The Real Blogger Status

Don't develop a blog, that's simply designed to host AdSense ads - and avoid pre published blogs, in general. Blogs and websites that are blatantly designed as ad hosts are classified as "MFA" ("Made For Ads") - and are never accepted as AdSense hosts . AdSense, and Blogger, want blogs with quality content - informative, interesting, and unique. Legitimate and useful blogs start with content that is important to the blog owner .

Some blog owners publish blogs, with subjects completely unsuitable for AdSense ads - which would produce legal liability if endorsed by AdSense / Google. One completely unsuitable subject, for AdSense, is healthcare and medical advice.

Some people are victims of a offensive blog, want the offensive content removed - and find the Blogger Help: Report inappropriate content and the Google Help: Removing Content From Google forms inadequate. How do I supply details of a blog which includes harassment or bullying content? I need to show the offense. Some Blogger / Google forms, which are intended to feed Google Legal, simply allow us to state the URL of an offensive blog. There is not place to state exactly why a blog may be offensive, for all form selections. There will be some cases where we may have to take action, ourselves - and start with court action .

Some blog owners, filing a complaint against another blog owner, don't understand the delays involved, in a DMCA Violation. I have just recently filed a DMCA notice on this blog for copyright infringement of my blog. So far nothing has been done except receiving an automatic reply from Google. When will the other blog be taken down? This blog owner does not understand that not all legal actions can be executed immediately - and some, never.

Recently, Google publicised advice about a new type of abuse that may be reportable, when present in a Blogger blog. Our philosophy has always been that Search should reflect the whole web. But revenge porn images are intensely personal and emotionally damaging, and serve only to degrade the victims—predominantly women. So going forward, we’ll honor requests from people to remove nude or sexually explicit images shared without their consent from Google Search results. This is a narrow and limited policy, similar to how we treat removal requests for other highly sensitive personal information, such as bank account numbers and signatures, that may surface in our search results. Supposedly, "revenge porn" mitigation is limited to removal from Google Search. In one forum discussion , however, the new classification appears to have successfully resulted in an offensive blog being removed from Blogger.

Every week, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , we see signs of improperly managed company blogs . The person who developed our company blog left our employment - and did not give us access to the blog. How do we recover our blog? If the former employee published the blog from a Blogger account that uses cloud based email, such as GMail, the blog may be legally his property. A Blogger blog is owned by the person who controls it . If your company uses company owned email, however, you may be able to take control of the Blogger account, and the blog.

Every month, we see a concern about content theft or impersonation, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I deleted my blog last year! Now, I see it online again, using my name - but it's not in my dashboard! or I renamed my blog, last month! Somebody else is publishing it, this month!! These former blog owners have discovered the unpleasant reality of never ending spammer activity. URL recycling (a feature begged for, by many), plus blog content and feed caching (a reality, with most blogs), can lead to spammer harvesting and resurrection. And in some cases, to identity theft.

Have you ever heard the old saying I had a friend, and I had a blog. I gave my friend control of my blog - and now, I have neither a friend, or a blog. If you have a blog, and it's yours alone, then it's yours - for eternity, or until you give up control . When you make your friend a blog administrator, you give up control of the blog.

Occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . we'll see yet another question about account recovery - but with a twist. I am trying to recover control of our old Blogger account, that became useless when a former employee left the company, taking the login information with him. Here we have an officer of a corporation, who is left holding the bag - because his management did not exercise proper control of a former employee. Unfortunately, Blogger accounts and blogs are legally the property of the employee who has (or had) control - and who left the company, while retaining control.

We see an occasional question, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger , about content protection. How do I prevent other blog and website authors from stealing my posts? This is a question that has plagued authors, for centuries. It's not new, in online life. Before the Internet, most authors would simply register a copyright, using their governmental registration. The USA, for instance, has " Copyright.Gov ", which is now part of the US Library of Congress. Many other countries have their own registration services.

Many, many years ago, I was called to court, to provide testimony in a case that involved a co worker, during a weekend in question. As part of my testimony, I provided a code listing ("compilation" log), with date and time printed on each page of the listing. The testimony also required presenting of the printed "system console" log, to substantiate my testimony. I endured several hours of intense grilling, by attorneys for both sides, who examined virtually every hour of my day, to verify that the co-worker and I had been physically "at work" on that day. The code listing was but a small part of my testimony. Even then, both the judge and both attorneys were very aware of the possibility that the code listing date / time stamp could not constitute legal evidence, without careful "chain of custody" backup. Anybody knows that a computer can be easily restarted, with the system clock reset, and made to produce a "code listing" / ...

Blog owners who live in Europe have a recently added regulation with which you need to comply. If you publish a blog, and host AdSense ads, you already have part of the requirement - the properly written Cookie Advisory. If you live in Europe, and view this blog, chances are that you have been offered the chance to view the Nitecruzr.Net Privacy Policy , which includes my Cookie Advisory. If your blog displays the Blogger Navbar, you have a compliant Cookie Advisory Banner which is provided by Blogger, in the navbar. If you have disabled the navbar - or if the blog uses a dynamic template (and has no navbar), you can add a Cookie Advisory Banner as supplied by Google Cookie Choices.

We see too many problem reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about inconsistent content penalties . My blog was deleted - then I got a letter of apology from Blogger. But my blog was deleted, again! and My blog does not contain copied content, why was it deleted? These blog owners, and others, are complying with the letter of the law - as they see important. Unfortunately, other blog and website owners have rights too - and Blogger will also enforce their rights - now, and in the future. To have a righteous blog, you have to remain innocent of all possible TOS violation categories.

We see occasional tales of woe, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . My friends are making fun of me, because my name, when searched in Google, comes up on a non complimentary blog. The owner of the blog has forgotten the password, and can't recover control. How do I convince Blogger to have the offending blog removed? The answer, here, is not promising. You can't. No laws have been broken, nor has Google TOS been violated. That's harsh reality, that is going to happen, a few times.

Some blogs offend their readers - and the readers are legitimately concerned about viewing inappropriate content. Instructed in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , to report offensive blogs using the right complaint form , they may reply I did - several times, but with no result! In some cases, the blogs in question may be offensive only to a local audience. Though distasteful, blogs should not be unfairly censored.

Not all blog owners understand the necessity of having unique content , as the basis for a healthy blog. We see questions periodically, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about inappropriate use of content from other blogs and websites. Why was my Blogger account deleted? I never argue when given copyright notices! or Why don't I have any readers? I have great content - the other blogs, where I get the content, get lots of traffic.

Whether you give up your blog willingly, have your blog stolen from you, or accidentally enable your blog to be stolen - once your blog is in someone else's control, Blogger cannot, legally, help you. We see the naivete, periodically, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . I made my friend an administrator of my blog, and he changed me to an author. Can Blogger restore my ownership? And the short answer, too frequently given, is denial. No, Blogger cannot help you. Blogs stolen, supposedly from their rightful owner, can generally not be returned by Blogger.

Some blog owners don't understand the severity of DMCA violation citations. We see occasional naivete, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken I got email After reviewing your account, we noticed that you have violated the terms of service frequently: http://www.blogger.com/go/terms . And where we have sent you several warnings about these abuses and offered you information about our policy towards repeat infringers, we were forced to disable Blogger service provided to you. Thank you for your understanding. - Blogger Team Why can I not login to Blogger, now? This blog owners, and too many others, do not understand about the severity of repeated DMCA / TOS violation, upon their Blogger / Google accounts.

Occasionally we see the naive query, in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . Does copying content, into my blog, violate Blogger TOS? The short (and too frequently provided) answer to the question is No, copying content does not violate TOS. Copying content to your blog is perfectly OK - when done legally. That said, you need to consider the issues - and possible results.

Recently, we've seen a few problems reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , requesting return of blogs stolen from the rightful owner. Supposedly, the "rightful" owner is the person posting the problem report. We've learned from past experiences that this may not always be the case, however.