Adsense payment on hold

Guys,

when i was checking my addsense account i notice alert :

Your payments are currently on hold. Action is required to release payment. Click here for details.

when i clicked i received this message :

PIN Information page

As part of our effort to protect the accounts of AdSense publishers, we have mailed a Personal Identification Number (PIN) to the payment address entered in your account. This PIN must be entered on the PIN Information page before any payments can be issued to you.

In the meantime, your account remains active, and you may continue to show ads and accrue earnings. If you have not received your PIN within 2 weeks, you may request that it be resent.

Please enter your PIN as provided in the card sent to you by Google. Please note that if your PIN is entered incorrectly three times, ad serving
and account access will be suspended.

Is this something new

 

Yep, it's new. Been going on for atleast a month or two now. Those of us that joined before they did this never had to enter a PIN number.

 

Whats the point of this?

 

they want to verify your mailing adress so they don't mail your check to the wrong person.

 

Correct Address Verification, even for people who want payment via Direct Deposit or something else. It's basically to safeguard the interest of the publishers as well as the advertisers. Seems only for the new publishers. Also, they take a bit longer for first time adsense payouts.

 

My thoughts exactly.

Adsense you are receiving money, who would give incorrect information for that. Now I would understand with Adwords because then you are paying money so it would be considered fraud protection.

So, I have two theories of why they may be doing this:

1) Since, they have begun Direct Deposit many publishers want to have their accounts funded in different currencies such as the U.S. so to make this attempt impossible they must verify their residency. If someone is using a U.S. residency but live in another country then this will prevent them from getting paid (in U.S. currency) if they are unable to verify or get the mail from the U.S. location.

2) This is another attempt for Google to build their information structure and database with verified information. As we know Google has been collecting as much data as possible on web users. They may be moving into the terrain of collecting as much verified information on individuals and businesses across the globe, beyond their web usage. Physical addresses and possibly more to come. I'm under the impression that Google will one day become a large information and identification provider such as ChoicePoint.com

 

A couple of points...don't panic if it doesn't arrive within two weeks, mine took six.
Be carefull with your mail, it really looks like a bit of junk mail, it's a peice of cardboard folded over with a bit of sticky tape holding it together, in the top left hand corner it says Google Adsense Support.....as I said it really looks like junkmail.

They won't issue it until you have over $50 in your account and won't post a check until you have over $100.

 

Yea, check your mail carefully. Don't let anything important get thrown out. I once almost mistaken a google ckeck as a junk mail and almost threw it out!