[HN Gopher] Google Adsense/Admob blocks you for life if you use ...
___________________________________________________________________
Google Adsense/Admob blocks you for life if you use it before
you're 18
Author : code51
Score : 308 points
Date : 2022-09-30 17:59 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (support.google.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (support.google.com)
| logicalmonster wrote:
| Is it uncharitable to say that Google has intentionally stolen
| millions of dollars from kids?
|
| They seem to have engineered a set of rules where they work
| around having to ever pay a bunch of people for content that was
| produced and had ads displayed on it.
|
| Maybe the kids can't legally sign a contract, but Google still
| made money from them. Has Google forfeited this money or are they
| profiting off of child labor?
| njsubedi wrote:
| AFAIK all the incomes from invalid traffic are refunded to the
| advertisers. That might also be the procedure in case of
| invalid accounts.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| It would be good to get a clear citation of this, if
| available.
|
| Not that this matters as much, but I'd like to point out that
| even if this is the case that the money is returned to
| advertisers, Google may still reap non-trivial benefits from
| this chain of events in at least these ways.
|
| > Depending on the amount and length of time the money is
| held, this might add up to a substantial dollar value in
| interest payments they're making by holding onto the cash.
| The interest generated by temporarily holding $80 here and
| $400 there times thousands and thousands of users, held for a
| while, could be a non-trivial amount of cash in a long
| timeframe.
|
| > Google simultaneously screws over advertisers (garbage
| and/or fraud clicks) at the same time as they sometimes give
| away these freebie clicks (unpaid kids' clicks) back to their
| advertisers. Now think about advertisers' perceptions of
| Google for their business. It can be argued that Google is
| essentially banking on the goodwill from the kids' ad clicks
| being returned (giving the advertisers a freebie) to makeup
| for however much they piss off advertisers for the garbage
| fraud clicks that they receive. If Google can bank on
| "stealing" some percentage of clicks constantly, that might
| be enough for them to partially make up just enough for the
| bad clicks they send their advertisers. That could arguably
| materially impact their business prospects.
| beached_whale wrote:
| Interesting how Google has no issue with selling these people to
| their advertisers
| m00dy wrote:
| I had this issue one year after Adsense had been announced
| [deleted]
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| PayPal locked my account after receiving 800 EUR, asked for my
| ID, got it, unlocked my account (gave me about 3 hours to
| withdraw) and then banned me permanently for having created the
| account before 18.
|
| At this point, I consider most American companies as an active
| threat to me, especially if I used them before 18.
| codexon wrote:
| I know this is going to be hard to prove, but I was banned
| forever because they detected "click fraud" which did not come
| from me. It was likely initiated by a competitor.
|
| Now I still use adsense, but now it is through a 3rd party which
| takes a hefty cut of the profits.
|
| If adsense is your sole income, you should probably diversify.
| Anyone can get you permanently banned unless you are a well known
| youtuber.
| sva_ wrote:
| I think since he never verified his account, and has a different
| birth date than the one stated, he'll probably have no problems
| making a new account when he's 18.
| jeffbee wrote:
| "By submitting an application to use the Services, if you are an
| individual, you represent that you are at least 18 years of
| age... Google may at any time terminate your Account because of
| ... your failure to otherwise fully comply with the AdSense
| Policies... If ... Google suspends or terminates your Account,
| you (i) are prohibited from creating a new Account, and (ii) may
| not be permitted to monetize content on other Google products."
|
| Seems pretty clear.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| But it's not clear how someone under the age of 18 can agree to
| a contract.
| [deleted]
| code51 wrote:
| a) Imagine you are 13 years old and actually reading Terms of
| Services. Just imagine you are under 18.
|
| b) It's legal speak mentioning "you cannot create a new
| account" but it doesn't say you can't try to fix the problems
| about your existing account. The problem is there is nobody to
| reach for mistakes or downright violations from Google's side.
| It doesn't work to help people with good intentions realizing
| their errors.
|
| c) It's not mentioning that you will forever be blocked because
| you misrepresented your age for whatever the reason (just an
| unaware click is enough).
|
| If Google was actually serious in enforcing the policy, they
| would just check any detail that could trigger this user could
| be below 18 years of age. As you read here, they don't spend
| much of an effort to avoid this scenario. AI works just to
| block you, not to avoid your downfall.
|
| d) I wonder Google informs kids this much before making money
| on free content they upload on Youtube. It's not hard to see
| this is one-sided exploitation in business sense.
|
| So... pretty clear, yeah.
| doodlesdev wrote:
| > a) Imagine you are 13 years old and actually reading Terms
| of Services. Just imagine you are under 18.
|
| No need to imagine because I did exactly that (read my other
| comment). Let's get into this:
|
| > c) It's not mentioning that you will forever be blocked
| because you misrepresented your age for whatever the reason
| (just an unaware click is enough).
|
| It is mentioning SPECIFICALLY that. And an unaware click is
| not enough, you have to go through the trouble of reading the
| contract (or scrolling past it), checking a lot of boxes,
| saying you agree to the contract, and that's only after you
| in your own will and power decided to search for this. You
| also get to change your birthday once in your Google account
| if you made any mistakes during singup.
|
| > If Google was actually serious in enforcing the policy,
| they would just check any detail that could trigger this user
| could be below 18 years of age. As you read here, they don't
| spend much of an effort to avoid this scenario. AI works just
| to block you, not to avoid your downfall.
|
| Then people will complain that they require documentation,
| privacy this, privacy that. Mind you that I would never
| submit an ID to Google to verify my identity, but honestly
| that's the only way they can actually verify your age.
|
| I'm not a fan of Google and it's autobanning processes with
| no recourse, but this is a special case where I think it's
| completely justified looking from their side and all the
| liabilities they have if they decide to backtrack on
| something like this.
|
| For them someone is going to criticize them either way they
| take, so they choose the easier and simpler path of
| permabanning.
| khazhoux wrote:
| Can't he create a new gmail account? Not the end of the world.
| josephcsible wrote:
| It'll just get banned too. Google basically has a panopticon;
| there's no way they wouldn't know it's you.
| ShowalkKama wrote:
| Can't you ask google to delete all your data and sign up again?
| (thank god GDPR exists)
| code51 wrote:
| I think for this to work, Google actually has to delete any
| information about you completely from its systems. I'm curious
| if anyone tried this with success as well.
| josephcsible wrote:
| No, they'll claim they have a "legitimate interest" to keep
| some of it, and then use what they kept as justification to ban
| your new account too.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://gdpr.eu/recital-47-overriding-legitimate-interest/
|
| > The processing of personal data strictly necessary for the
| purposes of preventing fraud also constitutes a legitimate
| interest of the data controller concerned.
| [deleted]
| MVorlm wrote:
| GDPR does not fix this situation. There are cut-outs in GDPR
| that allows companies to store data for longer.
| Financial/billing/taxes fall under that category.
| pb7 wrote:
| GDPR doesn't prevent a company from retaining records of
| individuals who defrauded them.
| Chinjut wrote:
| Why should anything of this sort ever deserve a LIFETIME ban?
| nearmuse wrote:
| It would be understandable if it were for scams or using ads for
| illicit goods, but I can't imagine it being a tenable business
| practice for a corporation to keep a negative permanent record
| over a minor transgression where no-one is hurt. Are they being
| pushed by some regulations? Were those rules "written in blood"
| somehow?
|
| Not to mention all the sketchy or pointless webpages and apps
| which are there exclusively for the ad revenue and are really
| abusing the platform.
| c7b wrote:
| fdgsdfogijq wrote:
| I tried advertising a startup website I had, setup the payments
| wrong on adsense. Something with an old invalid card being linked
| or something, and google banned me for life through an automated
| system. The system thinks I tried to commit some sort of payments
| fraud.
| jdlyga wrote:
| I started buying on eBay before I was 18. I think my birthday is
| still wrong on that site, even though I'm almost 40.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I don't think the title follows. Nobody in that exchange seems to
| have considered the possibility that the 13yo could just keep the
| account going for 5 years until they're able to verify it at age
| 18, or alternatively just create a new Google ID on their 18th
| birthday and use that.
|
| Seems like a nontroversy.
| jgilias wrote:
| Did you actually read the accepted answer there? Neither of the
| options you mention are possible.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Of course I read it, that's why I wrote 'nobody seems to have
| considered the possibility.' How is Google gonna ban a person
| for life whose identity they never verified in the first
| place?
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| If you're under 18, then you cannot legally consent to the TOS,
| therefore you can't be in violation of them. They can kick you
| off of then of course, but banning you later on as an adult I
| wouldn't think would be justified because, as above, you can't
| violate TOS that you can't consent to when under 18.
| topynate wrote:
| What right does Google have to store the data about this kid
| necessary to enforce a lifetime ban against him? The click-
| through contract that he was legally unable to enter into?
|
| "he has already earned over PS300" implies he's in the UK, so UK
| GDPR applies.
| honestduane wrote:
| On the other hand, The kid did lie.
|
| From the Google Security Department perspective, this person is a
| threat actor.
| croes wrote:
| You mean Google didn't really check and punishes a minor for
| his lifetime.
| Shank wrote:
| As someone who operated on the "adult internet" with payment
| processors and related infrastructure without being 18, I still
| carry forward the constant fear that I'll be banned for
| retroactive Terms of Service violations incurred when I was a
| kid. It really sucks when it's services like AdSense because
| you're just screwed forever.
|
| I really really wish the internet was more supportive of "early
| hackers" who want to experiment. I get that there are tons of
| implications around contract law and child labor here, but there
| really needs to be an escape hatch if a parent agrees to whatever
| activity is being done. Ostensibly, this is a young creator
| getting discouraged from their hobby, even though they've shown
| that they're good enough at it to deserve some form of
| compensation. This'll leave a bad taste in the kid's mouth for a
| long time.
| narag wrote:
| _I get that there are tons of implications around contract law
| and child labor here, but there really needs to be an escape
| hatch if a parent agrees to whatever activity is being done._
|
| While it's happening, it can be done using the parent's
| identity. After that, the same logic that prevents a minor to
| commit, because limited responsability, should be applied to
| avoid perpetual consequences.
|
| But as usual, companies apply draconian measures that
| governments can't. Some day we'll finally get that regulation
| that draws a line between utilities and publishers...
| nickff wrote:
| > _" But as usual, companies apply draconian measures that
| governments can 't. Some day we'll finally get that
| regulation that draws a line between utilities and
| publishers.."_
|
| Technically true, but the government often uses regulations
| and investigatory powers to compel private corporations to
| enact draconian regulations that the government cannot enact
| on its own.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point
| jollyllama wrote:
| I remember registering with an non-adult affiliate marketing
| company as a kid. I'm pretty sure they knew I was young and
| they just didn't care. Either they used that as an excuse to
| rip me off or none of my leads ever converted lol
| f1shy wrote:
| > I get that there are tons of implications around contract law
| and child labor here, but there really needs to be an escape
| hatch
|
| Specially, if you the intend is to "protect" children, this is
| not helpful.
| ars wrote:
| The escape hatch is the parent opening the account in their own
| name.
|
| Companies don't have a choice here: Someone under 18 can not
| enter into a contract, there's nothing really they can do.
| lovingCranberry wrote:
| Hmm, in Germany children and teens can still enter contracts,
| as long as they are able to pay it with their monthly pocket
| money. Every single thing you buy here in a supermarket is
| also an implicit contract (Kaufvertrag).
|
| So, you could theoretically rent servers and buy ad space on
| Adsense as long your pocket money covers it. On the other
| hand: this is a liability for Google and $provider -- as most
| of them are post-pay. If a teen ever decides to spawn an
| A1000 instance with 36 cores and cannot pay, the contract is
| void and Google has no entitlement for compensation.
|
| Pre-paid stuff like a small instance on vultr.com should work
| fine, though.
| jotm wrote:
| Postpaid was my favorite when I was a poor 16 year old.
|
| I couldn't believe you can rent 12 core servers for 3
| months and not pay for it!
|
| Yes, I know it was illegal lol
| NeoTar wrote:
| > Companies don't have a choice here: Someone under 18 can
| not enter into a contract, there's nothing really they can
| do.
|
| If this were the case they someone under eighteen would not
| be able to buy anything in a shop. That is a contract.
| Beltiras wrote:
| The unreasonableness here is that since the party couldn't
| enter into a contract they are precluded _for life_ from
| doing so in the future.
| f1shy wrote:
| Do you know for sure it is absolutely impossible? I know at
| least 3 countries where you can get a permission from your
| parents being 16, 14, or even 12.
|
| I know that, because I was 16 when we did the procedure to
| allow me be adult (have all the rights of being 21, except
| vote and consume alcohol)
| Mezzie wrote:
| The US is pretty strict about it, _legally_ speaking.
|
| If I recall correctly, the reason I couldn't get a debit
| card for my bank account as a 14/15 year old without giving
| a guardian access to my account is that issuing a debit
| card required signing a contract and I legally couldn't do
| that.
|
| Minors do sign things, they just have no legal validity for
| the most part (I think employment docs for kids over 14/16
| might be an exception, but a lot of states regulate that
| and mandate an adult's consent as well).
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| But things can be done without contracts. You can't hold a
| child accountable to pay a bill--but children certainly can
| buy things. You simply make things with children entirely
| prepay or time-of-transaction pay (you hand the clerk the $,
| you get the item.)
| heavyset_go wrote:
| There is plenty they can do and that they're already doing.
| The inability to enter contracts with someone doesn't mean
| they need to get banned for life from the service.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| They can, but they can also renege on most of them.
|
| Not sure if you can do that after you turn 18 though.
| [deleted]
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| They have a choice. They could ban him until he's 18 or 5
| years lapse whichever is longer. It's not black and white and
| doesn't need to be for life. I know the google guy who
| informed him he was banned for life has no power over that
| though. This is a straight up decision from much higher up
| than his pay grade. So he informed the person and locked it.
| It's all he could really do. I hope the internet rage-brigade
| doesn't do anything bad to him.
| judge2020 wrote:
| I'm in the opposite boat: I told paypal I was under 18 when I
| was under 18, called them, they kept my account locked, but as
| soon as I turned 18 I was unblocked and could used my original
| account. And I made the account when I was 11.
| factsarelolz wrote:
| At what age did you call to report that you broke the TOS by
| certifying you were over 18?
|
| PayPal really kept a dormant account with an underaged
| persons PII for 7 years? Interesting.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Tried to verify my age at 16, which locked the account.
| Called them and they said they can't do anything until i'm
| 18. After 6 months I was able to withdraw the funds into a
| bank account I owned. Only at 18 was I able to log in and
| redo KYC/driver's license upload.
| Mezzie wrote:
| It's possible that when they signed up/created the account,
| it wasn't required.
|
| Paypal was founded before there were any laws about age for
| signing up for things online, and minors are legally
| allowed bank accounts that their guardians don't have
| access to. (Or at least they used to be allowed: I had one
| at 14 in 2002).
| MattGaiser wrote:
| > but there really needs to be an escape hatch if a parent
| agrees to whatever activity is being done.
|
| Wouldn't this be the parents signing up for the account?
| RHSeeger wrote:
| There is a difference between a parent's account and a
| child's account that was agreed to by a parent. One says "I
| am doing this", the other "my child is doing this and I'm
| allowing it".
| RajT88 wrote:
| The old apocryphal tale comes to mind of the CD clubs.
|
| -Everyone knew a person back in the day who signed up for the
| CD clubs promising dollar CD's, or 10 for a dollar. Whatever
| the various deals were. -With those deals came a commitment to
| buy 10 - 20 more albums at full price. -You sign a contract
| agreeing to this. -So the friend-of-a-friend signed it while
| under 18 and a minor. -They then tell the CD club that the
| agreement is null and void on account of them not being legally
| able to sign a contract, and after getting their 10 CD's for a
| dollar or whatever, to cancel their account.
| bombcar wrote:
| In my era they didn't even have much of a requirement to buy
| that many, it was like signup and get 10 or 20 CDs if you buy
| two, and then they'd keep sending you CDs that you had to say
| "return" on for a year or so.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Wouldn't it be interesting if violating Google's TOS meant that
| you also couldn't _view_ AdSense ads.
|
| Suddenly: "Hey, Google! I'm three years old, better ban me!"
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| The idea that they don't have a timeout feature rather than a
| "banned for life" antifeature explains all you need to know
| about these megacorps that are mostly the only game in town for
| what they do. This is why Congress (and other equivalents) need
| to kick them in the balls every so often to let them know who
| is actually in charge.
| shp0ngle wrote:
| The locking out seems more like a bug than a feature, from
| what the "platform expert" is saying
| lamontcg wrote:
| Congress is working for them.
| Swizec wrote:
| > if a parent agrees to whatever activity is being done
|
| My mom definitely wouldn't be able to provide informed consent
| to half the stuff I was doing on the internet in high school
| and middle school even if I told her about it.
|
| She worried, I'm sure, but between speaking next to zero
| english and the novelty of www in the early 00's, best she
| could do was threaten to take the computer if things got too
| weird.
| Semaphor wrote:
| When I was a kid, i hosted WC3 beta cracks, patches, and
| servers on our ISP Webspace. Blizzard had some call our ISP,
| who called my dad, who told me to stop doing whatever it was
| that got people mad
|
| It feel like nowadays, it'd have resulted in a lawsuit, but
| at least threatening lawyer letters.
|
| edit: Archive.org link to the site. With a visitor counter
| and cringy teeny-sounding English ;) https://web.archive.org/
| web/20020522193227/http://home.foni....
|
| For anyone interested, this was strictly beta, by a group of
| crackers who said they'd stop releasing anything as soon as
| the game was done. I was one of 4 or 5 people who'd get
| advanced notification in IRC to upload the newest patches
| etc. so there'd be multiple mirrors available for the
| announcement.
| jotm wrote:
| Nothing beats "Stop using Mandrake, this is illegal
| software and we will get sued!"
|
| On that note, my sister can't wrap her head around the fact
| that people can have multiple bank accounts and many of
| them are completely free.
|
| She looks at my collection of cards and says "omg the
| Finanzamt will get you!".
|
| Just wait until they get you for making money off TikTok
| videos lol
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Nowadays they would have tried to get you taken from your
| parents and sent to an Activision owned private prison
| facility to stamp out Blizzard game stickers.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| rrwo wrote:
| Companies cannot legally provide a lot of services to minors.
|
| For other services there is enough bureaucracy that it's easier
| to avoid by not providing the service to minors.
|
| It's also easier to ban accounts for life when they lie about
| who they are. You don't run the risk of aiding fraud and being
| fined if you make a mistake, because you banned them.
|
| There was nothing preventing the kid from creatibg content. It
| was in using Ad Sense to make money off it.
| Method-X wrote:
| Sure but that doesn't mean they should be banned for _life_.
| If you commit a crime as a minor does that follow you around
| for the rest of your life? At least where I live, it doesn't.
| ska wrote:
| > doesn't mean they should be banned for life.
|
| It doesn't mean that it shouldn't though, either. I can't
| imagine any other way around this that doesn't amount to
| forcing a company to provide a service to someone they have
| rational reasons to not trust, which seems like globally at
| least it could cause more problems than it solves.
|
| To be clear I'm not saying we shouldn't encourage a company
| to re-consider when the person is older, but it's hard to
| see how they should be forced to.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| > As someone who operated on the "adult internet" with payment
| processors and related infrastructure without being 18, I still
| carry forward the constant fear that I'll be banned for
| retroactive Terms of Service violations incurred when I was a
| kid. It really sucks when it's services like AdSense because
| you're just screwed forever.
|
| The thing is, most parents wouldn't even think "Oh, you'll need
| to do that in my name." when their kid says they want to build
| some website and put ads on it. They just think "Oh that's
| cute, we'll figure out the money stuff later."
| jotm wrote:
| Mine thought "wtf is he on about" :D
| RHSeeger wrote:
| > The thing is, most parents wouldn't even think "Oh, you'll
| need to do that in my name."
|
| I certainly wouldn't think that, as it sounds like horrible
| idea. Your teenage child posts one picture of themselves in a
| compromising situation, and suddenly you're lost all access
| to your accounts for the rest of your life. I'll pass,
| thanks.
|
| And, yes, I get the "educate your children" thing.. but
| children do stupid things. Heck, an adult lost their gmail
| account forever because the sent a picture of their child to
| their doctor; one the doctor asked for.
| f1shy wrote:
| Or let me put it this way: if I would be judged with that
| severity for all stupid things I did, I would be in
| guantanamo.
| sophacles wrote:
| I suspect that there's enough of us that it would be more
| economical to relocate Australians and revert the
| continent to a penal colony.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| I'm pretty sure half of the folk in tech at some point
| did illegal tech things in their teens. Rebelling and
| breaking the law in your teens is kind of normal and
| should be expected in my opinion.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| Maybe don't have the account that is linked to their
| adsense linked to anything but their adsense? Seems
| completely insane to link an adsense account you created
| for your child to anything but what it needs to be used for
| adsense.
|
| Honestly, if you're making money from something you should
| have it away from your personal things. Just like how you
| shouldn't have AWS activated for your main amazon account.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Heck, an adult lost their gmail account forever because
| the sent a picture of their child to their doctor; one the
| doctor asked for.
|
| All the bad press didn't sort that out? That kind of thing
| shouldn't happen in the first place, but we can usually
| expect that once it hits headlines some PR drone swoops in
| to fix the issue.
| handedness wrote:
| That's a definition of the word "fix" with which I am
| unfamiliar.
|
| He still doesn't have access to his accounts.
|
| If a sympathetic police department had not offered to
| navigate the (likely complex) process of restoring their
| copy of his data to him, he would have little hope of
| recovering the data, either. (My hat's off to whomever
| made that decision, because my guess is other
| considerations would almost always prevail.)
|
| If federal investigators had not been quite so favorable
| in recognizing the nature of the situation, that
| component alone could have easily ruined him.
|
| I'm also unaware of what his legal and other professional
| fees have been in all this, but I would imagine Google
| has done nothing to reimburse him for his expenses, much
| less compensate him for the time wasted and incredible
| stress that had to place on him and his family.
|
| Beyond all that, getting SEO bombed as being potentially
| involved in the production and distribution CSAM is not a
| positive outcome for anyone who values their privacy or
| wants to ever have a normal interaction with a new
| employer or any other entity that may search his name.
| Beyond that, those who regularly fill out official forms
| relating to background and behavior will forever have to
| answer some questions differently and jump through the
| additional hoops an experience like that would trigger.
|
| His outcome has been one of the least-terrible
| possibilities, but I hope he sues Google in a very public
| and embarrassing way, because whatever damages are
| awarded will be a rounding error to them.
|
| Finally, the process itself is by no indications anything
| but still completely broken.
|
| Your suggested "fix" is anything but.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Google's PR team explicitly said they will never
| reinstate that user and that they stand by their CSAM
| detection policy.
|
| I'm not sure what mindset drives people to say "even if
| you didn't commit a crime, you're guilty of the
| appearance of that crime, which is good enough". Social
| media outrage mobs perhaps, but my money is more on "this
| user puts us at risk of criminal prosecution". A lot of
| companies treat CSAM detection & removal as a
| subdepartment of risk management, which means lots of
| "shut the fuck up and go away".
| RHSeeger wrote:
| Certainly not everyone that this type of thing happens to
| gets front page attention. I don't know that it ever got
| resolved but, even if it did, the "I was able to convince
| tends of thousands of people to talk about my issue until
| someone paid attention" is not a reasonable process to go
| through. Even in the best case, he lost access to his
| accounts for an unreasonable amount of time. If he used
| the same account for business, that could be financially
| disastrous.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| Google doesn't really care about bad PR from account
| deletions. Most people don't hear about them, they rarely
| hit the news.
|
| What annoys me is, just this week Meta tried to claim
| that they were basically a social infrastructure that is
| essential everyone uses and relies on and that they
| shouldn't be held to blame for what people see on there
| when it's legal to post. While at the same time, these
| companies don't want to act like any of the other
| infrastructure. Ban people for no reason, no recourse,
| and no come back. While at the same time claiming they're
| there for the people and are providing a public service.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| You can just use a friend's account ? There is no way of
| banning someone really.
|
| Growing up with the internet it always felt these companies
| were playing with fire. I can't explain it. The 90s were a wild
| time I guess. That generation knows about using fake names and
| addresses.
|
| I guess I have never seen these businesses as proper businesses
| like the local mom and pop shop whose owner you know and
| respect and who respects you.
|
| But google and other such companies always feel like they are
| trying to use you and you are trying to use them.
| BudaDude wrote:
| Forgive me if I am incorrect, its been years since I have
| used it, but don't you need to link a bank account and social
| security number to receive money from Adsense?
| tomca32 wrote:
| You could just get a check mailed. I lived in Europe then
| and got a check that I cashed at my bank. I didn't have a
| SSN, so but maybe US citizens had to provide it.
|
| Granted this was 15 or so years ago so things might have
| changed since then.
| salawat wrote:
| Nowadays BSA requires KYC. Any type of money transmission
| requires collection of enough PII to do an OFAC check to
| ensure you aren't facilitating activity to a sanctioned
| individual. Banks/clearinghouses are usually on the line
| for doing this for their clients.
| aliqot wrote:
| For a while they just mailed paper checks on any month when
| the 100 USD minimum threshold was passed. If they didn't
| get cashed they'd send threatening letters about
| 'escheatment'. I think that stopped at some point about
| 10yrs ago. Not sure about what happened after.
| nalllar wrote:
| I never told my parents anything and they woke up one day to a
| legal notice from Disney fedexed across the atlantic.
|
| Fun times!
| agilob wrote:
| I have like 6 or 7 active adsense accounts that I created before
| Google required to verify ID for accounts. I made all of them
| before I was 15
| pacetherace wrote:
| What happens to these bans if I setup a LLC and use that for
| future Adsense business?
| missedthecue wrote:
| Don't they ask you to upload your government ID?
| genewitch wrote:
| that would be articles of incorporation or whatever the
| functional equivalent is for LLC (or a 501.c3, ...)
| f1shy wrote:
| Should be no problem, except for the problem of setting up an
| LLC "just for that". I've no idea how it works in the states,
| but setting up a firm, in many countries I know, is no easy
| task, and comes with associated costs, both one-time and
| recurrent ones.
| sbf501 wrote:
| Lawsuits work.
|
| Around 2003 I purchased a CPU from eBay with PayPal. It never
| shipped because it was a scam. My credit card company refunded my
| money, but PayPal demanded I pay them. I refused and they banned
| my account.
|
| It took almost a decade before a class-action lawsuit forced
| amnesty at PayPal. I use it now because it is convenient to have
| everything go through one service that I can control. But if they
| did this again I wouldn't use them again.
|
| Hopefully a class-action lawsuit can still work against a giant
| like Google. If the US would get its head out of its arse and
| pass legislation like GDRP, we might actually have a chance at
| the right to be forgotten.
| nkozyra wrote:
| I was banned from Adsense for reasons unknown, permanently. Even
| if you play by the rules you're at risk.
| duxup wrote:
| It's sad but because of stuff like this I setup accounts for my
| kids to register for games or whatever and always set them up as
| adults.
|
| I don't have time to deal with their accounts getting locked and
| so on, even if there are other issues.
|
| Granted they also don't get free reign on the internet / outside
| parental view anyhow.
| [deleted]
| MikeYasnev007 wrote:
| nerdawson wrote:
| Issues like this wouldn't exist if verification was required
| upfront.
|
| If you need to be at least 18 to use a particular service, and
| they're going to verify _at some point_ , that point should be at
| the very start.
| f1shy wrote:
| I wonder if it is _clearly_ specified in the TOS that you may
| face a life ban...
| romwell wrote:
| This sounds like exploitation of minors: let them create an
| account that generates revenue, but only kickban them when it
| suits the company
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| Note that the responses are responses by a community member and
| not by a Google employee. As such, those responses should be
| taken with a grain of salt.
| adoxyz wrote:
| Came to say this. This person knows even less than actual
| Google support (which may or may not exist in the first place).
|
| Google not having real human support is unbelievable.
| code51 wrote:
| Google Adsense/Admob offers no support for most of its users.
|
| Only users that generate large revenue can access Chat option.
|
| For the rest, the only option is to write to support community.
| It's deliberate: feels like there is support but there is none.
| fudgefactorfive wrote:
| I remember at 21 getting an email from Paypal that the account
| I'd used my entire online life was banned because I started it
| when I was 12. They noticed this after I reached out to
| support...
|
| Switched email addresses and used that instead. Although I've not
| used PayPal in a good while because it just randomly rejected
| transactions for no clear reason.
| pocketsand wrote:
| Even if Google were to change their policies to allow this
| youngster back on in five years, he'd be helpless to actually get
| Google to respond to a support request.
| judge2020 wrote:
| As far as I can tell the 13 year old isn't even locked out,
| they just can't verify the AdSense account (and the
| verification name must match the name on the account), so they
| will indeed be able to cash out in 5 years.
| Animats wrote:
| Incorporate. As a corporation, you can get a Google Adsense
| business account.
| chickenpotpie wrote:
| Worth noting that this is the statement of a "product expert"
| which is just some random person not an employee of the company
| our the actual policy. This might be true but this isn't a
| reliable source.
| winkeltripel wrote:
| Note that Google chooses to rely on these product experts
| instead of helping, or providing sources of information itself.
| romwell wrote:
| As if you ever get actual people from Google responding to
| peons like that.
|
| That's as reliable as it gets.
| tremon wrote:
| Wow, that's a great feature. Too bad I'm too old to qualify.
| pmarreck wrote:
| Seems like a business opportunity to me
| naet wrote:
| I worked in financial services for a while and I think Adsense
| qualifies as a similar financial service, though it might be
| different since we were working in a sector directly related to
| trading stocks and brokerage.
|
| To comply with US legal regulations my company had to: verify the
| legitimate identity of account holders via SSN or other means,
| confirm they are over 18, confirm they aren't on a specific list
| of financial fraudsters or entities blacklisted by the US
| government, etc. If we didn't do this properly for every single
| user we could have been liable for all kinds of nasty legal
| ramifications, including losing various legal operating licenses
| we worked very hard to obtain.
|
| A kid claiming they are older than they are is relatively low on
| the scale of identity fraud, but it is still a form of direct
| identity fraud and would have direct legal consequences if we
| allowed it through. To open the account, they had to have put in
| a false statement about their age. Verification isn't instant, it
| takes time to process, so you can easily open an unverifiable
| account on many services including Adsense, but it will forever
| remain unverified if you cannot provide legitimate verification
| info. I am sympathetic that someone of that age might not
| understand the consequences of their actions, but they claimed to
| be someone they are not (specifically an older person). Once you
| do that, you can't go back and claim to be another individual.
| They can find an adult and have an adult open an account, which
| would have various legal ramifications for that adult individual
| who owns the account, but it would be a new account for a new
| individual just as with Google Adsense.
|
| Also some of the comments about data and GDPR are a bit absurd.
| You cannot commit fraud, spam, or otherwise violate terms of
| service, then demand all your data be erased under "GDPR" so you
| can open a new account and do it over again without recourse. We
| had constant repeat violators trying to game our onboarding and
| sign back up after being banned or denied an account. Showing any
| form of "grace" around previously closed or banned accounts was
| taking a big risk. We were able to do so on occasion, but only
| because we operated at a small scale, so an admin could look
| deeply into individual circumstances and make exceptions. Google
| Adsense likely faces orders of magnitude higher levels of abuse,
| and it makes sense for them to not reopen accounts for any reason
| to minimize their risk exposure. Yes it is unfortunate for those
| who were banned for a "minor" reason but there isn't much else
| they can sensibly do.
| kweingar wrote:
| I've been banned-for-life from a handful of services after I lied
| about my age as a kid.
|
| I can see both (all?) sides of this:
|
| - As a society we ought to be forgiving of harmless youthful
| indiscretions
|
| - As a business you shouldn't have to give second chances to
| people who blatantly defraud you
|
| - There is a big can of worms when it comes to doing business
| with minors on the internet. I don't think there's a solution as
| easy as "well when they're 18, let them log into their account
| and update their age to acknowledge that they were using the
| service as a minor" or "just let people open multiple accounts
| (with wildly different ages) under their name."
| romwell wrote:
| I think the solution is "the right to fucking delete your
| account forver".
|
| Google keeping "limbo" accounts is dystopian, and seems like a
| GDPR violation to me.
| kweingar wrote:
| I'm all for grace and forgiveness, but it seems excessive to
| require businesses to delete all records of people who
| defrauded them.
|
| If a liquor store had caught me with a fake ID, I wouldn't
| consider it dystopian if they put my name on a list and kept
| it in the back.
| manuelmoreale wrote:
| I guess it would make sense for them to keep it until you
| have the actual legal age.
|
| It wouldn't make sense to refuse to sell you liquor when
| you're in your 80s though.
| buildbot wrote:
| This is a hard edge case in my opinion, because unless you
| unregister that email everywhere you used it, someone else
| will gain access to all your old accounts which would leak
| potentially much worse things than a record saying this email
| is not available anymore.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's not a GDPR violation.
|
| https://gdpr.eu/recital-47-overriding-legitimate-interest/
|
| > The processing of personal data strictly necessary for the
| purposes of preventing fraud also constitutes a legitimate
| interest of the data controller concerned.
| maxbond wrote:
| I wonder if you could argue that it isn't "strictly
| necessary" after a certain point though. Does ToS abuse by
| minors in this way really predict fraud 15 years later? If
| the SNR of a signal decays over time, at a certain point do
| the interests of liberty exceed the interests of preventing
| fraud?
|
| I have absolutely no idea and am not a lawyer, it just
| seems to me that the word "strictly" is meant to indicate
| that it isn't pixie dust companies can sprinkle on any
| piece of information as they choose. The rest of the
| language here seems to stress that there has to be some
| sort of test which demonstrates that the interests of the
| controller overrides the interest of the data subject.
| eurg wrote:
| "legitimate" is doing a lot of work here.
| fweimer wrote:
| At least the GPDR should allow you to correct the age. I
| don't think it has any provisions that say that if you
| entered incorrect data yourself, you waive your right to have
| data corrected.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| They'd be required to correct the age, but they wouldn't be
| required to delete the "this person defrauded us by giving
| a false age" flag/note on your internal profile.
| waffleiron wrote:
| I think they'd have a hard time justifying the legitimate
| interest assessment to keep that data forever.
|
| I agree with your statement though, but the GDPR issue is
| the retention time, not a DSAR issue.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "I have a legitimate interest in _never_ doing business
| with someone who defrauded me " seems like a reasonably
| easy argument to make.
| waffleiron wrote:
| It's an easy argument, but that doesn't make it correct.
| Within law "crimes" have a statue of limitations and
| almost never infinite long punishment. A strong argument
| is needed to override someones rights for an unlimited
| time like that.
|
| If you work in the EU, have a chat with your DPO/Privacy
| team cause I bet they would actually find this an
| interesting conversation too.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| As part of our privacy team, I'm glad it's someone _else
| 's_ argument to have in court someday.
| f1shy wrote:
| The problem is the company is in a privileged position.
| And there have to be limits. If not, they could stretch
| the definition of "defrauded me" to whatever they want,
| for example including discrimination of any kind.
| pb7 wrote:
| ceejayoz wrote:
| A _lot_ of dystopian scifi involves corporations; Robocop,
| Weyland-Yutani Corp from Aliens, etc. Google 's got more
| power than substantial numbers of governments.
| pb7 wrote:
| And yet Google can't come knock on your door and take you
| away. Calling it dystopian can only come from an
| incredibly sheltered individual who has never faced any
| real danger.
| wnoise wrote:
| Not all dystopias are of the "direct violence" type.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > And yet Google can't come knock on your door and take
| you away.
|
| Not _directly_...
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/googles-scans-
| private-...
|
| Plenty of dystopian fiction involves corporations
| _legally_ not allowed to do something and still doing it,
| because they 're functionally immune to consequences.
| There are also degrees of dystopian between "murder corp"
| and Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.
|
| You might have an overly narrow definition of
| "dystopian".
| pb7 wrote:
| Thank you for proving my point: the government did that.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Google wielded its substantial power and reputation to
| trigger government action incorrectly, causing someone to
| have significant difficulty.
|
| IMO, that's at least a _bit_ dystopian. (The blurring of
| lines between goverment and corporation is another
| dystopian scifi trope, even.)
| pb7 wrote:
| It doesn't take any special power or reputation to report
| someone for having CSAM with evidence, erroneously or
| not. You or I could do it.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Again, missing the point.
|
| It's not just the action; it's the ability to do it
| without significant consequences. I could sue you for
| slander if you called me a pedophile; my ability to do so
| (successfully) against Google is quite limited. Law
| enforcement is also likely to treat an accusation from
| Google differently than from some random person.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| If the government is at the behest to the corporation's
| decrees then it's just a proxy and the end result is the
| same.
| LegitShady wrote:
| dystopia does not require the government - in fact some
| popular fictional dystopias are when corporations can
| control/etc without the government intervening. So maybe
| just don't word police other people because you don't like
| their words.
| pb7 wrote:
| labster wrote:
| The word dystopia comes from analysis of fiction.
| pb7 wrote:
| The definition is "imagined state or society great
| suffering or injustice" -- Google cannot cause you great
| suffering or injustice because it has little to no power
| over you. Only a government or similar can truly cause
| great suffering en masse.
| LegitShady wrote:
| its not an argument, its about the definition of the
| word, and how you were word policing based on your
| opinion that doesn't actually reflect the way the word is
| used.
|
| It wouldn't be an issue if you just had given your
| opinion instead of demanding he stop using words, which
| was the primary reason for my reply, because you
| demanding other people stop using words is insufferably
| arrogant.
| pb7 wrote:
| LegitShady wrote:
| [deleted]
| pb7 wrote:
| LegitShady wrote:
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _Is it insufferably arrogant to ask people to stop
| using insensitive, hateful, or discriminatory words?_
|
| When that word is 'dystopia', yeah. Getting this offended
| about a megacorp being called dystopian is insufferable.
| Whatever your relationship is to Google, it doesn't
| warrant this level of personal attachment. You're acting
| like he insulted your own mother or something.
| pb7 wrote:
| I'm not offended in the least, I'm just tired of reading
| melodramatic takes from people who haven't experienced
| any hardship. It's a common theme here and I want it to
| be better. Let's attribute the correct level of concern
| to things instead of calling keeping track of people who
| defrauded you "dystopian". There's literally a war
| happening and an actual real government cutting off
| communications to its people so that they can't protest,
| let's focus on _that very real_ dystopia.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _insensitive, hateful, or discriminatory_
|
| That's how you characterized it. You're clearly offended,
| that's why you're throwing around DEI buzzwords.
| pb7 wrote:
| I wasn't referring to dystopia being any of those, I was
| making the point that requesting certain words not be
| used is fine and common.
| ajross wrote:
| How would deleting the account in question help anyone,
| though? Or are you saying that after deleting, they would
| then be allowed to re-register after a ban? Isn't that just
| isomorphic to demanding Free Ban Evasion for All?
| notimetorelax wrote:
| Well, the law is usually on the side of the young. Younger you
| are lighter is the punishment, here it seems to be the reverse.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > As a business you shouldn't have to give second chances to
| people who blatantly defraud you
|
| Just to point the obvious, but corporations do not have any
| inherent right, and this specific one is already denied on some
| circumstances.
| shp0ngle wrote:
| Corporations are people too
| tmpz22 wrote:
| People who can't be put in prison as a deterrent, who can
| be dissolved, sold, etc
| macrolime wrote:
| It's not just corporations who can be dissolved. Any
| person can, for example by entering an acicid hot spring
| in Yellowstone.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| In which circumstances are companies not allowed to ban
| people for fraud? Power and water utilities I guess?
| smsm42 wrote:
| Yet another step sleepwalking into the dystopian future. Sure,
| it's some ad account, who cares. But imagine one of the digital
| ID projects going mainstream, and the government adopting it, and
| you doing something as a kid banning you from every payroll
| system supporting this particular digital ID scheme. And there's
| nobody to talk to. It's just the way it is.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Probably best not to do that then.
| Hizonner wrote:
| Yes, it is very unwise to use any Google product or service for
| any business purpose.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's very unwise to lie to a service provider when they
| explicitly ask, especially when setting up an account where
| money will change hands. That is technically actual fraud.
|
| Google's not gating out under-18-year-olds for fun: they're a
| business, they'd _love_ to make more money. Contract law in
| the US forbids people under 18 from entering into broad
| categories of contract, and Adsense use operates under
| electronic contract between user and Google where money
| changes hands in both directions. Google opens themselves up
| to _huge_ liability if they inadvertently do business with a
| minor, which is why they 're so paranoid about the lock-out.
| Hizonner wrote:
| > That is technically actual fraud.
|
| That would depend on whose laws you were applying. In a lot
| of places, fraud requires a misrepresentation that's
| actually material to the transaction, and a court could
| come down on either side of the question of whether the
| user's age was material in the necessary way.
|
| > Google opens themselves up to huge liability if they
| inadvertently do business with a minor, which is why
| they're so paranoid about the lock-out.
|
| No, they really don't. They _might_ open themselves up to
| _limited_ liability if they let a minor do something that
| lost said minor money. They also might not be able to
| enforce some of the "take it or leave it" provisions of
| their terms against minors (of course, in a sane legal
| system they wouldn't be able to enforce those terms against
| _anybody_ , but you don't see many if any sane legal
| systems).
|
| But they do not open themselves up to " _huge_ liability ".
|
| Nonetheless, they don't choose to take even those small
| risks. Mostly, I suspect, because the response wouldn't be
| automatable. Google _hates_ anything that 's not
| automatable, and vehemently resists manually fixing
| anything. That applies to interacting with adults, too, and
| to cases where you haven't even actually violated their
| policies, but the automation happens to be wrong, which
| happens all the time.
|
| Which is why nobody of any age should be depending on
| Google.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| At Google's scale, these aren't small risks.
|
| How expensive would it be to defend these cases in court
| N times per day in different of jurisdictions? It to have
| them aggregated into class action?
| code51 wrote:
| If Google was so worried about this, their AI and behavior
| analytics can %99.9 know you are underage. They could show
| a BIG RED alert multiple times about this. Plus, I don't
| see heavy upload traffic from these young people becoming a
| liability on their end which is basically free work.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| "Free work" of children is "child labor."
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _especially when setting up an account where money will
| change hands. That is technically actual fraud_
|
| no, that's not fraud. It might be an element of fraud if it
| was a loophole you were exploiting to use the account for
| some fraudulent purpose, but fraud requires theft or
| similar, not just technical violations of terms.
| eastbound wrote:
| All minors set up a Youtube channel at one point and a lot
| of them use Adsense.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Do you mean use Adsense as per policy (by linking the
| account of someone over 18) or do you mean lie to Google?
|
| The latter might be true, but every time Google becomes
| aware of it they will cancel that account as quickly as
| they can.
| Falling3 wrote:
| > Google opens themselves up to huge liability if they
| inadvertently do business with a minor, which is why
| they're so paranoid about the lock-out.
|
| What liability is that? Genuinely asking because I've never
| heard that concern.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| The "under-18-year-olds can't enter into contracts" laws
| are, broadly speaking, derived historically from child
| labor protection concerns, and tend to be state-level
| law.
|
| There's very real risk that legitimizing a contract with
| a child opens Google up to expensive-to-litigate criminal
| liability.
| wnoise wrote:
| Children technically can enter into contracts. But
| they're voidable contracts, so it's essentially no upside
| and only downside for those that would contract with
| them.
| mynegation wrote:
| I've never used AdSense, so might be a stupid question, but how
| do they identify you? Are you supposed to give them some lifetime
| identifying information like SSN? Everything else like email,
| name, address can be changed.
| damidekronik wrote:
| I
| tsrand0m wrote:
| I wanted to comment on the parent thread but it's already locked.
|
| "Cannot the boy withhold payment until he turns 18 years? He will
| lose it to inflation and all but at least he will get some due,
| right?"
|
| It's a little weird not being able to suggest a solution when my
| whole life runs on Adsense money.
| jgilias wrote:
| Apparently this is not possible. Because it's not possible to
| verify the account, as the person doing the verification has a
| different birthdate than what's associated with the account.
| djhworld wrote:
| My friend ran into this recently, he signed up to Paypal in like
| 2003, probably to sell games or something on eBay for a bit of
| cash.
|
| He's in his mid thirties now, and Paypal banned his account
| without warning, when he phoned them up they said it was because
| he was under 18 when he signed up.....19 years ago.
| f1shy wrote:
| Sometimes the "justice" can be slow... In e-bay I assume you
| can sing up again with a different mail and second name or so.
| andromeduck wrote:
| Wow... I know like 10-20 people who did that too for getting
| used parts and collectables in highschool.
| xg15 wrote:
| > _Your son 's account is now in limbo - it can't be verified,
| closed or paid out. It can only be abandoned but it will still
| technically be active as AdSense think he is over 18 - he
| declared that to be the case._
|
| Of course it can't be verified _now_ , but what would prevent the
| son from completing the verification in a few years when he is
| actually 18?
| butterguns wrote:
| Presumably because the Date of Birth on the account is
| immutable, and the son's ID (even when he becomes 18) will
| never match it?
| [deleted]
| xg15 wrote:
| Ah, that would make sense. Thanks!
| donatj wrote:
| I had a similar thing happen to my Yahoo account in ~1998-1999.
| After I'd been using it for a couple months they decided to ask
| everyone "Are you over 13?" and being a foolish honest child I
| selected "No".
|
| Permanently locked out. Tried to get back in after I turned 13,
| no luck. Well crap.
|
| That's literally how I ended up `donatj` instead of `jdonat`
| basically everywhere - got permanently locked out of
| jdonat@yahoo.com
|
| I have a fair number of active accounts _to this day_ that I 've
| had since before I was 13 _cough_ ebay _cough_ in the late 90s. I
| 'm scared one day they're going to cross reference the creation
| date with my current age and be jerks about it.
| dheera wrote:
| Just get a new life? Change your legal name, address, get a new
| passport, ...
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| I received a lifelong ban on using Google Ad products when I was
| 16 after experimenting with clicking my own ads (and asking my
| high school friends to click on them). I remember the account
| accumulated almost $80 before Google detected the suspicious
| activity and banned me.
|
| Given that this was 16 years ago, it would be nice to get second
| chance..
| cavisne wrote:
| Now apply that logic to billions of users...
| no_butterscotch wrote:
| I have a friend that was banned when he was a teenager too.
| Might be common.
| monksy wrote:
| This is also a case for online play on xbox and playstation.
| You have kids trying to shittalk.. and trying to be edgy. (They
| have very little life experience to understand why their words
| are wrong or hurtful). However, some of these bans completely
| wipe out their entire console.
|
| It's pretty shitty to do a life time ban on their accounts for
| minor things like that.
| jeffbee wrote:
| testfoobar wrote:
| Perhaps you did not note that the banned person was 16 years
| old. There should be very few actions with life long
| consequences for any 16 year old. Their prefrontal cortex is
| not fully developed. They experiment and engage with the
| world to learn its boundaries and limits.
|
| Click fraud for $80 when 16yo does not warrant a lifetime
| ban.
| doodlesdev wrote:
| I beg do differ. When I was a kid I used to have a YouTube
| channel with AdSense. Difference being I actually read the
| ToS and decided that it would be my parents channel, only I
| would be recording. Never clicked on my channels ads (in
| fact that's when I started using AdBlockers, for the sole
| purpose of not generating fraudulent ad revenue).
|
| Reading at 16 years old is not that hard. I created that
| YouTube channel much earlier than that. I also don't
| believe that as I aged I have magically understood better
| the worlds boundaries and limits.
|
| Mind you, 16 years old is enough to drive in some places.
| Enough to work in others. And also enough to drink in some
| others. It's just not that young and people should take
| responsibilities for their actions.
|
| Principles and values are something that's established
| early on in someone's life. If someone doesn't care for
| defrauding a company of $80 when they are 16 years old, I
| don't honestly believe they deserve a second chance.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| This idea of never forgive, never forget is why the USA
| has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
| Punishment is the singular goal, and rehabilitation is
| considered weakness. This kind of thinking is antisocial
| and serves no purpose other than some kind of revenge
| fantasy.
| lupire wrote:
| Nah, US incarcerated is due to deep-seated racism and
| profit motive.
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| I think that's somewhat true except in
| business/entrepreneurship, where the US seems way more
| forgiving to failure than Europe. Bankruptcy is also more
| common and it seems to me that people in the US respect
| having tried hard and failed hard more than having no
| failures on your resume.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Are you making the claim that since you didn't make a
| mistake at 16 that no other 16 yo can make mistakes? As
| well as the claim that any mistakes made at 16 means that
| the person will forever repeat those same mistakes for
| life?
| Devasta wrote:
| He spent his teenage years reading terms and conditions,
| let not pretend he didn't make mistakes.
| f1shy wrote:
| Best possible response. Thank you.
| rideontime wrote:
| but... you also committed fraud, you just got away with
| it...
| filoleg wrote:
| Agreed. That + the offense itself is rather stupid minor.
| The user didn't defraud people out of a lot of money, the
| user literally just had a few classmates click on an ad,
| made $80 (that I bet weren't paid out anyway, because the
| account got banned), and now they are banned for life.
|
| At the very worst, I would say a more fair punishment would
| be a ban for a year or until they reach the age of 18
| (whichever comes later out of those), especially given it
| was the first offence.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Though I agree with your judgment of what would be more
| fair, for me it doesn't extend to compelling a private
| entity to enter into a contract with another private
| entity.
| kweingar wrote:
| I wish people showed more grace to young people.
|
| Another example along your lines: many were quick to
| declare that the chess player Hans Niemann ought to be
| banned from the sport because he admitted to cheating at
| online no-stakes chess games when he was 16. He is accused
| (without evidence) of cheating again, and people are
| latching on to the "once a cheater, always a cheater"
| mentality.
| lupire wrote:
| He's 19. He cheated and then lied about it, and continued
| lying about it until very very recently, and credibly
| allegedly is still lying about it. His coach is also an
| unapologetic cheater in a Titled tournament. He deserves
| to still be on probation, not playing with world
| champions.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _Personally I 'm glad that people with a demonstrated
| history of fraud are excluded from the ad market_
|
| If only corporations were held to such a rule..
| acheron wrote:
| Exactly. The leopard doesn't change its spots.
| dumbfounder wrote:
| I had Google shutdown my Adsense account and they didn't
| ever reveal why, I think they just didn't like the site it
| was on (A twitter picture search engine) but they never
| told me. I certainly didn't think I was doing anything
| nefarious, but maybe my site wasn't supposed to be
| displaying ads. They kept my money (like $3k) and I am
| pretty sure I can't ever use the service again, but I
| honestly haven't tried.
|
| I also get a letter every so often (this was 10+ years ago)
| from one of the big auditing firms that I have money in my
| google account and I just need to go claim it by logging
| into the account I can't login to anymore.
| tedajax wrote:
| Now this is the kind of unhinged, unnuanced take I come to HN
| to read, bravo.
| lupire wrote:
| Who is banned? Your first @gmail.com address?
|
| If you weren't 18, how did they know who you were?
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| Yes. I have not tried using a different gmail address. I am
| not sure if they have my SSN on record or not, it was a long
| time ago, I don't remember what information I gave them but I
| did use my real name.
| hilyen wrote:
| Utter bullsh1t. Google needs to be broken up.
| tbbfjotllf wrote:
| I tried starting a blog as a kid, I tried monetizing it using
| Adsense, my application never got accepted, but somehow my
| account ended up active for 5 minutes before my application got
| rejected again. I abandoned the blog, and on visiting it after
| two years, I found out it's showing ads with an adsense account
| that shouldn't be showing ads, and then I was banned. I would
| never know if it was because I was still a minor or because
| Google bots didn't do a very good job.
| omniglottal wrote:
| Why must we continually revisit the pragma for _why_ to treat
| people as innocent until proven guilty?? Yes, it takes more
| effort and, yes, there is more apparent /immediate risk, but the
| rationale is sound, given dynamics of any system needing
| generalized governance. It doesn't matter that it's lawful for
| these corporations to circumvent and entirely go against the
| patriotic creed of the country where they're founded and operate
| - the matter is still relevant - the principle exists for _very_
| good reason, and is applicable to more than just government. What
| happened to "doing the right thing" regardless of shortsighted,
| incomplete rationale being applied and (unfathomably) acceptable
| to people whose very livelihood hinges on this ongoing
| presumption of innocence?
| tssva wrote:
| Google does allow you to change the birthdate for your Google
| account. They could try letting the account sit in limbo
| unverified until the kid is 18, change the birthdate and then
| verify the account.
| bell-cot wrote:
| IANAL, but...
|
| - Is the '18' adjusted when the local age of legal majority is
| not 18?
|
| - Are there jurisdictions where this policy is in clear conflict
| with local law or case law?
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| - Is the '18' adjusted when the local age of legal majority is
| not 18?
|
| I believe it will be increased if the age of majority is above
| 18, but has a lower limit of 18 even if the local age of
| majority is below that.
|
| - Are there jurisdictions where this policy is in clear
| conflict with local law or case law?
|
| I'm not sure how it could be, generally companies are allowed
| to ban a customer for almost any reason (with certain rare
| exceptions). I'm not aware of any jurisdiction where "I lied
| about my age when I was a kid" is a protected class.
| Kye wrote:
| Google is ultimately subject to the laws of the US where it's
| 18 at the federal level. It also doesn't really matter: if the
| policy says 18, it's 18.
| Hizonner wrote:
| Google is subject to the laws of every jurisdiction in which
| Google operates. Furthermore US law doesn't actually require
| Google to refuse to do business with minors. So if a
| jurisdiction had some rule that was contradictory to Google's
| policy (which I doubt), then Google would have to comply.
| jacques_chester wrote:
| I suspect the difficulty is that it's legally difficult to
| enforce contracts with minors. Easier to just refuse to
| deal with them.
| code51 wrote:
| A 13-year-old boy sets up Adsense for his Youtube channel and his
| father is told that his son is now banned from Adsense/Admob for
| a lifetime.
|
| This is what you get when you have no humans in the loop.
| pcai wrote:
| What would having a human in the loop accomplish in this case?
| Doesn't strike me as the poster child of a massive injustice
| sct202 wrote:
| Human in the loop could redirect payments to their parent
| without a lifetime ban. Children do unwise things all the
| time.
|
| Google's growth rates are starting to plateau, and they might
| want to revisit the legion of people they've robobanned from
| spending on their platforms.
| TylerE wrote:
| The problem is minors can't legally enter into binding
| contracts (with a very small number of exceptions, none of
| which this even approaches)
| josephcsible wrote:
| That'd be a reasonable argument to ban minors until they
| turn 18, but not after that.
| romwell wrote:
| No, the problem is that Google doesn't have a human being
| to tell the kid "have your parents contact us".
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It may not be possible for Google to do that redirect
| without incurring legal liability.
|
| Fraud occurred here. Google just shuffling the shells might
| be aiding and abetting fraud.
|
| (The law here isn't set up just to protect Google; nor is
| it set up to just protect the kid. It ties into broader
| societal protections against child exploitation and child
| labor. So Google runs the risk of tripping over criminal
| liability, in which case the end result is no longer in the
| hands of any of the immediate parties. Their policies are
| maximally paranoid to avoid that outcome).
| romwell wrote:
| >It may not be possible for Google to do that redirect
| without incurring legal liability.
|
| Utter nonsense.
|
| "Hold on, you are 13? Get your parents to call us,
| they'll have to set up that account for you"
| code51 wrote:
| a) Unpaid balance could just be refunded to advertisers.
|
| b) Worries about child labor: already happened. Google
| profited from his activity already. It's just the kid not
| receiving anything.
| blondin wrote:
| they wouldn't have banned the kid for life?
| treffer wrote:
| Got banned from Amazon on my first purchase. For some reason
| the payment bounced even though everything should have been
| fine (correct payment details, enough money in the account
| etc).
|
| Complained and got unbanned.
|
| AWS has even a notary(!) based process to recover accounts.
|
| It is pretty normal to recover bad things on non-Google sites
| by getting a human into the loop, especially if money is
| involved.
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| AWS support has left me really impressed. They were
| answering inquiries even when started and was playing
| around a free-tier account. (Even got a refund for a charge
| due to forgetting some stuff running beyond the free-tier
| limit.) Not surprised they dominate the cloud segment and
| GCP barely reaches two-digits usage.
| kylebyproxy wrote:
| > forgetting some stuff running beyond the free-tier
| limit
|
| Weird, they banned my account for that. Tried AWS when it
| was brand new and assumed they'd just drop the instance
| when the free tier expired.
| evilotto wrote:
| If the 13-year old had killed someone, they could be prosecuted
| as a minor and they would go to juvie and their record would be
| sealed after they turn 21 and they could get on with their
| life.
|
| But stealing a trivial amount of money from a corporation, well
| that's certainly deserving of an Internet Death Penalty.
| joshstrange wrote:
| > But stealing a trivial amount of money from a corporation
|
| It was only $300 and it was never paid out (since it needed
| more verification to pay out). If anything Google /made/ and
| extra $300 (they made more than that since the $300 is after
| their take). Also it wasn't "stolen" it was earned on a YT
| channel.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > If anything Google /made/ and extra $300
|
| Not really, since they can cash it out when they're 18, and
| unclaimed but earned funds on an active but unverified
| AdSense account don't just disappear into the ether - so on
| Google's balance sheet, they don't have an extra $300.
| joshstrange wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that's the whole point of this issue
| though right? The account is burned forever because it's
| stuck in limbo. I think there would be less
| consternation/anger if the kid just had to wait till they
| were 18 but the way the support forum reads this account
| is forever "in limbo" and even turning 18 won't fix that.
|
| Surely Google writes off old "debts" after a period of
| time. Maybe not? I guess they will make interest off it
| at a minimum.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > but the way the support forum reads this account is
| forever "in limbo" and even turning 18 won't fix that.
|
| I think this is poor writing from the 'Product Expect'
| person - the 13 year old already has an adsense account
| that is 'active' but 'unverified', but verification is
| still possible.
|
| > If he tries to apply again when he is 18 he will be
| refused on the grounds of already having an account, even
| though he will have abandoned it, it's still there.
|
| but he's not re-applying, just verifying the existing
| account. The parent here did not indicate that
| 'verification' is now unavailable, just that the parent
| can't input their own name into the verification form.
| joshstrange wrote:
| I hope you are right, that's not how I read the reply but
| I really do hope he can "fix" this when he turns 18.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Yep, if anybody stole some money, it was Google.
|
| If the teen entered into a lied about his age in a labor
| contract, performed the labor, and the employer hold the
| money after discovering the correct age, he would probably
| end in jail. Yet it's almost the same situation.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| And no escape hatch (google policy is 1 and done) when the
| automated system goofs seals the deal
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| _Was_ he told this? The submission appears to be a user comment
| from some anonymous guy named "busterjet", describing what
| would happen in a hypothetical scenario. There's no indication
| that such a scenario has actually happened or that busterjet
| represents Google.
| code51 wrote:
| You're right, this person does not represent Google but
| here's the hard truth:
|
| Google does not offer Adsense/Admob support for ordinary
| people. No way to reach them.
| ianbutler wrote:
| I've been banned on google ads for circumventing systems for
| about 2 years now. This is apparently their highest offense and
| to be perfectly honest I still have no idea what I did. I don't
| think I've ever spent more than a couple hundred bucks on google
| ads and one day I was just banned and my ads were stopped.
|
| So as far as I can tell there's plenty of not so clear things
| that will get you banned from google ads, don't build your life
| and business around that advertising stream is what I learned.
|
| That and that there are better advertising avenues for the niches
| I tend to care about.
| system2 wrote:
| I love how Microsoft and Google threads ending with "This
| question is locked and replying has been disabled."
|
| Cowards.
| josephcsible wrote:
| A very strong rule of thumb is that whenever a conversation
| gets locked, whichever side did the locking is in the wrong.
| The other big place this applies is GitHub issues and PR's.
| bornfreddy wrote:
| Ah, Google. It baffles me that some companies even consider using
| GCP - it is still the same company that kills products and has
| abysmal customer support. AWS and Azure feel like a safer bet to
| me. I wonder if Google will ever get their act together, or will
| they go the IBM way?
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