Competitor not keeping with the TOS

I just noticed that one of my competitors (no directly) put Adsense on his forum but he is not keeping with the TOS. For instance, there is a thread that someone created asking people to click on the ads despite the fact that someone wrote that it goes against Google's TOS and suggested the thread to be removed. Well, still there (the site is hardly really moderated) and people are saying how many times they will click on the ads and so on. He also has something different than "sponsored links" or "Advertisements".

He gets LOTS of traffic, What would you do in this situation?

 

if you think ir is wrong what he is doing you can report him, more money for you. Don't feel guilty if you think he is cheating, it is nothing wrong to report a cheater, he is using the system which brings all of us money.

Or you can email him and tell him to fix those mistakes

 

AdsenseChic, I think your name suggest that

Well, I would just mind my site.

 

The one thing i would say is if he is asking people to click on the ads then that is costing the advertiser ie. us.

It is click fraud and costs ppc marketers millions of pounds a year. It is basicly stealing so i would defianately be in touch with the forum owner and try to warn them of what they are doing wrong and give them chance to change it. (They may not know what they are doing).

If they still continue to act in this manner then i would have no problem with informaing google but i would defianately give them the chance to stop first.

 

I would do what I always do in such cases:
1)Report the violation of TOS to Google(include exact links to forum threads/etc.)
2)Bookmark his site and check regularly if he is breaking the TOS

Some people have to understand that if they are going to make money with AdSense they MUST follow the rules,as we all do!

 

But that's just it, I do not think he asked people to click on his ads, one of the members who has no clue about Adsense created this thread, obviously the guy could do a better job moderating the site and reading the TOS! But I am not the type of person to be reporting people. I would feel terrible.

Am I weak or what? lol

 

Yup, you're weak. Nah, just kidding

Contact the owner and point them in the direction of the offending thread. Hopefully they will take the initiative and remove it. If not, then do not hesitate report them. They are costing you and other genuine and legitimate web publishers (such as myself) money and therefore should suffer the consequences.

 

This is exactly why I don't put contextual advertising on unmoderated forums. If your competitor doesn't have time to properly moderate the forum, he needs to put the offending phrases into his forum's swear filter. If you're nice you'll contact this person and suggest he does something about it. Or you could just wait for him to get banned when an unusual fluctuation shows up in his clicks.

 

Report the thread to Google. End of story.

 

It is also a violation of the rule if he allows somebody else to violate the rule