How do these "tips" help any legitimate publisher? Its good to know they are tracking all these things but I cant really see how this would help at all. I would say one of there most prominent tracking tools is the google toolbar, they have to have some sort of tracking component in that and it is installed on millions of computers.
I agree. The only reason you would need this information is if you were going to try to cheat the system and screw the advertisers.
I don't believe these two are consistently related like this. Smart-pricing often occurs because for whatever reason, your ad traffic doesn't convert well for certain ads, not because you've gotten a lot of 'suspicious' traffic. Bans can occur at any point in time for sites that don't follow certain principles of the TOS correctly (most often for 'invalid clicks'). If Adsense accounts being disabled was consistently the next step after Smart Pricing, we'd see a lot more of the "OMG I just got smart priced, how long before I get banned!!!!" kind of threads.
I think is good to talk about this stuff. I could mention some very important thing thay do. But thats not the point, the things mentioned is just a very few things google do to stop fraud and people will maybe understand that in the long run (not so long actually) fraudsters will get caught and if the fraud is big enough they can face a visit to their local prison, not only loose their account.
Today, my average CTR across 4 sites is mid-20s with my top site in the mid-30s. I've run CTR's like that since I joined Adsense nearly a year ago. My guess is that I've probably been flagged (maybe several times) because of high CTRs but I've gotten a check every month and never had any problems because I don't violate the TOS. It doesn't matter to me how Google tracks or determines fraud. My job as a publisher is to make as much money as I can for Google, advertisers, and myself within the limits of the TOS. High CTRs do that and G doesn't mind as long as everything abides by the rules. And if I should get banned because of some flaw or quirk in the algorithm, I'll file an appeal and offer whatever evidence I have. If that doesn't work, that's life. I'll just move on. I can't spend my life worrying about it.
Um...no, lol. you cant acquire mac address via server side scripting. It is possible via active-x(or other type of pluggin software), but every user would have to download an active x plugin, which would be rediculous...every time anyone goes to a website with adsense they are required to download some type of pluggin. simply cant be done, sorry
The best tips to protect your account is always safe play and always contact google for ask about your earning valid or not