Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Should I leave it and contact adsense about this hacker, or edit it right away?
I wonder if I can claim the revenue I lost.
Ann
Does anyone know what measures will Adsense take in this situation? Will I be compensated? Will he have his account banned?
Secondly - I have a felling something similar has occurred before - I think if you read back a few months there was a similar thread - perhaps you could contact the OP and ses what the outcome was. I'm pretty sure they didn't get any short change out of adsense - but perhaps the other party got a ban. Let us know.
When Google bans this guy, which they may well do, you may wake up and find the whole site deleted. If he had access to change the Adsense code he has access to change or remove anything he wants.
I would have secured my position and then contacted the original owner for a claim of two or three times my estimated loss of earnings - if he's using adsense elsewhere it would be more than worth it to him to pay up just to avoid you reporting him to Google.
As you've now reported him to Google, perhaps you want to look into the small claims court and bringing a money claim against him for the stolen revenue?
Here's their response:
<snip>
[edited by: martinibuster at 4:00 am (utc) on May 16, 2007]
[edit reason] See TOS [webmasterworld.com]. [/edit]
There's nothing they could do to get in the middle of this kind of situation, so it's a loss that would have to be recovered from the guy direct. But there's no telling if they'll consider action on that other account and even if they did, it wouldn't be divulged to anyone else.
Just gather whatever documentation you can, back up and move the site and move on. Make sure your passwords are secure, including double-checking the domain registration.
I wonder if I can claim the revenue I lost.
Confront the thief. Ask for your money and he/she doesn't return it, say you'll report the outrageous fraud and theft to Google, which will mean they'll lose their Adsense account, and never get another one. Or however you feel you can get their attention. The thief has your money, not Google, so going to G would be barking up the wrong tree.
p/g
Then contact the owner - perhaps sending an invoice - for these loss of earnings. Write a covering letter stating that unless monies are recieved within x days you will be taking legal action to recover his fraudulent activity - and will be claiming additional costs on top. Its got two chances. If we are talking about significant amounts of money - seek legal advice first. However, if it is an annoying area whereby you could perhaps end up losing more to lawyers than you might gain, then try to get it resolved this way.
I feel for you - I would have steam gushing out of all orifices if this happened to me. I guess a learning curve for anyone who buys domains/sites off of someone else. Make sure all passwords etc are changed.
Let us know if you get any joy.
I recommend using a password manager and generating a different random password for each login you use. If you search WW you will find a few good threads discussing the various password management solutions.
HTH
[edited by: Fribble at 6:55 pm (utc) on May 16, 2007]
I hate to say it, but there could be a backdoor that's giving the hacker access to your server. Change ALL your passwords and continue to watch your site like a hawk.
...Or sell your site to the Hell's Angels and let them sort it out if it happens again.
Just update your security as suggested , good luck with your earnings
[edit]
actually, that is a terrible idea. ignore what i just said. google might link the ban to the domain name, which will mess up your own ads.
A report which shows all domains associate with current adsense publisher id is also useful.
[edited by: iProgram at 11:02 am (utc) on May 17, 2007]
