Basically a big fuck you to Google: "give me all the data you have on me or I
will report you and you may be on the hook for 4% of your revenue".

~~~
ariwilson
google.com/takeout

~~~
RobAley
The reason you've been down voted is that takeout gives you all YOUR data that
they hold, not THEIR data about you (which GDRP now says is mostly now your
data)

~~~
joering2
Whats even crazier is that I used that tool and google took 4 hours to build
my archives. Fair enough. Problem is... some files are not mine!!! clearly not
my name not my email address not my correspondence. No idea how this is
happening. I will reach out to this person but other than that no idea where
to reach to google as their checkout page does not offer any "contact us". I
am also concerned someone using this tool will get my own data!!!

------
RasputinsBro
I worked in advertising and I saw how scared AdSense publishers constantly
were of getting banned by Google. I understand that Google has to defend their
business, but some times they were really harsh on things that were debatable
grey areas. I always thought that Google was just needlessly giving itself a
bad reputation as a business partner.

$11M is about 1 hr of Google's revenue (365 x 24 x 11/100000 = 0.96)

EDIT: This actually reminded me of that post a few days ago on HN, about the
guy comparing foxes and racoons with some companies in the financial industry,
and how some could be winning at the game but losing at the meta-game. Google
should be more careful with its meta-game.

~~~
smartician
11 million is a joke really. I only lost about $250, but it pretty much killed
off an otherwise promising potential startup.

~~~
jacquesm
Alternative reading: they did you a favor by showing you early on that they
could kill your startup at a moments notice. That's a lot better than to have
25 people on the payroll and see your advertising contract go up in smoke
(which happened to me).

~~~
smartician
I agree. It also taught me a valuable (and fairly cheap) lesson on not relying
on a single source of revenue.

------
apandhi
I've had friends that have lost $100k+ due to Adsense terminations on
legitimate sites. I've personally lost about $10k. We'll see how much I
actually get paid out from this class action (I think I read that they cap it
at $5k)

~~~
smartician
Yes: "... Payments to each of the Class Representatives, not to exceed $5,000
each, as compensation for their active participation in the case on behalf of
the Settlement Class ..."

EDIT: see below for correction

~~~
jkaplowitz
As your quote notes, Class Representatives mean people with "active
participation in the case" \- i.e. the members of the class who spend their
time dealing with the class lawyers and showing up in court as named
plaintiffs.

This would be separate from anything that class members receive just by being
class members.

~~~
smartician
Good catch! From the agreement document: "“Class Representative(s)” means each
and all of the named Plaintiffs in this Action: Free Range Content, Inc.,
Coconut Island Software, Inc., Taylor Chose, and Matthew Simpson"

So that clause means that the plaintiffs will get up to $5,000 on top of what
they will receive as claimants, and there is no such limit on claims (but the
total payments will not exceed 11 million, including attorney and class
representative compensation).

~~~
apandhi
Great to know! Here's to hoping they pay out the entire amount I'm owed.

Thanks, Guys!

~~~
jlgaddis
If I were you, I would expect to receive literally pennies on the dollar.

Attorney fees will eat up a significant chunk of that $11MM.

------
phyller
Years ago I tried to start a small side business on Youtube. I filmed and
edited a dozen or so videos with great effort, and hid them until we could
launch. While we were polishing things one of the guys that was working with
me clicked on an ad, I believe twice. It was for a car or something and it was
worth about $12 total. I almost immediately saw it on our account, and figured
out what happened. I tried to disown those clicks and that revenue, but there
was no way to do it and there was nothing I could do. It was obviously not a
genuine users click because no one was watching our videos yet, and I'm sure
the guy's account was associated to our project.

Sure enough, a few weeks later we were perma-banned from adsense. Destroyed
all hope for my business. At no point did we get to communicate with a live
person. Fortunately I had set up an LLC and used the Federal Tax ID from the
company instead of my own SSN or I would have basically been blackballed from
internet advertising forever. I disputed it, owning up to what happened and
explaining how I couldn't undo it. The robo-response was that my dispute had
been rejected, ban was permanent.

I bet this destroyed so many people's hopes and hard work over the years. When
you have a million followers, it will take serious fraud to cause a problem.
When you are a nobody starting out, figuring things out for the first time,
you make one mistake and you are done forever. I realized that if anyone
didn't like a less popular uploader they could just make a new account, and
click on their ads until they got banned. Pretty horrible.

I haven't been involved with adsense since, but if they don't provide the
ability to disown clicks they should add that. There is a lot of testing that
goes on when you are building a product.

------
tluyben2
Seems most people here had the same experience. I do not understand why their
practices are not actually illegal. We sent them tons of traffic (aka money to
them) and they just terminated without any explanation or recourse. 11M sounds
very low; we had a small company and we already lost several $100k.

------
googthrow
Frankly, the amount of power Google holds over small businesses is terrifying.
It's incredible that a small bug in one of Google's algorithms could destroy
your main source of income, with no explanation or recourse.

------
f055
I had a 12-months old AdSense account with 300 GBP to withdraw. After I tried
to cash out, Google banned the account for click fraud. If they were able to
detect it, why didnt didn’t they do it on-the-fly and show my actual balance?
This happened 10 years ago. Since then I was pretty sure Google is running a
massive scam on the long-tail small publishers. Glad to know at least in US
they lost a case...

------
drawkbox
Almost everyone involved in content creation and tech has a story about being
kicked from Google Adsense.

What sucked about Google Adsense doing this is everyone started using Google,
then got big and they killed off smaller web ad networks. Then they ripped the
rug from under content creators that chose them where they cut them off.

It was a bad move, I sometimes think it was a big data move only to get
people's personal information and get free tracking across the web of user
activity.

It was definitely evil and the brick wall they setup for clarification was
unnecessary and very cold.

------
djsumdog
Back in the early 2000s I ran Google ads, back when they were only text and
small boxes. You had to earn $100 to get a payout I think, and after forever I
still had like $12. I forgot about it and eventually pulled the ads. In 2011 I
sold the domain to some Irish company that gave me $10k USD for it. ... kinda
regret it now.

It looks like I have the same Google account (found the old e-mails for
adsense on that domain) even though I have nothing listed under adsense right
now.

I no longer run ads on any of my sites and probably never will, but it would
be nice to get that fucking $12 for letting Google run all those text ads for
those years.

~~~
babaganoosh89
Eventually Google will mark your adsense account as abandoned and transfer the
money to the state where you can claim it. I'm a few months away before I can
claim the $50 I have from adsense.

------
paulpauper
My first respsonce was, that's it? Even personal injury lawsuits get bigger
verdicts than that, and this involves actual businesses and thousands of
people. The lawyers and other fees will eat much of that. No wonder google
does not have to worry and can act with impunity .

------
mml
I had an adsense account to profit from an IP address i randomly purchased
from an ISP, which was formerly apparently a somewhat popular porn site.
Racked up about $950 in a month, then they turned me off, something about
violating terms etc etc.

It was a glorified 404 page with a google search widget & adsense ads on it.

~~~
nwellnhof
Putting Adsense ads on pages without content is an obvious violation of the
ToS.

------
DanBlake
11 million distributed around is going to be close to nothing on a per-
publisher basis. I wouldn't be surprised if the spread was more than 100 to 1
on owed vs collected. (so if you lost 100k from a terminated adsense account,
I doubt you would even get 1k from this settlement)

------
z3t4
Google ads where for the little guys, those small blogs, and personal web
pages, with only a few thousands visitors/months. And you earned just as much
as the big guys per user. Now it's only for the big guys, good luck earning
anything if you have less then 10,000 monthly visitors. And it's the same for
advertisers, good luck getting any clicks on your ads (99% of clicks are bots)
if your budget is less then $10,000. When more and more people start to use ad
blockers, there will only be bots left. There's more money then ever in
advertising. But you need to be _big_ in order to see any of it. I guess
Google have tried to fight the bots, but it's an impossible battle with too
many false positives, and small guys losing their hard earned ad money. I
guess Google is too big to notice, they are one of the big guys, and they
always get their share. I hope they go back to non intrusive text ads, show
some love for the small guys, and kill the bot. Maybe add "captcha" to ads
after you click them !? They need to do something drastic or their whole ad
based business might crumble from beneath.

------
cf498
When ever I read stories about adsense providers behaving like this, or even
"banks" like paypal just closing accounts without any legal security
whatsoever, or Websites themself selling user data and serving malware, I
always think of situation Warez sites and their users were in a decade ago.

Sure, If you visited specific Warez sites, you could assume that the Ads
served will likely infect your machine. And sure, the guys running the
websites might not be able to cash out the ad revenue.

But the realization, that a lot of legit businesses today are in the same
situation as sites who were run from shady servers in "digital no mans land"
by guys concerned that some kind of law enforcement might ask who owns the
site is either funny or deeply disturbing.

------
paulpauper
So many stories of people who had their account terminated.

~~~
lostmsu
I wonder why they just wouldn't go to a small cases court.

------
justhw
_> Payments to each of the Class Representatives, not to exceed $5,000 each,
as compensation for their active participation in the case on behalf of the
Settlement Class;_

$11M payout for possibly thousands of publishers is pennies.

~~~
dragonwriter
Class actions provide an opt out for class members which allows them to retain
their own right to sue for that reason. Of course, if you lost money and
weren't willing to take the cost/risk of a direct action suit to try to
recover it before, I don't know why you'd spit in the face of someone
successfully for securing you a mechanism for some.(if small) recovery now for
basically zero cost now.

------
ikeboy
Amazon stole about 2k from me in an affiliate account, rejected appeals.
Someone should file a class action against them too, not worth it for me to do
it alone.

------
paulpauper
A google search for " Free Range Content, " shows nothing. They probably went
out of business due to being banned.

------
scrollaway
Is the notice pdf text near-unreadable for anyone else or is it just pdf.js
being messy?
[http://www.adsensepublishersettlement.com/docs/notice.pdf](http://www.adsensepublishersettlement.com/docs/notice.pdf)

~~~
Operyl
Reads fine for me in Safari.

------
techaddict009
What the title has to do with the page? I could not find this $11M anything on
that page!

~~~
jaclaz
>What the title has to do with the page? I could not find this $11M anything
on that page!

It is on page #9 of the settlement PDF:
[http://www.adsensepublishersettlement.com/docs/settlement.pd...](http://www.adsensepublishersettlement.com/docs/settlement.pdf)

"1.44. “Settlement Fund” means a cash fund of $11,000,000, to be paid by
Google in accordance with the terms of this Settlement Agreement. "

and later on the same page:

"2.1. Settlement Fund. Subject to the terms of this Agreement, Google shall
establish a Settlement Fund of $11,000,000. Google’s total financial
commitment under this Agreement shall be $11,000,000. "

Later there is the order in which this amount will be paid, the actual people
which suffered from the thing will be paid last (only after deduction of
expenses, services, etc. which it is easy to presume will not be "peanuts").

We'll see how much people that were affected will actually get back.

~~~
techaddict009
OP should have linked the PDF instead.

~~~
Operyl
He was not the poster of this article.

~~~
techaddict009
Oh sorry. Corrected the comment.

------
downandout
$11 million seems astonishingly small given the number of people that have
been screwed by Adsense. If myself and one other friend received full payment
for our closed accounts, we would consume about 2% of this fund by ourselves.

~~~
ummonk
Have you not considered suing them yourselves?

~~~
downandout
We have, but it would likely cost more than we are owed, and take years. We
_might_ also get attorneys fees, but that wouldn't be guaranteed, so it's kind
of a "win the battle/lose the war" type of proposition.

------
textech
Why just 2010 to 2018? Mine was terminated back in 2008 with about $500 in it.

~~~
partiallypro
Mine was terminated before that, and to this day I can't open an adsense
account, even with a site that gets a million views per year.

~~~
paulpauper
file an LLC and get an EIN

~~~
ganeshkrishnan
The LLC will be banned along with all it's employees. Google bans related
accounts of banned accounts as it's considered ban evasion

------
bitL
Seems like Amazon is learning from Google here... Or did they form a cartel on
freezing accounts without any explanation or recourse?

------
circa
Ugh, yeah this brings back bad memories. Similar to and reminds me of all the
PayPal issues in the past as well. What headaches.

------
rlshaw
Does the settlement also apply to admob? They terminated admob accounts as
well.

------
mattbeckman
Sweet. Can we get one for all the Amazon Affiliate accounts as well?

------
8bitsrule
This is quite a one-sided 'settlement'. I suppose $11M will be enough to pay
the 'administrative costs'. What a joke, 'Hon. Beth Labson Freeman'. Nudge,
nudge, wink, wink.

------
whataretensors
That'll show em. I wonder if Google even had to move money from anywhere, or
if it was fine to pay with profits from part of the day.

~~~
jacquesm
This is a rounding error to Google, they could not care less.

~~~
ReverseCold
I think (?) op was being sarcastic.

------
rlshaw
Does this also apply to admob?

