[Plugin: Easy AdSense] Developer shows own adsense ?

It’s not uncommon for authors to display their own adsense ads for a small percentage of the ads, but usually they make that pretty clear, and usually it’s a setting in the plugin settings that you can turn off pretty easily – I would check your plugin settings.
However I checked the plugin page and the author’s page and I can’t see any mention of that being done, so that’s definetley not good. If you wanted to know for sure you could have a look at the plugin code and see if there’s a adsense ID in there.
It could also just be a bug in the plugin or a google bug so I wouldn’t jump to conclusions…

tvds & dholowiski

I set my settings for Easy Adsensor to ‘not share – 0%’. I put in all my adsense codes in all the boxes so as to show my ads. But guess what? The developers adsense (for Easy Adsense) pops up every once in a while on my website. I have used other adsense plugins and these developers all seem to have a way to make sure their ads will show up on your site, even if you turn off the revenue sharing buttons in their settings area. It seems like when there is a plugin upgrade by the adsense developers and you upgrade to their new plugin, this is where they slip in a code to have their ads appear on your site even if your settings are set to ‘not have any of their ads’ show up on your site.
Easy Adsenser had an upgrade on their plugin on 6-21-2009 and I upgraded. I checked my settings and everything was set to my liking (which was to ‘not share’ any adsense revenue; o% in Easy Adsense and all my Google adsense codes are all mine in every box in the Easy Adsense settings area. I browsed through a few pages in my site and after the 5th page ‘BAM’ their appeared the developer of Easy Adsenser’s Google ad in my sidebar (which was a 160×600 skyscrapper ad). I checked the VIEW at the top of my broser page then SOURCE and I scrolled down to where my Google 160×600 skyscrapper ad was and there was the Easy Adsenser’s developers PUB number with his Google adsense ad their instead of mine. I went to my settings page to make sure all my settings were set as I mentioned above, and they were just the way I wanted them set- 0% and all my Google ads inserted in all the boxes. This has happened ever since I used the plugin. The funny thing about when I viewed the source code to my webpage was that the developers Google adsense code set up date was the exact day that a new upgrade for this plugin came in which I auto upgraded in my WordPress blog. These adsense plugin developers get links back to their sites from our blogs so do they really need to do develope plugins that are criminal? Yes, that’s right this is criminal because it’s stealing. If there is an option to turn off revenue sharing with their adsense plugins then I have a right to turn it off! Others may keep it on and share so they will recieve monies from those who want to share. The developers of these Google adsense plugins should acept that and not try and steal from others. THIS IS ESSENTIALLY A ‘WHITE COLLAR CRIME’ and WordPress should take off their plugins from the plugin section if they do not stop. There are other Google adsense plugins which are 100% revenue sharing – in other words you can’t turn off the revenue sharing with them if you use their plugins. They are honest with their plugins at least. If you use their plugin you know you will be sharing revenue with them. I have 25 websites, so I have had my experience with these Google adsense plugin developers. One plugin where this does not seem to happin is Adsense Manager, which I have on 10 other websites. I’m not 100% sold on this plugin because the developer has not been able to correct the problem on the HOME page and Catagory pages where if there are more then 3 ads showing on the pages (Googles adsense policy) there are white outs there instead of my Google ads so it looks kind of clumsey or unprofesional. They should ‘tighten up’ these white out areas like Easy Adsense does with their plugin.
So my word of advice on ‘Easy Adsense’ – is to browse through your webpages to your website and even have your brothers/sister/parents/friends from other computers to make sure the developers Google ads do not show up on your website when you have your settings set to not have this turned on to allow it. This is the only way to keep these adsense plugins developers honest. If everyone who installs this plugin keeps an eye out for this, then they will play honestly and their plugins will work as they say they will. If they don’t, post it to this WP plugin forum and hopefully the word will get out to WordPress and they will bar them from their plugin section. I think these developers think they are going to get rich from their plugins and when they don’t, the temptation to steal is too easy and they start developing codes in their upgrades to have their ads pop up at random times to criminally take money from people who are using their plugins on their websites. Whatever the case, it’s a white collar criminal crime and they have to learn to play by the rules like every other hard working stiff in this world (including me). I hopes this helps anyone who is using this plugin now, or is thinking about using it on their website. If you do, make sure you check up on your sites pages as I explained above, and to especially check up on them after a new upgrade comes out from them. If anyone else is having the same problem post it here ASAP so we can help those who arn’t as web smart and just starting out. God knows the internet has enough unscrupulous individuals who are doing these types of things.

I have this in the FAQ section (and also posted as a thread in this forum):

Ad Space sharing??

There is an ad-space sharing scheme implemented starting version 2.5. The idea is to show my ads on a fraction of the plugin users’ ad slots. This fraction would be configurable by the user – minimum 1% max 10%, default 5%. (Five percent means my ad would appear roughly once in twenty of the user’s ads). I have extra code to ensure that my ads don’t appear more than once on the same page.

If you are not happy with it, feel free to edit it out, or downgrade to version 2.4x. I consider V2.4x fairly feature-complete. So it shouldn’t be much of a problem to use V2.4.

I am, however, planning a major revamping of the admin interface in V3.00. This task will cost me a couple of days of precious off-days, which is why I am implementing this ad-space sharing in anticipation.

I have set the range to min 1% max 10%: meaning if you enter >10%, the plugin will assume 10%, and if you enter <1% the plugin will assume 1%. I thought 1% floor was low enough that people who used my work to earn money wouldn’t mind it. But enough of them post here that they do, I will take off the min-max enforcing in a future release.

If you want to edit out the sharing scheme option, you can, I quote the developer “If you are not happy with it, feel free to edit it out”.

Open the file easy-adsenser.php
Find the line with : if ($mc <= 1) $mx = 111 ;
In my case it was line 349.
Add before this line the following lines:

if ($mc < 1 ) {
   $this->mced = true ;
   return $ret ;
}

It will look similar to this:

if ($mc < 1 ) {
   $this->mced = true ;
   return $ret ;
}
if ($mc <= 1) $mx = 111 ;

Save the file and when you set 0 in the Admin, no ads of the author will be shown.

Why does wordpress say that this is a free plugin?

SCAM SCAM SCAM SCAM

As I’ve said in another thread:

The author makes it very clear that his ads will be displayed occasionally.

He even goes so far as to allow you to configure how often so that if you are happy to support his development work you can increase it.

I have been using this plugin for some years, I have not been told of revenue sharing!

Its only after he got caught, that he added the info to the plugin admin page!

let the truth be told!

actually using (not so) easy adsense, it over a year, my bad.

Dear petervanderdoes,

where does the author state you can do this with the code you gave?

How can you be trusted that this code will not cause any problems with this plugin?

miom,

In the post with the quote from he states, “If you are not happy with it, feel free to edit it out”. So I edited it out.

About not causing a problem:
The function is called to see if an ad from the author can be shown.
The functions checks the admin settings: If the value is less or equal to 1, the function assumes 1
if ($mc <= 1) $mx = 111 ;

I have set the range to min 1% max 10%: meaning if you enter >10%, the plugin will assume 10%, and if you enter <1% the plugin will assume 1%.

When an ad is shown the variable $this->mced is set to true, so next time the function is shown it check if the variable is true and if it is it will return with the original add, aka your add.
if ($this->mced) return $ret ;

So my lines do the following.
If your admin setting is less than 1, set the variable $this->mced to true, so future calls will make the function think an ad of the author is shown and return the original ad.

Dear petervanderdoes,
this code does not work in WP 2.8. It seems fine in 2.71. Disconnect plugin if anyone has any problems.

petervanderdoes,

Why can’t you just delete:

if ($mc <= 1) $mx = 111 ;

It seems this should take care of it.

What do you think Peter?

You can’t delete that line because it is part of an entire if then else structure.

What seems to be the problem in WP2.8?

The easiest way to do this would be to have the function mc return its argument (the original ad) right away.

function mc($mc, $ad, $size=false) {
    return $ad ;
 }

This will always return the user’s ad regardless of what sharing they enter on the admin page. I haven’t tested it, but it should work.

Like I said earlier in this thread, if many users ask for the 1% floor to be removed, I will do so in one of my future releases. Just need a show of hands here…

petervanderdoes,

the problem in 2.8 is the whole website goes out along with much of the admin panel.