Our website got hit with a storm recently. In a span or two hours, all five of our ad networks, from big to small, reached out to us and said our account had violated their TOS because of an old post in our forum area, from 2006, which had a nude image. Keep in mind there are over 11 million posts in our forum so this is something that obviously fell through the cracks.
Two of the ad networks claim this was a client who made the complaint. I just find it hard to believe that a client browsed through our forums until they found a post from 2006 and then took it upon themselves to bring up our source code and contact every ad network we deal with.
It sounds very fishy to me. I think someone was looking to put us out of business.
To be fair, their well within their rights to remove their association with you if they feel you have objectionable content, even if they were unwilling to give you the benefit of the doubt it’s ultimately their loss because they won’t get their share of the profits from advertising through your website. I’m with the others who say don’t worry about it, there’s plenty of advertisers out there and it shows the character of the ones who dump without asking questions or fair dues as their the type of people you really don’t want to be working with (as there’s obviously no trust to do the right thing). No point crying over spilt milk
There’s a good chance one of the many new automated verification services found the image. More networks are relying on third-party organizations to spider the sites in their network looking for objectionable content. Some advertisers are using these services, as well. If you have objectionable content on your site, it isn’t a question of “if” they’ll find it but “when”.
If two of your advertisers dropped you without giving you the benefit of the doubt, I say screw them. I cannot stand people like that. You are better off without them.
Think of it that way.
Learn from this, and just find more advertisers. They are all around you.
Yes, it looks like you were well stitched up. The lesson is that you are responsible no matter how muany posts you have. If it’s your pay check on the line you need to be more careful in future.
I know it hurts because I myself have been attacked in a similar way but if you strengthen your defences there isn’t anything else they can do to you.
