I agree. Over a decade ago when I was a freshman in college I participated in an AdSense click ring with my dormmates. We made $200 or so each, which was cool at that age. Within a few months we got caught and banned from AdSense. Now I have a YouTube channel with tens of thousands of viewers but I can’t monetize it at all, even though YouTube wasn’t even part of the same company as AdSense when my silly freshman experiment went down.

Sorry, why should that matter? Google doesn't trust you to honor your advertising contract because you didn't in the past and they know it because they literally caught your fraud themselves.

You seem to be arguing that a technicality should allow you to use other ad mechanisms, but that's not how real work risk analysis (or morality!) works.

You get the same treatment from banks: default on one loan and they'll tell the others (via credit reporting agencies), because that information is something they need to make good business decisions.

Actually, loans are a good example, since there is a very clear path to making things good again. Typically this involves 10 years of trouble, but that is still better than being completely in the darkness as you slowly get cut off from more and more services (as Google expands.)

No really, it would be the same if after the fraud, Google told Facebook, Amazon, etc. about you and they rejected your business.

If you commit fraud against a bank, I find it highly dubious that such bank will ever accept your business again, even if others do (after a decade).

> You get the same treatment from banks: default on one loan and they'll tell the others (via credit reporting agencies), because that information is something they need to make good business decisions.

At least in the US, negative events on your credit report disappear after 7 years.

Try going to the same bank you defrauded and getting a loan?

True. The statute of limitations (or whatever the consumer credit regulations equivalent is called?) doesn't extend to what individual organisations already know about you.

There's more than just a credit report involved, though. There might be a ChexSystems report that trips you up, for example.

People change, learn, and grow. We need to be able to forgive people, from time to time, as a society.

He literally stole money from them by committing fraud. What do you think is a reasonable period of time a private company/person should wait before doing business with someone who stole from them previously?

Probably not a decade as OP mentioned..

OP isn't asking for "forgiveness" though. He seems to be arguing that a simple technicality (adsense and youtube being separate revenue mechanisms) should make it impossible for Google to enforce its existing fraud bans.

A straightforward requirement for forgiveness, even after a decade, should be at least a little bit of contrition, no?

OP should just be thankful he didn't have any legal ramifications and a permanent criminal record. Instead, he just can't make money off his youtube videos.

Completely agreed. But I don't see how that's relevant to the grandparents argument that adsense fraud shouldn't affect Youtube ad revenue.

I mean, extending your point: does the grandparent sound appropriately contrite to you? If you read that comment and had to decide whether or not to sign an ad service contract, would you?

Edit to be even clearer: OkGoDoIt literally describes the fraudulent theft of hundreds of dollars as a "silly freshman experiment"! Is that a situation you think Google should be required to forgive?

So because an 18 year old made a poor decision, he should forever be barred from monetizing an online presence?

No, because there are plenty of other ways of doing this that don't require forgiveness from an organisation he's previously tried to screw over.

There is no valid alternative to YouTube as far as similar content creation monetization. YouTube is by far the monopoly with over 50% on creator content.

It’s possible, but won’t have the same reach. Best bet would be switching to content type specific platforms like twitch.

> Is that a situation you think Google should be required to forgive?

Required? No. Appropriate? Yes

> Google doesn't trust you to honor your advertising contract because you didn't in the past

When this kind of logic gets sufficiently lazy it becomes discrimination.

Because it simply is not true that something someone did 20 years ago as a teenager is a good predictor of their behavior as a mature adult now. Applying that logic is essentially a lazy heuristic by a company that can't be bothered to do anything more than the most shallow fraud analysis. In the case of Google, which has such deep knowledge of its users and such a robust data analysis competency it is particularly egregious. They could probably figure out in a few seconds that this person is not really a high fraud risk. They simply don't care to bother doing so.

Not sure if this'll help your situation, but I did something equally dumb when I was back in high school. Clicked on my own ads, got banned from AdSense, etc. (Luckily, it didn't affect my other Google services at the time.)

Recently, however, a Google AdSense sales rep reached out to me trying to sell me on AdSense. I explained the past situation and that I was "banned", but this sales rep was apparently able to get that lifted and get me back into the program. I never ended up using AdSense, but I now have an open account that isn't blocked anymore. Might help in your situation if you ever run into a Google sales rep.

> I agree. Over a decade ago when I was a freshman in college I participated in an AdSense click ring with my dormmates. We made $200 or so each, which was cool at that age. Within a few months we got caught and banned from AdSense. Now I have a YouTube channel with tens of thousands of viewers but I can’t monetize it at all, even though YouTube wasn’t even part of the same company as AdSense when my silly freshman experiment went down.

If your viewers are recurrent, then you might want to ask them to support you via a 3rd channel such as patreon?

You need not lose revenue from the content you create through alphabets' vague rules and products.

> You need not lose revenue from the content you create through alphabets' vague rules and products.

In fairness, Alphabet's "don't ever defraud us" rules are quite clear, and it's hardly surprising they don't trust someone with that on their record.

> when I was a freshman in college I participated in an AdSense click ring with my dormmates

Heads up, you just admitted to fraud in writing from an account mentioning your employer, an employer in a regulated industry.

'...when my silly freshman experiment went down.'

There are plenty of people today living with the consequences of their adolescent actions. Adsense fraud is by no means the worst example.

As someone who was never tempted to do this, even during 3 months of homelessness, forgive me if I don't shed any tears.

If one wants to do a silly experiment with a Google account, it's a good idea to create a new Google account just for that, and not use the regular and important one.

If one has done some silly experiments in the past, it may be reasonable to create a new Google account as the "regular and important", and get email old redirected to it.

This kind of online hygiene will only become more and more important as online identities calcify.

I did use a different account, but Google is very good at tracing accounts back to the underlying person. Especially with AdSense, you've got to enter your SSN, which even if your email, address, phone, and whatever else are unblemished will cause the new account to get auto-flagged as well, which as far as I can tell then propagates to that email, phone, etc.

My YouTube account used to be somewhat separate, but during the whole Google Plus integration timeframe they forced you to tie it to your real identity. Which just goes to cement the original point of the dangers of using one master account for so many different services, things that used to be separate end up a mess. See also my various Skype, Zune, Xbox Live, MSDN, Office 365, and Windows accounts which cause me so much annoyance now that Microsoft has integrated a lot of the backend.

Anyway not trying to justify the questionable morals of a college freshman, but it's good to keep in mind the downstream effects of a seemingly minor infraction when multiplied by one corporation controlling so many different types of services.

You can't create a new account?

I've tried. Sure I can create new accounts but Google is very good at tracing accounts back to the underlying person. Especially with AdSense, you've got to enter your SSN, which even if your email, address, phone, and whatever else are unblemished will cause the new account to get auto-flagged as well, which as far as I can tell then propagates to that email, phone, etc.

> Especially with AdSense you've got to enter your SSN

How does that work for corporate accounts? Surely an employee can't be expected to submit personal information on behalf of their employer.

Companies have EINs (Employer Identification Numbers) that function like SSNs and are probably what they submit for that.

Correct. In theory I could get an EIN for my own company and use that instead, but that's more hoops than I'm willing to jump through and I'm not even 100% sure that would solve my problem, as they may tie it back to me another way.

Less scrupulous executives and managers at Google[0] could wield great power. For example, let's say you post something online that's critical of Google. Google may have the capability to trace it to you and then maybe your business doesn't appear as high in search results, or you have trouble with your YouTube channel. And how would you know? Who could you complain to?

Perhaps some regulation is needed, at least in areas where one company wields enormous market power.

[0] That may sound unlikely now, but executives come and go and things change rapidly. How do you think Uber under Kalanick would handle this kind of power, for example.

My best friend got locked out of his Google account over some videos he uploaded to YT in 2007. They got flagged only last month and his account got locked. He even has trouble with his Gapps on his Android phone.

I told him long time ago to deGoogle himself as much as possible but he didn't listen. Now he can't access anything. It's ridiculous. But that's Google for ya.

This happened to me too. in 2008 I uploaded a video clip from a rural Canadian TV station news show. In 2017 they finally got on the Web and immediately DMCA'd my ass. Luckily it was on an account I don't use anymore.

Yep, it's really annoying how Google forces all their services to be completely integrated together, and not even integrated well. Lots of issues with glitchy account switching.

Where does your account flack? I use my Google account for almost everything as I move from one thing to another and it is probably one of the biggest reasons I chose a Google service where given a choice.

I hate having to log in and remember passwords. So something like Google WiFi love able to just use my Google account. As well as Google photos, home, email, bookmarks, docs, drive, YT TV, YT Red, voice and even unlocking devices and such. Love even my wifi password being passed by my device instead of having to share.

I look forward to when my Google account unlocks my car and starts it.

I bought something from Google play when I was living in country x and now that I live in country y I cannot install anything that is limited to country y. In order to get Google to "forget" that I lived in country x I would have to give Google my credit card number that is located in country y. I don't want to change my address, all I want to do is make Google "forget" my old address.

Because of that I refuse to buy anything with my Google account

Exactly why I use Dropbox instead of Google Drive, my bank's Paywave app over Apple/Google Pay, Todoist over Google Tasks, and even Firefox over Chrome (because of bookmarks sync, addons sync, form fields, etc).

I can't split my Email from YouTube (which I really enjoy as products and am very active on YouTube), so if those get locked, I can still live most of my life.

You can, of course, do this yourself with separate accounts for each service, as long as the services are actually different and can be used separately.

For instance, I have a Google account for using Google (the search product), but a separate account for YouTube, and if I used Google Domains or Gmail, I would definitely have separate accounts for those things as well.

I can confirm that a ~10-year-old ban (due to a mistake on their part) on Google Wallet is still carried over to Google Pay.

I think all-in-one accounts would work if the user themselves owned the data instead of Google; honestly I'm a bit annoyed that I need to have a separate account / identity for every webpage I visit.

Yup. Same reason I spread my risk with a bunch of Amazon products rather than stick to any one ecosystem. It's either that or abandon the whole system altogether.

Why would I lie about this lmao https://i.imgur.com/bB3CAcC.png