Its annoying seeing ads on favorite ff 14 fan sites selling gil..

I do not know if people are aware but several fansites dedicated to FF 14 constantly spam ads for selling gil to people. It is getting annoying and I wonder if said websites are in cahoots with these RMT groups.

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Originally Posted by Galdous

I do not know if people are aware but several fansites dedicated to FF 14 constantly spam ads for selling gil to people.

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They're using Google Ad-Sense. http://www.google.com/adsense/start/

They don't really have a lot of control of the advertising that comes up for sites like that.
This kind of advertising will generate the most revenue/income for them as it's related to the content on the site, which is necessary for paying server/bandwidth costs.


Google; "Ad Block" if you're sick of seeing them though, works for Chrome/Firefox. I don't think Safari/Opera/Explorer, have a version of it.

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Originally Posted by Galdous

It is getting annoying and I wonder if said websites are in cahoots with these RMT groups.

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That makes as much sense as "I seen [x] station advertise McDonalds. Does that mean [X] station supports un-healthy eating. THEY MUST BE CONSORTING WITH MCDONALDS!"

The website adds google-sense, the adverts are pushed to the website, they owner of the website earns money. Simple as that. It's THE most effective way to fund your website.


EDIT! - Adsense History


Forgot to mention if you're logged into your google account (Seems Chrome History may work too).
Advertisements will pull from this history for target advertising.

So if you look at google for 'Cute pink shoes' for 40 minutes, Adsense will pick up on this.


So if you were on XIVDB/FFXIV Lodestone/FFXIV Forums (etc) you're going to get things related to that content.

Yeah, definitely not just them. I see them on completely non-related sites.

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Originally Posted by Shioban

Forgot to mention if you're logged into your google account (Seems Chrome History may work too).
Advertisements will pull from this history for target advertising.

So if you look at google for 'Cute pink shoes' for 40 minutes, Adsense will pick up on this.

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I think there is an option - is it through the little button in the top right of adsense adverts? - to tell Google to stop using what information it can glean about you to target adverts. It won't help you when the page is using its own content to figure the most appropriate advertising, but since I've enabled it a lot of those 'relevant' RMT adverts have turned into a blesssedly random array of travel and fashion ones.

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Originally Posted by Violyre

Yeah, definitely not just them. I see them on completely non-related sites.

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I saw it on the Hub if you know what I mean

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Originally Posted by Fensfield

I think there is an option - is it through the little button in the top right of adsense adverts? - to tell Google to stop using what information it can glean about you to target adverts. It won't help you when the page is using its own content to figure the most appropriate advertising, but since I've enabled it a lot of those 'relevant' RMT adverts have turned into a blesssedly random array of travel and fashion ones.

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Yes, you can disable interest based advertisements through your Google dashboard (or w/e its called now).

I've opted out of it myself.

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Originally Posted by Shioban

Yes, you can disable interest based advertisements through your Google dashboard (or w/e its called now).

I've opted out of it myself.

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The only downside to that is that you get advertisements you have absolutely no interest in, which can sometimes be worse than those you were trying to avoid in the first instance.

Why are we paying 15 dollars a month to have to play in /busy mode so that GIL SPAMMERS can't INSTANT MESSAGE us to buy their stupid gil. SE has not done anything to Stop them.. Makes me Think SE has their hand in the MONEY POT.. This is Getting out of hand,, I am being SPAMMED 6 to 8 times and day and they send more then one spam at a time.. BANN THEIR IP Addresses SE PLZ, or you will lose paying Costumers... Further more this leads me to believe that SE profits from the gil spammers ,, and refuse to take care of the problem, and I believe that they should not only Bann the IP of the people that are Stupid enough to buy the Gil from Spammers,, but the IP's of the Spammers themselves.... Not that they will care to Read or Listen to the Paying Costumers, but I can only Try.....

Yep, every website I visit has gil selling ads.

SE should consider contacting Google about the kind of shady services they advertise.

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Originally Posted by Galdous

I do not know if people are aware but several fansites dedicated to FF 14 constantly spam ads for selling gil to people. It is getting annoying and I wonder if said websites are in cahoots with these RMT groups.

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You should contact the fan website with the rtm website you saw advertised (a screenshot might help too).

There are ways for a website to block certain ads in adsense from showing up (essentially a blacklist), but you'll need to tell them about it.

Do note that only applies for people who aren't using google account advertising in chrome. If that's the case, please follow the advice other people have posted above.

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Originally Posted by Lemuria

The only downside to that is that you get advertisements you have absolutely no interest in, which can sometimes be worse than those you were trying to avoid in the first instance.

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(/shrug) I haven't seen any adverts for years. It's rather nice actually.
I'd personally rather pay a small waver or fee to avoid them if that was my only option.

It's same for Youtube videos for XIV and also FC sites on Guildwork. Really sucks. :|

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Originally Posted by Soulorca173

*snip*

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Okay, I understand that you're annoyed by gil spammers, I get annoyed by them too. But it's kinda foolish to say that SE has done nothing to stop them when lately they've been giving progress updates on how many accounts they've banned for RMT activities.

Banning an IP is probably the worst solution for the problem. Not only can it be circumvented easily, but it has a real chance to ban someone who is unrelated but happens to be on the same external IP.

What should be done is give some more power to fight this wave of bots to the players. Because the bots will always outnumber the SE staff trying to fight it. Make it easier to report RMT or bot activity, rather than going through the lengthy report process. Give players more options on who they allow tells from (only allow tells from friends and FC for example). Give people an option to auto deny friend and party invites when we don't want to be bothered by that stuff.

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Originally Posted by Soulorca173

Why are we paying 15 dollars a month to have to play in /busy mode so that GIL SPAMMERS can't INSTANT MESSAGE us to buy their stupid gil. SE has not done anything to Stop them.. Makes me Think SE has their hand in the MONEY POT.. This is Getting out of hand,, I am being SPAMMED 6 to 8 times and day and they send more then one spam at a time.. BANN THEIR IP Addresses SE PLZ, or you will lose paying Costumers... Further more this leads me to believe that SE profits from the gil spammers ,, and refuse to take care of the problem, and I believe that they should not only Bann the IP of the people that are Stupid enough to buy the Gil from Spammers,, but the IP's of the Spammers themselves.... Not that they will care to Read or Listen to the Paying Costumers, but I can only Try.....

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Every technical solution has a countermeasure. There's already a thriving industry of using infected ad banners as malware installation vectors; all you need is the ability to execute arbitrary code on the PC of an innocent player, and you've rendered IP bans useless.

I understand your worries but there is a war going on and SE is loosing. Gil spammers making money off them and breakin there eula SE must act harshly. Banning ip's stops the reroll. They change 1 letter then send next Thousand harrasing spams. They have us using /busy in a mmo. A lot of other games have gil spammers blocked. Fear placed into players and sellers alike makes it slow if not all stop, and those who's accounts get hacked via buying should not be let back after whining, its against there EULA. Enforce it! Make them see they can't provide us with customer service or a harrasment free game then what are we paying for? You see the bot groups queing in spots. Some places have 2 or 3 piled up on each other. We report and they end up spamming us 7 to 8 times throughout day not to mention friend requesting now too. Bot programs in same locations for days on end nothing being done. Most disconcerting thing to me is my blacklist never gets dropped means they remain.

The ads are based around browsing history. Saying you keep getting gil selling ads is all but admission to what you're doing online.

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Originally Posted by Soulorca173

I understand your worries but there is a war going on and SE is loosing. Gil spammers making money off them and breakin there eula SE must act harshly. Banning ip's stops the reroll. They change 1 letter then send next Thousand harrasing spams. They have us using /busy in a mmo. A lot of other games have gil spammers blocked. Fear placed into players and sellers alike makes it slow if not all stop, and those who's accounts get hacked via buying should not be let back after whining, its against there EULA. Enforce it! Make them see they can't provide us with customer service or a harrasment free game then what are we paying for? You see the bot groups queing in spots. Some places have 2 or 3 piled up on each other. We report and they end up spamming us 7 to 8 times throughout day not to mention friend requesting now too. Bot programs in same locations for days on end nothing being done. Most disconcerting thing to me is my blacklist never gets dropped means they remain.

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I don't think you understand, banning the ip is much more likely to harm innocent players.

It's incredibility easy to play as a different ip if you don't mind a little more lag, and a person using bots doesn't really care about lag, it's all automated.

Now if a innocent person was banned because they share the same ip as the target (universities often have many people on just a few, if not only one, external ip), what are they going to do? Sure they could go and use a different ip, but the additional lag is much more of a game breaker to them than it is to the person using the bots.

Banning the ip is not the solution to the problem.

Blame Google and not the site. They only have limited control of what Google ads will bring-up.