Banned From Making Money, These YouTubers Share Their Stories

http://kotaku.com/5964998/banned-from-making-money-these-youtubers-share-their-stories

38 56 14 years ago

mistercow2• 14 years ago

I'm glad the word is getting out about this. Google's abuse of content creators on AdSense has been going on since before they acquired YouTube. As usual, the only way to make any headway with them is to get some media attention.

For anyone considering anything resembling a professional relationship with Google (i.e. you are relying on them for income), make absolutely sure that you have real alternatives that you can move to if/when they screw you. You might think "I'm totally above board here, and have no intention of violating their TOS, so I won't ever have a problem", and you would be wrong. It isn't under your control, so you need to make sure you have a backup plan.

In fact, ideally you need to already have non-Google sources of revenue, so that if Google drops you, you aren't left high and dry until you can switch to something else.

lambda2• 14 years ago

This applies to more than just Google. Your income should not solely depend on one party, unless you're in an employment relationship with them, which carries with it various sorts of legal and social obligations that are a lot harder to simply end on a whim.

Does your revenue depend entirely on being in Apple's good graces, and being dropped from the App Store would end it? Does it depend solely on Google's advertising money? Or even if not solely, if 75% of your revenue comes from one source, it will be game changing if you lose that.

This is why monopolies are a bad idea, and duopolies aren't much better. A healthy market will have at least three viable players, with none controlling over 50% of the market, allowing you to diversify and be save from any one of them deciding not to play.

pavel_lishin• 14 years ago

Isn't this basically an argument against ever creating any iPhone app?

moepstar• 14 years ago

While you're absolutely right, there's still one problem:

There aren't much, if any, advertising providers with ads as accepted and unintrusive as Googles AdSense...

Not to forget their huge portfolio of ads that will fit almost every context - so yes, AdSense is the go-to provider for most.

jiggy20113• 14 years ago

Problem is that in some markets (e.g games) you can't really help but be beholden to some large publisher. Whether it be Apple, Steam or MS. You can hedge your risk a little by releasing across multiple platforms but then there is still the risk that one platform in particular accounts for 50%+ of your sales and you could lose that at the drop of a hat.

drzaiusapelord• 14 years ago

>Your income should not solely depend on one party

The networking effect is naturally monopolistic.

There aren't any practical alternatives to facebook and youtube. Being kicked from either would be disastrous and neither has to offer an alternate ad network or even need a good reason to get rid of you.

I imagine a simple mediation or ombudsman process is all these companies need, but they have no incentive to really make that work. They're still making money hand over fist.

From a regulator perspective, these are major issues, especially since we've officially entered the age of the walled garden/centralized store. I don't think this is the kind of thing the free market will magically be able to fix if we sit and our hands and wait. I imagine its going to get worse once MS and other big players start making it much more difficult or impossible to install unsigned software or software from outside their store.

jiggy20113• 14 years ago

I think if you have a large youtube audience who's loyalty you depend on it would be wise to also have an external website (even a crappy 1 page thing) and link to that in every video.

That way even if your videos are deleted you can stick them up somewhere else and link from your site and hopefully at least some of your followers will have bookmarked it.

chimi9• 14 years ago

These stories are getting tired. Google is too big to investigate every single exception to their machine rules. We know. We get it. When you have 100 accounts, you can devote time to every exception. When you have 100,000,000 accounts you can't. You have to automate it and with 100,000,000 accounts there are going to be a lot of exceptions to the rules. Even a failure rate of 0.0001% would be enough to fill that cheap blog poach, I mean post, with examples of failures -- some of which were actually successes.

Even at that rate, youtube/google implemented an automated success rate of 99.9999%. Let's get some articles about how they accomplished that. That'd be more interesting than this sensationalist drivel.

falcolas2• 14 years ago

Are they too big to provide some basic customer support and an escalation path? Interestingly enough, if they did this, we wouldn't be seeing their .0001% failures either.

chimi9• 14 years ago

They do provide that. That's why accounts were suddenly re-enabled.

The advertisers are the customers and customers want to know they are paying for clicks from valid opportunities. Google is handling the customer appropriately by banning those that are committing fraud. If you're my sales guy and you defraud my customers I'm going to fire you too.

knowaveragejoe3• 14 years ago

They do provide a very minimal set of resources in that regard, but I doubt it is anything more than someone giving a cursory glance to your appeal and checking some boxes that amount to "should we even care?".

thesis• 14 years ago

The real problem is that there are little if any ways to get your account reinstated. Sure, they have to rely on automation... but if people are banned automagically then people need to be able to appeal it and have an actual human being look into it.

tehwebguy• 14 years ago

Absolutely, there should be a full blown appeal process. There are a few items in place but in the cases of several YouTubers I have tried to help through this process they often don't result in any additional clarity or reversal.

SoftwareMaven• 14 years ago

But it is seriously damaging to their company and there are other things they could do:

If they notice apparent click-fraud, they should suspend payments and notify the account holders. If the fraud continues (either this one issue or if it repeats regularly)[1], shut them down.

Like it or not, Google (and others like eBay) have put themselves in the position of supplying people's livelihood. There needs to be more respect for that fact. They've shown that they believe their algorithms can be wrong by reinstating people's accounts when stupid crap like this hits, but I contend that is not good enough. Crap like this should just not be hitting.

They can have automated systems and reasonable algorithms at the same time.

1. Some will probably say this gives fraudsters more chances to learn Google's algorithms. How hard is it to create a new account?

chimi9• 14 years ago

I would say a 99.9999% success rate is a reasonable algorithm.

cft• 14 years ago

They disable ad serving in absolutely legitimate AdSense accounts bringing over $10,000 per month just as easily (this has happened to us); without any real possibility for a recourse. These posts are important for any founder or webmaster so they realize the grave inherent risks to their business if they plan to monetize only via AdSense.

jonknee3• 14 years ago

These aren't people who are using a free email service, they are people who are directly generating your company revenue. In many cases a meaningful amount of revenue (Google keeps ~30% so if someone is generating just $1,000 a month that's $3,600 a year directly for Google).

If there is ever a case worthy of using company resources, it's for activities that directly affect its bottom line. Google seems to have bad support for both AdSense and AdWords and it's not because they don't have the resources, it's because they so far have not had to. Competition is what will solve Google's people problem.

I have generated Google a lot of revenue through AdSense over the years and I still live in fear of being cut off and not having any recourse. Yes, I have other revenue streams, but it would be a huge loss that's hard to fill. With any other company I would be confident that they would want the [significant] revenue and would at least work with me, but not Google.

chimi9• 14 years ago

So then why don't you build your own content delivery system and advertising network and create a marketplace with enough advertisers to bring you the same level of income?

If not for Google, you may not have a dime of that money you've earned. I mean, maybe not, right? If so, then you'd have to have gotten that money through someone else doing what Google is doing right? Why not just switch to them if Google does you dirty?

The underlying point here is that you are not Google's customer -- the advertiser is -- and it's in your, Google's, and the advertiser's best interest to treat the advertiser better than they treat you. Otherwise, the customer is going to go to another network that doesn't let fraudsters game them out of click fees.

How many articles have we seen about Facebook doing exactly that? That's much worse IMO. If I'm giving you money, you better be taking it legitimately. If I'm taking your money, the onus is on me to prove I have taken it honestly. If not, I'd totally expect Google to keep the money -- and they don't keep the money -- they give it back to the advertiser or never charge them to begin with.

If you or the other people around here were to keep the money an advertiser gave you and then complained about being fraudulent -- even if it wasn't -- then you'd soon be faced with tons of articles saying "They kept my money even though bots were clicking!!"

And you'd soon be out of business because no one would give you any money.

Google is making the right decisions here. Face it.

knowaveragejoe3• 14 years ago

Surely a company of their size and resources could implement just an appeal system that is just a tad more useful.

Vivtek2• 14 years ago

Or any appeal system at all.

The only way to get unbanned is to get noticed by a human at Google - through a non-Google channel, because Google channels are specifically designed never to bother humans.

Vivtek2• 14 years ago

Spoken like someone who's never dealt with Google's lack of customer service. And where did you get that magical number?

a3camero• 14 years ago

There's no reason why customer support can't scale. That's just another kind of scaling problem. I think the explanation is actually that it's too expensive and Google has done quite well not offering that level of service.

stephengillie• 14 years ago

This seems like a great way to seriously injure a competitor's ability to conduct business. In a sense, it could be used for a denial of service attack.

Karunamon• 14 years ago

Indeed. Mass click fraud (and you don't even need to enlist the services of a botnet; there are Asian companies that will do this for you at a flat rate), YouTube shenanigans such as mass flagging or fake DMCAs (resulting in videos being pulled for significant lengths of time).

That's one of Google's primary problems and it will only get worse with popularity - they need better CS.

shocks2• 14 years ago

I was banned from AdSense for a similar reason.

When I was 14 I made a flash games/funny videos website, and used AdSense as my only income. I learnt a lot about driving traffic and things just started to pick up - and then I was banned.

It later came to my attention that a few friends and (at the time) girlfriend had taken it upon themselves to 'help' me by clicking an ad once a day. Annoying, since I was making about $10 a day from ads. I didn't need help. $10 a day was great for a 14 year old.

That was nearly eight years ago. I recently contacted Google about it, and was completely ignored. I understand why, it makes sense for them to protect their business - but it's annoying none the less. I could think of good uses for AdSense right now.

jiggy20113• 14 years ago

I wonder if this was because your friends were all using the same IP address that you were?

If not it would be a great way to sabotage somebody you didn't like.

Jach• 14 years ago

I have nearly the same story as well. (Even contacting Google about it some months ago, they rejected the appeal and you only get one.) It sucks, but whatever I guess, just means I gotta make money with one of the tons of other ways to make money...

ajross2• 14 years ago

With all due respect, and I agree that it wasn't your "fault", but your friends were engaging in click fraud, and you admit as much. (I'm not completely sure I'd believe they were doing it just "once" a day, but that's between you guys). What should the response to click fraud be for a $10/day account? They simply can't afford to dedicate a human being to something that small.

shocks2• 14 years ago

Oh, I absolutely agree. What my friends did was wrong, and I fully respect why Google did what they did, I would not have done anything different if I was them.

My point is more that it's interesting how easy it is to use this as a DDOS type tactic and it's a shame they don't have better appeal system in place. These days I am sure I could contribute to the AdSense ecosystem in a substantially more positive way.

hinoglu• 14 years ago

If it's possible to get banned from using adsense just by few persons questionable actions, and if google is too big to answer properly but not that big enough to skip watching even the tiniest "fraudilent" actions, then be it and become big enough to get google's attention by reaching out others in the same position.

How would one find the others? Well... http://memegenerator.net/instance/31212117 might work for creating one's own community.

Sometimes, the best way to show a structure's flaws is to bring down the structure by abusing those flaws.

noonespecial2• 14 years ago

If you think about it from Google's perspective, its working like its supposed to.

Overzealous fans going on click-fests are a problem for Google's customers (the advertisers). Automatically banning that account and showing those ads elsewhere completely solves that problem. Simple load-balancing at work. What more do they need to do?

ajross2• 14 years ago

That's what I was thinking reading this. Whether it is due to "overzealous fans" or not, click fraud is click fraud. Google (really any advertising broker) can't make a business out of selling fake "clicks", they have to sell views by real users. There has to be a solution to prevent these clicks from registering, and they picked the easy one.

RandallBrown• 14 years ago

If Google knows the clicks are no good, why do they have to ban the user instead of just voiding the clicks and not giving them any money?

chimi9• 14 years ago

Because they never want to have to deal with the potential problem ever again. They want to move forward and creating a machine moving forward with all the ducks in a row is better than constantly re-evaluating the potential fraudsters -- however small that potential may be.

Remember, in this case, Google is the customer and the content provider is the vendor. Google has decided not to be those vendor's customer anymore.

pkteison• 14 years ago

The problem is the wrong person is punished, and the content creator has no recourse, and it nets out worse for everyone. Somebody who used to be rewarded for producing good content no longer is so they stop. Google's content gets worse, advertisers venue for selling their ads gets worse, consumers have less good content to watch. Nobody wins.

Would you want me to be able to shut down your business with a relatively simple action for me to take, without you being able to take any recourse, without you even having any relationship with me? It has terrible externalities with seemingly innocent actors, imagine what could be achieved with a bit of malice, as you will find among competitors.

noonespecial2• 14 years ago

It might be more of a supply and demand thing. Google thinks it has an endless supply of small bit-players willing to supply content so it doesn't value any of them. They might be right.

It really hasn't cost them anything so they haven't spent anything trying to fix it.

chanon• 14 years ago

I think the fact that anyone can get anyone else's adsense account banned by clicking their ads everyday means it's not really working the way it should.

Competitors can just kill each other's revenue sources.

But, I'm guessing the really big channels will get protection from that, while the small guys would get banned.

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

This is true, the attitude of 'click a few times to send some money' (which really is sending the advertisers money) is always a bad idea. And as long as you realize the advertiser is the customer and the guy uploading videos is the product, well you don't leave a bad carton of milk on the shelf do you?

Its a sad way to treat the content producers. From the big picture however the 'bad actors' figured out that there was a 'hole' in the AdSense cover which you could pull millions out of, it was create a bunch of AdSense accounts in a bunch of accounts and distribute clicks through them. Reasonably easy to automate and provided a good return on the investment.

So independent video producer with a modest stream? Or part of a clickfraud ring? Hard to tell apart. But the customers really hate seeing a bunch of clicks that don't result in any conversions.

The solution will end up with advertisers paying less per click (we're already seeing that in Google's reports) and/or switching to a per-impression model, or on the outside chance a flat fee over time model which is analogous to the magazine model.

marksaccucci• 14 years ago

So basically Google has enabled trolls/people with bad intentions to destroy someone's cash flow. This seems ridiculous! That's the one thing I hate about Google...their lack of customer service. Regardless if their service is free, they are making more than enough money to set up a call center or something.

roc• 14 years ago

You'd think if they could identify 'suspicious' clicks, they could just ignore them: don't hold the impressions/clicks against the ad-buyer, don't reward the ad-bearing site operator. Problem solved.

If it's an honest misunderstanding: no harm done. If it's a money-making scheme: they'll give up and go elsewhere, guaranteed.

at-fates-hands• 14 years ago

I'm hoping the staggering lack of concern for proper customer service for any of their products will someday start to affect their bottom line.

These stories are not new and seem to be adding up. I'm still confused why they haven't invested in a call center or some type of dedicated customer service for the products they support.

It makes absolutely no sense to me.

jnazario2• 14 years ago

margins. it doesn't affect them yet so why invest the cost? in fact it will always benefit them until /advertisers/ pull their participation, and they have them covered.

you, as the small person showing ads, are so insignificant that they wont listen to these complaints.

jnazario2• 14 years ago

i suffered this several years ago. even had a good friend explore, in person, the team who banned me. no movement, no appeal.

my adsense account still shows hundreds of dollars to pay out that they wont. sadly no other easy to launch-with ad tool (e.g. yahoo) for a regular home user with a site can yield much money. they really have a monopoly, and this behavior just screws people.

in this scenario, fuck google.

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