
Facebook seems not to be paying app developer $160K in ad revenue - SalahEddine
https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/570gco/facebook_stole_my_160000_for_those_who_use/
======
achow
Comment from one of the redditor:

I know this developer's app because I compete in a similar space. His app
violates copyright laws and a bunch of other Google Play policies. Facebook
was correct in withholding payment to him. As far as I'm concerned, AdMob
should be withholding payment to him too. If anyone from Google wants me to
describe the very illegal techniques being used by this app, please email me
with a (@google.com) at finokioto@gmail.com . I would prefer not to share what
this developer is doing in a public forum because of copycats.

I'm an admin at
[https://www.reddit.com/r/badapps](https://www.reddit.com/r/badapps)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/570gco/facebook...](https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/570gco/facebook_stole_my_160000_for_those_who_use/d8olom5)

------
downandout
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-
cos...](http://www.businessinsider.com/google-search-ad-policies-cost-this-
company-1-million-2014-12)

[2]
[https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/1346295?hl=en#Ad_l...](https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/1346295?hl=en#Ad_limit_per_page)

~~~
annnnd
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
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
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
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).

------
gubby
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 advice right now.

~~~
skrebbel
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 both businesspeople, let's talk" way is considered a dangerous
approach, and I don't understand why.

While I agree that this is probably the best approach for dealing with a
company like Facebook that's notoriously difficult to get in touch with,
shouldn't it really just be a "last resort" sort of thing? Why is it always
recommended to _start_ with legal threats? Isn't that the business version of
"shoot first, ask questions later"?

I ask not just to criticize. My company is slowly starting to do dealings with
American companies (small amounts, nothing like the stuff in this post) and if
half our business communication is going to be in legalese we have some
serious preparation to do.

~~~
TillE
> hey we're both businesspeople

But you're not. Facebook is about a billion times more powerful than you.
You're not peers. They literally won't even talk to you.

~~~
sdoering
No. You are peers. Both are businesses doing business. They have a business
relationship.

> They literally won't even talk to you.

And exactly this is, why the system is broken. If you are the elephant in the
room and you do not have to care for the flies even if there would be
regulations protecting the flies then this is not a good situation.

This would be some kind of Feudalism. At least in practice.

To clarify: I know there exists rules and regulations. But if a big player
like FB can just ignore them unless someone unleashes their lawyers, esp. if
this other person is sitting half the globe away, then something is very, very
broken and fucked up.

~~~
st3v3r
Unless you're Oracle, Google, Apple, or Microsoft, you are not a peer with
Facebook.

"To clarify: I know there exists rules and regulations. But if a big player
like FB can just ignore them unless someone unleashes their lawyers, esp. if
this other person is sitting half the globe away, then something is very, very
broken and fucked up."

You're not wrong, but how would you cause Facebook to care? And you can't
really say government, because that would require government to be looking
over every single transaction. Ignoring the privacy/freedom aspects, that
would take a huge amount of manpower that the government just doesn't have and
isn't willing to fund.

------
omarchowdhury
Posts this like are useless when the app and the ad placements in question are
not known to us the readers, since then we can at least detect any real
violations of Facebook Audience Network's policies.

~~~
TeeWEE
Indeed , this. Probably the app is doing some stuff thats really violating the
Facebook policy.. And the creater just doesnt agree with google.

~~~
ChoHag
The developer does not seem so concerned that the app was removed - it can be
reinstated - but that the attempts to do so are being stonewalled while a
significant amount of cash hangs in the balance.

Facebook should not be silent in the face of a $160,000 problem they created.

------
anondon
Can anyone backup those revenue numbers from past experience?

Curiously, the application name was not posted.

I don't want to call bullsh*t, but if the claims could be verified, the
discussion can move on to how to actually deal with the situation.

I believe there are Facebook employees on HN, would it be possible to bring
this matter to the attention of the concerned people, if the claims turn out
to be valid?

~~~
zem
as per reddit comments, it's 160k Ukrainian dollars, or a little over 6k usd

~~~
jwildeboer
Ukraine does not use dollars. Their currency is called Hrywnia. This is about
1600000 USD.

~~~
martin-adams
Divided by 10

------
vonklaus
This happened to someone using stripe; a similar case where the account was
suspended and the user was upset about the inability to capture revenue.

I trust stripe a lot more than FB, that said, PC showed up in the thread as
well as numerous suppory staff. The claim was similar, big money rev
processing suspended but limited details. It turned out that the user was
violating the terms and had been notified well in advance. The user stopped
responding to other posters asking for details and it was immeadiately evident
that it was a pretty shady & onesided story.

Now, FB is quite restrictive-- but until the user substantiates the nature of
their application & facebook's violations & correspondence; I can't really cry
foul.

The user said they didn't want to mention the app because it would be
"promoting it". Idk, it does feel a bit off. Take Dash/kapeli, they blamed
apple for kicking them out of the app store, and while they are well known,
_they stood behind their name and identity_ which is all the reputation one
has on the internet.

So, i hope this is rectified but mire evidemce is surely needed

~~~
has2k1
When you are getting the types of numbers mentioned by the app creator and you
mention the name of the app, you invite unoriginal competition and Denial-of-
Service attacks if possible.

~~~
mysterypie
I'm very suspicious of the fact that he doesn't give the name of the app or
explain what it does, but you make a very good point.

If he is making this kind of money--and he mentions that it wasn't much effort
to write the app--he'd kill the golden goose if he reveals what it does.

------
zazpowered
I feel like something must be wrong here. It's in Facebook's best interest to
keep high performing publishers because thats how they make their money. I
don't think they would try to harm that relationship just to prevent paying
out publishers because they would just bounce and use a different network.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>"because they would just bounce and use a different network." //

Yeah, just switch to the other network that everyone and their granny uses
...?

------
ap22213
The spike in ad clicks (or some other metric) probably triggered an automated
fraud detection system. Apparently FB sent him a separate email that contains
the details (see the email's top paragraph).

Also, the email from FB has simple grammar errors and typos. I would expect a
company of FB's size to have QA for this type of automated content. So, it
leaves some doubt in my mind that the email wasn't edited before he posted to
Reddit.

It's not 'stealing' if there's a violation in a contract (terms of service)
and a payment is withheld. He could get a lawyer at this point. Or, maybe
there is an arbitration clause in the contract. Who knows. But, there are
legal remedies to these types of disputes. The dude should calm down, stop
posting to the internet, be professional about it, and search for legit legal
advice.

~~~
ChoHag
I've worked for companies of FB's size.

I wouldn't.

------
DanielBMarkham
_After that I appealed to them many times but never got the answer._

I must be missing something somewhere. This story doesn't sound right to me,
but I don't know the systems involved.

Can somebody tell me how over 100K can be at stake and this guy can't even get
a real person to talk to? Ok, I understand the old "push popular stuff on the
web and let the robots handle support" routine. But 160K? Really?

~~~
gambiting
It happens with all big companies- once your app/account gets marked for
fraud(and it looks like this one might have been, possibly incorrectly),
absolutely no one will talk to you. The standard line of action with
fraudsters is to cut of all contact, say that you can't provide information,
etc etc.

Obviously there is a lot of money involved, to Facebook should step up and
talk to the guy, but the cold treatment doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
What's difficult here is as an outsider trying to determine the validity of
the complaint.

Facebook is a public company. As such -- and even more so than traditional
public companies -- it interacts with a lot of people. Many of these people
are scammers, sure. (I have no idea about this person.) But there are also a
lot of people who just get screwed over by the algorithms. All rules-based
systems have false positives, and with the kind of numbers they deal with,
there has to be a lot of people being identified as bad and kicked out that
aren't.

So I understand your point about businesses. But most businesses that have a
160K dispute aren't peddling it on reddit and HN.

I think we can also agree that in many cases we've seen, people have been
treated wrongly by these companies and only got it fixed after publishing
things in forums like this.

So what the hell? Have HN and reddit become impromptu civil courts, where the
"award" is having a real, live human look at somebody's records? I know I'm
not qualified to have any kind of opinion, not with just one side of the story
presented and not without the records. I would feel better about stories like
this if they included some kind of conversation between the two parties. "And
then I spoke with the manager on the phone...."

It's not just that they cut this guy off, and it's not just that so many
things are automated. It's that for all intents and purposes, FB doesn't
_exist_ as a legal entity doing business. There's no office, there's no
telephone number, they just don't interact with folks like this. It makes for
a hell of a time trying to make heads or tails out of stories like this. (And
I understand the philosophy of not giving out too much information to
potential future fraudsters, but that doesn't make my complaint go away.)

~~~
gambiting
Well, if we give this guy benefit of the doubt, he says he's from Ukraine.
Suing a US-based company from Ukraine would be extremely difficult, and it
would have to start with an expensive lawyer versed in international law. To
be fair, if it was me, I would probably ask on HN first too, mostly because
there's a good chance the situation would resolve itself that way,without me
having to go and talk to lawyers.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
There used to be a job called "consumer reporter" at most major media outlets.
Their job was to take stories like this, do a little research, and try to
present a somewhat balanced story for the rest of us to consume.

There also was a Better Business Bureau, which had a job to take all kinds of
disputes like this and serve as a "memory" for the public.

As far as I know, these mostly-local institutions do not exist in analogue at
web scale.

We need them.

------
huhtenberg
In [http://imgur.com/B86pJHi.png](http://imgur.com/B86pJHi.png), what are the
columns exactly, does anyone know?

The 7th column in particular, with the %-ages. If that's a click-through rate,
then the numbers look inflated.

~~~
afghanPower
Pretty sure that's CTR. It's really not that hight considering we're talking
about a mobile app. People tend to tap at ads when they're trying to do
something else, and that often leads to insanely high CTRs.

Pretty sure this dude is paying someone to click on his ads and generate
impressions so that the CTR is average.

~~~
mpeg
80% CTR would be stupidly high, mobile app or not, anything over 5% would
already be incredibly good.

The 80% figure is fill rate (AKA the percentage of impressions to requested
placements), the 1.80-2.00% figure is the CTR, which matches the third column
being impressions and fourth clicks.

------
jrockway
Sounds like a script that went awry, misclassifying the app? If so, I have a
feeling that when some engineer at Facebook wakes up and sees this tomorrow,
the problem will go away ;)

~~~
vonklaus
Unless you work at FB or have other info, I would definitely doubt that.
Assuming this claim is legit, FB has not done a lot to instill any degree of
confidence(for me) that they are a user-centric organization willing to
compromise & work with customers.

FB, much like apple, is a closed off "our way or the highway" type company. It
is utterly massive which not only gives it huge power, but makes it difficult
to even find a human to rectify an issue. So I hope you are correct...but i
doubt it.

------
ktamiola
What's the name of the app? I am also curious to see how does the revenue
figure stack up against independently verified download and usage stats?

------
samdung
FB has always played mischief with its ad business. Case in point ...
[https://medium.com/@COOLPHABETS/don-t-be-like-
mark-z-29a5eed...](https://medium.com/@COOLPHABETS/don-t-be-like-
mark-z-29a5eedc83a9)

------
willvarfar
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.

~~~
chii
Except that for every fuss kicked up, there's probably countless ones that
feel through the front page and never saw the light of day.

The process of calling out shitty behaviour should not have to involve
popularity.

~~~
jondubois
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 so many breaches of the
law by corporations that they will get away with it most of the time... Or if
we're lucky and the legal system still works, large corporations will be
forced to hire huge numbers of lawyers to be able to defend themselves from
the constant stream of claims.

I think that's because the economy has become so competitive that it's
difficult for a company to turn a profit without committing lots of minor
transgressions (their competitors are doing it). So the most profitable
company ends up being the one which commits the most breaches and has the
highest rate of success at getting cases against it thrown out of court.

~~~
vonklaus
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

~~~
chii
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.

------
rspeer
This title's grammar is mangled and confusing on HN. The $160000 was for the
developer, not for anyone else. The "for those who use Facebook ads" was a
separate clause saying who the _post_ is for.

I know HN approves of original titles but also disapproves of sensationalism
and exclamation points. I would suggest something like:

App developer says: "Facebook stole my $160000"

~~~
rplnt
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.

~~~
sashagim
To me it seems that like with any contract, the money is his once he fulfilled
his part of the deal (ad views/clicks). I agree that not payout out is not the
same as stealing, but in this case it does seem awfully close since Facebook
is acting as a middle man. If someone hires me to do a job for a 3rd party,
gets paid for my work, but doesn't pass me my part - I'd call this stealing.

~~~
st3v3r
But if it was determined that the part you did was done fraudulently? That's
essentially FB's position here. And their contract states that the remedy for
that is account termination and forfeiture of the balance.

------
roryisok
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 now much clearer. Thank you, mods!

~~~
codelike
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](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.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Which is why I advocate for a subtitle, so that mods can alter the local title
but the original can still be given.

Another problem with retitling is knowing if you've seen the story already.

------
zandroid
I think he is lying to promote his subredit.

~~~
dang
On HN, we try to give others the benefit of the doubt, so please don't post
comments that are unsubstantive and uncharitable.

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12691967](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12691967)
and marked it off-topic.

