Anyone concerned that a vengeful ex may try to sabotage their account?

Surely, this has crossed someone's mind, or will...

[ownerrim]

Call it morbid curiosity, but has anyone run into this situation? Or think that they might...end up (particularly if they are considering a breakup) with a angry ex who decides to hit where it hurts hardest---by clicking a hundred times on your adsense account?

If so, how on earth would you deal with such a situation? Sounds ridiculous, I know, but I'm sure this will happen at some point, if it hasnt' already.

[dvduval]

I'm making my own tracker to check clicks by IP address (among other things). If I see too much activity, I'm banning them plain and simple. I don't want to risk getting banned. Adsense is very important to me, and Google is my favorite company in the whole world. I'd work for them, except I own my own business (not sure which is better). (laugh)

[ownerrim]

Boy, I'd like a copy of that. That would only work if someone is on a fixed ip and not something like aol right?

[europeforvisitors]

Look at the bright side: That vengeful ex could be endangering her (or his) alimony payments by clicking on the ads. :-)

[ownerrim]

EFV, good point!

[bhartzer]

My ex wouldn't have access to my PC or my IP address, especially the one I use to access the Adsense stats. So I really wouldn't think this would ever be an issue.

Besides, what's the difference between an ex and a competitor clicking on your ads?

[europeforvisitors]

Or, heaven forbid, an ex who's become your competitor. :-)

[Powdork]

I've got an initial consultation with an attorney in 30 minutes. Now you've given me something more to worry about. Thanks alot!

Oh my g*d! I just thought of something. What if ownerrim is my wife!;)

[icedowl]

No "ex" here, but I'll make sure my current one remains computer illiterate. :)

[novice]

"Oh my g*d! I just thought of something. What if ownerrim is my wife!;)"

Powdork, that's funny. lol

[EliteWeb]

heh you tell your wife what your business is and how you spend money by clicking things? Id just mark it off as advertising and not go into details as I knonw many people get bored by this type of info.

[ownerrim]

sorry for the added anxiety, powdork. Actually, I should have been more specific in this thread. The scenario I was really thinking of was: what if you are THINKING of leaving your wife (making her a "soon-to-be-vengeful Ex")...but said wife knows how to kibosh your adsense sites by clicking the daylights out of it any time she feels like it? It's a scary scenario. I'm sure I'll read about it someday. I just hope it's not me. Course...one could always concoct the fiction that google no longer bans sites for suspected click fraud, but simply lowers EPC when fraudulent click activity is suspected, due to their new and improved fraud-detection algorithmn. That might cause someone on the verge of a rampage to say "why bother". Wonder if she would swallow that?

[valley]

In which case your wife could be sued and charged costs involved plus losses plus criminal record. It isn't that hard to find out

[ownerrim]

valley, how could you ever prove that a particular person started clicking on an account for the purpose of messing it up? Google certainly wouldn't cooperate in assisting you. They just send you a "get lost" letter when they decide to boot you. And besides, there's nothing illegal about clicking ads. If an ex or soon-to-be ex was "vengeful enough", she might tell her friends to visit your site and click away every time they felt like having fun! She could have her family members do it! She could do it from her work computer! Heck, the fear of losing adsense may be the chief factor in keeping webmasters married to their spouses in the future.

[buckworks]

Or, heaven forbid, an ex who's become your competitor.

I know someone in that situation, although they're still on good enough terms that they have a lot of links to each other's content.

I told him he should do some serious link development so he wasn't so dependent on her for PR!

[surfer67]

The solution to this is simple. While I have told a few people that I'm running Google ads on my site, I haven't told them that clicking on them could ban me from the network. If they don't know that clicking is bad, then they won't use it to hurt you. The worst thing to say to someone is "Hey, I'm making truck loads of cash from running Google ads on my site. Oh by the way, never click on an ad or else they'll ban me from the network". SUICIDE....

If you do tell, make sure you tell it to someone you intend to be very nice to for eternity. Let's see, that about narrows it down to about one person for me.

Surfer