Security Scams by Phone?

What next.

Just had a super dumb call from some computer place trying to convince me my computer was connected to their server and I was downloading viruses and they were getting error messages. The guy can barely speak english, and he tries very hard to convince me they can tell it's my computer because of my computer license. Yeah well, nice try dude.

Not possible since my security systems won't download viruses; besides, I scan every day with Spybot Search & Destroy, a trusted antivirus, and hijack this, and I have a firewall. You don't spend 2 years on a security forum and not learn a thing or two about avoiding virus crap.

Dope. Don't fall for this people...just don't. And tell your friends not to fall for it either.

First, get the company name they work for. If you've never heard of them - don't trust them. No way they're connected to your computer if you don't let them. If they say they're from Microsoft security, trust them EVEN LESS.

IF you're concerned about virus, then run your scans using your own software - if you don't use spybot search & destroy, get it ... and use (it's free). Make sure your antivirus is up to date, use a firewall. Learn how to protect your computer - don't trust some guy calling from god-knows-where and DON'T, DON'T, DON'T them into your computer, and that goes double for giving them any information at all. Just hang up.

...But Everyone Else is Doing It!

Really? Everyone else is doing it, so it must be okay, right?

We see so many new publishers (and even some "older" publishers) giving this as an excuse for not following the Adsense Program Policies and Webmaster Guidelines.

Let me ask you something. When you tell your child to do something, you expect them to do it. You set up rules in your household that you expect the kids to follow. So when one of your kid's doesn't follow the rules, what do you think?  When your child says to you "everyone else is doing it, so why can't I?" what do you say?

If you are like most parents, you'll tell them that as parents it's your job to set the rules for your household, and your job to make sure they are followed. You probably don't care much what the rules are in other households, and you'll tell your kid's that you expect them to follow your rules, not someone else's.

Well then, what makes you publishers think that it's okay to follow what another website does, instead of following what Adsense tells you to do?

One of the recent posts in the Adsense forum is from an ex-publisher, who thinks that all ex-Adsense publishers should "band together and force Adsense to reform".  This isn't really anything new in the forum, we see similar posts regularly, but it is probably time to address this publicly.

Adsense has a contract with publishers - it's called the Terms of Service (which have previously been addressed here).  Publishers must agree to this contract before they can actually use Adsense. It's your responsibility as a publisher to understand that contract BEFORE you agree to it, and once you agree to it, it's your responsibility to uphold that contract, even if you don't like all the parts of it.

The person posting in the forum, replied with this statement:

If the contract was so one-sided and was designed to make the employee fail in their duties at some early stage, then of course. (of course the business should reform is what they mean).

In reply to that, I'd have to disagree. Based on principle. In fact, since the "employee" would have had to agree to that contract in order to be hired, the onus is on the employee. They can make their own decisions about whether they'll accept the contract or not, BEFORE getting into the "hired" stage.  Adsense is the same. You have the option when you get approved to agree to the contract, or not. That's your choice. If you choose to go forward, then you must choose to agree to abide by the contract, whether you like it or not.

People who don't read the contract and just agree to it, will find themselves having problems. It is our responsibility as publishers to make our own choices and decisions. I personally read all Terms of any site I sign up at, and there have been a few sites whose terms dissuaded me from going forward, because I couldn't live with the terms of their contract. That's my choice, the same as it's any publisher's choice. The options exist - you choose to abide by the contract, or you choose to not use the service.


People need to learn to become responsible for their own decisions at the time they make them, instead of complaining about what they signed "after-the-fact".

Not all of us actually like the Adsense terms, but many of us are only too aware of what they say, and what can happen based on those terms. Unlike a lot of others, I agreed to the terms knowing full well what they meant.

Businesses of all sorts work in a similar way. The business has the right to decide how they will run their business. I wouldn't much appreciate someone else telling me how to run my business, or what my contract should say. Neither, I'm sure, would many other businesses allow such a thing.

Another statement of note from the ex-publisher (and we also see this from many publishers who have been disabled) is that AdSense operates as a scam hiding behind a legit organisation for cover.

I don't think so.  I've had my Adsense account since late 2006, and haven't had any problems ever collecting my earnings - I am not a large publisher and don't earn mega amounts, but I get my check every time it's issued, without any problems. And I'm not a US citizen, nor do I live in the US. Many of our forum regulars live all over the world, and collect their earnings regularly too.

The difference between those who are able to keep their accounts long term and those who run afoul of the policies in their early stages is probably a lot simpler than some might think, and most of it is unrelated to being "click-bombed". The percentage of people who are innocent and actually do get click-bombed is extremely small (maybe as low as 3 or 4%, if that) compared to those who have solicited the click-bombing by joining click-rings.

- new publishers don't take time to understand the rules, not to the letter of the policies, nor to the "spirit" of the policies.  They are more interested in covering their sites with ads to "make money" than to "waste time" learning the ropes first. Nobody should ever rush headlong into something they don't understand. Far too many new publishers don't have any idea how to even edit a website, or place their code, let alone understand how Adsense works.

- new publishers want money, more than anything else and tend to run off slapping their sites on link exchanges, and traffic sites to get a boost in their traffic. Most of which are traffic sources that fall outside of the "okay" limit for Adsense. The traffic quality section has lots of information about how to increase your traffic levels appropriately, but I would guess that 90% of the new publishers have no clue it even exists, because of course they don't take time to read the information available. It's too much work to read all that stuff, so ... just put the ads on and hope to get rich.

- new publishers tend to follow what they see on other websites, and not what they do read (if they read it) in the policies. This is one of the biggest issues I've seen. "That site does it and gets a way with it (for a while), so I'll do the same. It must be okay."   Even if the policies say it isn't.  This is another area people must learn to take responsibility for their own choices. Adsense policies are written for a purpose; that purpose is so publishers know what you can and can't do. If you want to blindly follow another site without even knowing if they are doing the right thing, that's your problem.  

Personally, I believe I could make more money by doing things other than I am, however, from my standpoint if Adsense hasn't specifically said something is "okay and allowed" I'm not going to take any chances by doing it. If it specifically says it isn't okay, you can bet I won't do it, regardless of what any other website does.

And like many publishers (both active and disabled), they also think that there should be warnings rather than account dismissal for early "violations".

That would be nice.  BUT, Really. How many "warnings" does the law give before issuing a ticket for a traffic violation? Not too damn many, and they don't care if you are a new driver or not. They expect you to know the rules of the road. Ignorance is not a defense.

There are multiple warnings scattered throughout the Adsense Program Policies, and also in the Webmaster Guidelines. If people aren't going to take heed of THOSE warnings, then you begin to wonder if there is any point at all to issuing a warning. How many warnings to do people need?

The way I see it, if you're told not to touch the hot stove, you've been warned. If you touch it and get burned, then it's your own fault. You shouldn't need yet another warning. Pay attention to the warnings that exist throughout the Adsense Help Center files, and you shouldn't need a warning. For anything you don't really understand or aren't sure is okay, you can ask before you do it. That's called being "proactive" about your choices.

So are there problems for new publishers who sign up for Adsense? Yes, of course there are. Most of these problems could be resolved in the beginning if publishers took the time to understand how everything works before actually using the services.

What I see as inherently wrong with the Adsense recruitment methods is the lack of education BEFORE allowing a new publisher access to any Adsense ad codes.  New publishers should be required to attend an online webinar that explains all the policies in-depth, and then should have to complete a questionnaire without having any access to the answers from the help center. At that point, if they pass the "test" stage, they get access to their entire account and the codes. That way, people are educated before they jump in with both feet.  The publisher then becomes responsible for everything they do, and if they still fail, then nobody would be pointing any fingers at Adsense. Right?  Wrong. There are some people who will always try to avoid their own responsibility for failure. 

Like many of us who continue to use Adsense, I see things that should be changed. Things I'd like to see changed. But I don't run Adsense, and I don't get to make those decisions. My options are to continue to use it and suggest changes when we get a chance, and to stick to the rules as they stand now. 

I don't support all their decisions, but I support their right as a business to make the choices they make for their own business...whether I might like it or not is of little consequence. If I dislike it enough, I'll stop using it. For now, I've learned to live within their rules. I hope you'll take the time to learn how to do that too, before you need any "warning".

Adsense, Blogger and the DMCA Notice

With the recent push by Adsense to ensure the quality of publisher websites, it has become even more important that Adsense publishers are vigilant about protecting their copyrights.

I've already written about some of the ways you can protect your contents on this post back in 2009 about duplicate contents.

There is a new one also out there called "EmbedAnything". Personally, I would not use this, and not having used it, I don't really have any recommendations for it.

My personal opinion is that Embed Anything might be fine for those who wish to share their contents, but it not an option for those who do not. I also don't believe it would provide much in the way of actual protection.

Anyone can copy from your website, even if you disabled the right click function (which is totally annoying to most visitors as the right click context menu contains many functions that people use while viewing a website, not just the copy function) people can still copy your content. A couple of ways. Firstly, Firefox will show a notice that the right-click function has been disabled on that website, however, Firefox will still let you highlight and copy the text, rendering the "no right click" codes entirely useless.

And if someone really wants to copy your text, they can simply view the source code for your page, and highlight the text block they want, then copy it. Disabling the right-click functionality doesn't work in source code view, so pretty much any browser can still allow people to copy your work.

What's left then?

Besides the free registry places I listed in my old article (which still apply), you need to file DMCA notices to get your copied works removed from the sites that copied them. Keep in mind though - if you had previously given someone approval to re-post your content, you should not file a DMCA notice. You've given them permission and that means it is not a DMCA issue - they posted with your authorization.

The other thing you need to be clear about when filing a DMCA claim is that you actually own the content. If you've copied a bunch of images off someone else's website...you don't own those, and you may not file a DMCA claim for things you don't own.

Lastly, in filing a DMCA claim, you need to file it with the correct agency. If the person who copied your content has a website and paid webhosting, you will want to find out who their webhost is (do a "whois" search for that) because that's who you want to file the claim with. If they are also using Adsense, you can file a DMCA claim with Adsense. If they are using Blogger, you'll need to file a DMCA claim with Blogger.

You need to complete the forms fully and correctly, and from some of the DMCA notices I've seen on Chilling Effects...some people don't understand how to fill out the forms. Below are copies of the DMCA notices for Adsense and Blogger, with instructions on how to complete them correctly (click the image to get a larger view).

Adsense DMCA Notice - Online Form

Sample

Blogger DMCA Notice - Online Form

Sample

Please remember - do not complete a form unless you are the original owner of the contents.

New Adsense Approval Rules - Explained

At the end of August this year (2011) Adsense instituted a new Approvals Process for publishers applying for Adsense. I made a quick note of this with a link to their blog post in my last article, but for some reason it appears to be causing a lot of confusion for people who are applying for Adsense. I am not sure why, because if you actually take the time to read the approval email, it explains the steps pretty clearly.

In an effort to expand on that a little, here is a copy of one of the approval emails for the new process, along with explanations of what occurs. In all honesty, if you don't take time to read these steps when they are sent to you, you will be creating a host of problems for yourself.


Welcome to AdSense!

You now have access to your new AdSense account and the AdSense code that you need to place ads on your site. To activate your account and get started with AdSense, follow the steps below. Or, for a detailed walkthrough of everything you need to know as a new AdSense publisher, visit Newbie Central: http://www.google.com/adsense/support/as/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=1045789&sct=app-12156.

I believe the paragraph above may be one of the things causing confusion. While it is important to read the "Newbie Central" section on Adsense, with this new approval process you cannot actually do everything they list in Newbie Central. You can get the code (as described below in this email), and place it on your website. That's about it though. While you can access and see other things in your account, you won't be showing impressions or earnings right away, until your account goes through the final steps of approval.




We have completed a partial review of your application, and you may begin placing AdSense code on your site. In order to help you begin using Google AdSense as fast as possible, we will conduct a further review after you’ve placed the AdSense code on your site.  We will notify you of full approval or disapproval within four (4) business days.


This paragraph above is, I think, where people are beginning to get confused. While you do get to place ad code on your site, it isn't actually going to work until the final review is completed. That paragraph says "4 business days" but given the actual time this takes, I wouldn't count on that actually happening within four days all the time. It can take four days, or it might take a week or more, depending on just how many sites and applications they have to review. They'll be trying to get through them all in four days, but these people are (contrary to some opinions) just human and can only do so much in a day. They don't work 24-7.

Please note that initially, instead of live ads, you will see blank ads - the ad unit box will blend in with the background of your webpage.  This occurs because your account is still under review. We cannot complete our review of your application until you have placed the AdSense code on your site and are sending us ad requests.

This is another paragraph in the new process that seems to be causing confusion - I'm not sure whether it's just because people aren't bothering to read it, or if it's because someone has past the "four days" noted in the above paragraph and they just expect the ads to work.


When you first place the ad code on your site, you may actually see live ads for a few minutes but you probably won't see them for very long. Once the crawler visits your site it's going to discover that your site isn't yet approved to display ads, and those ads will disappear, but the ad code will still be in your site, and that's the way it's supposed to be until you pass through the final stage of the review process.


Without having the ad code in your site, these folks won't know which sites to review, so the ad code has to be there, but the ad itself doesn't. That's because you aren't going to get paid for any ads until after the final review process, and Adsense has it set up so they can review the site with the code, but you aren't expected to display advertising you won't get paid for, so the ads aren't visible to anyone.


If you don't get the codes on your site, it won't go through the final review process, so getting the code in place is an important part of this new process, but don't expect the actual ads to display until you receive a notice saying you received approval.

Once you have been fully approved, we will notify you by email, and you will begin seeing live ads appear on your site.  You will not need to take further action to start earning revenue.

If you placed two or three ad codes in your site during the initial stages of the approval process, and  you make it through the final stages and are approved, then those ads will automatically begin displaying again. At that point, you will begin earning revenue. If you only placed one code and want more than one ad, go to your account and get started creating other ad units (there is a maximum of three ads allowed on any one page).


Once the approval is received you may want to check your site to ensure that you are happy with the ad placements and that they aren't in spots where they overlap your content, or where your content or menu overlaps or covers part of the ads.


From this final approval point onwards, you can make adjustments and fine tune the ad placements, create channels and track your stats in your adsense account. It is important to ensure you understand the rules and policies associated with being an Adsense Publisher, so make sure you follow the instructions in the balance of the email (see below) and read all information associated with Adsense in their help center.


And don't forget - NEVER click your own ads, and NEVER ask anyone to click them, and NEVER tell people to "visit your sponsors".


Good luck with your Adsense account...and happy blogging!


The balance of the email publishers will receive during the new approval process is noted below:




Even after approval, we continuously review all accounts for compliance with our policies.  If any violations are detected, your account may be disapproved or ad serving to your pages may be stopped.  If at any time you are not seeing ads appear, we recommend that you log into your AdSense account and examine any messages that may appear.

STEP 1: Access your account.

Visit http://www.google.com/adsense?sct=app-12156 and sign in using the email address and password that you submitted with your application. If you've forgotten your password, visit http://www.google.com/adsense/support/as/bin/static.py?page=ts.cs&ts=1054302&sct=app-12156. Please also make sure that you have valid contact information in your account.

STEP 2: Create an AdSense ad unit.

Visit the "My Ads" tab, confirm the product selected is "Content" and click "New ad unit."

STEP 3: Display AdSense ads on your pages.

After you create your ad unit, we'll give you the ad code to paste into the HTML source of your website so that you can show ads (after approval). For help adding the code to your pages, visit our Code Implementation Guide at http://www.google.com/adsense/support/as/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=28893&sct=app-12156. If you don't have access to edit the HTML source of your pages, please contact your webmaster or hosting company.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

* Once ads begin to appear, please don't click on your ads, even to test them -- doing so isn't permitted by the AdSense programme policies (https://www.google.com/adsense/policies).

* You can add the AdSense code to a new page or site that complies with our programme policies at any time. There's no need to inform us or apply for a new account when you do - once you have been fully approved, you may place the code on as many pages that you own as you wish.  Please make sure our crawler can access any webpage you place ad code on - see http://www.google.com/adsense/support/as/bin/answer.py?hl=en_GB&answer=10532 for details.

Have more questions? You can find answers in our Help Centre at http://www.google.com/adsense/support/as/?sct=app-12156, or the AdSense blog athttp://adsense.blogspot.com?sct=app-12156. In addition, you can post your questions to the AdSense Help Forum at http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/AdSense?sct=app-12156.

Yours Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Messages from Adsense - Part 1

SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT NEW ADSENSE ACCOUNT APPLICATION PROCEDURES:


Just released on the Inside Adsense blog is a note about new application procedures. If you were a recently approved publisher who suddenly find their account showing a red notice that the account is under review again, please read this article from Inside Adsense on the new procedures.


One of the things many publishers seem to dread is mail from Adsense. Partly, that's because they're afraid that the mail will be one that disables their Adsense account, and partly because they often can't understand the information contained in the message, and partly because they aren't sure the message is really from Adsense.

While it is important to be careful when responding to emails from anyone, emails from Adsense can usually be handled with relative safety. If you aren't sure the mail is "safe", note any links included in the mail, and check them out separately without giving out personal login details.

Often you can go separately to your account and login and reply from there, without having to reply from your email, and without having to login through an unsecured source. If any email from Adsense asks for your personal login information, or your address or phone number, or verification of any other kind, do not reply to it without first checking things out.

If you have posted a request for help in the Adsense forum and an employee responded that they would contact you by mail, and you are expecting that mail, it is probably safe.

In many cases, messages directly from Adsense can be found in your Adsense account too, under the "Messages" tab. Any messages there that require you to respond are safe to respond to directly from inside your Adsense account.

We seem to get quite a few questions asking "what should I do" when people find these messages in their accounts.

Well, you should do what the message says of course. Following are a few examples of the types of messages you might find, and what to do with them:



Required Action General Payments Issue - Please contact AdSense Support to resolve this hold.

What does it mean? That's something we can't answer. Sometimes it's a random spot-check to reconfirm a mailing address or to update your tax information again, but there are numerous reasons they might want you to contact them directly. We can't say what all those reasons are because...well, we don't know. The reasons may differ from publisher to publisher.

What should you do? This is one of the simplest - what you should do is what it says. Contact Adsense support using the link in the message. Once they've received your contact, they'll contact you with an explanation - that can take a day or two, or even as long as a few weeks.

Your pages are displaying blank ads (or Public Service Advertisements) because you haven't yet verified your PIN and/or phone number. See the Payment History page for more details.

What does it mean?  It means you need to verify your PIN/Phone number. Publishers have a set amount of time (4-6 months I think) from the time they cross the verification threshold to verify this information. If you haven't verified your account during that time, your ads will be blank

What should you do? If you have not received your PIN within the specified time, and/or haven't yet verified your phone number, you can post in the Adsense forum for help. Fairly often the PIN time-requirement can be reset, allowing you time to complete these tasks.

Your ads have recently appeared on websites you haven't authorized. To avoid lost revenue, make sure to authorize any sites where you display ads by visiting your account settings.

What does it mean? It means you are using the allowed sites list in your Adsense account and that some non-allowed sites have been displaying your ads. In many cases, these sites will be search engines - the various entities of Google (google.com, google.ca, google.in, google,pk, google.whatever etc.) will all show up separately, so every time someone uses their country's local Google search to find and access your site, you'll see another site show up in the non-allowed list.

Of course, it may not always be search engines that appear under the non-allowed list, but this is one of the most prevalent appearances on this section of your account. Sometimes it will be google translate, or google webcache - this occurs when someone views your pages using the google site translator, or finds a cached view of one of your pages from a search.

What should you do?  For the most part, major search engines and mostly all of the google.whatever local search engines can be added to the allowed sites list, as can the translate and webcache pages.

If you aren't certain of the site, don't add it.

These messages display in your account for up to a week after the event, or after you add them to the safe list, so don't be confused when you've added them to your safe list and you still have the message displaying. Eventually (after a week) the message will disappear.

As well, keep in mind that these messages will appear regularly in your account, but most of the time these aren't cause for concern. Simply check the Allowed sites page, check the non-allowed sites that show up and decide whether they are safe to add or not.

I can't really remember when the last time was that I didn't have this message in my account. I do not add every site that displays my pages to the safe list because all of them aren't safe, such as proxy sites. I have a few visitors who view my site using a proxy site - perhaps to hide their IP address, or maybe they just prefer to be anonymous. Because I don't know who that person is, and don't know the proxy site in question, I won't consider that a safe addition to my Allowed sites. I only get a few of these a month, so it's not like I'm missing out on a lot of income. It's always wise to check any site you add to your allowed sites list BEFORE you add it.

Next Time: Messages from Adsense (Part 2)!