At Hideout.tv, we have faced a number of challenges due to big advertising industry shifts during the last few months. We also understand that viewers like you have been the most impacted by these challenges. We’re here to let you know, however, that we will continue to keep your best interests at heart. Therefore, below you will find an open and honest outline of the challenges that we have been facing, the actions that we’re taking to overcome those challenges, and ways for you to start earning more rewards today.
In the end, we want what you want: the ability for you to earn a lot of rewards, while watching entertaining videos. Here is how we’ll get there (use the quick links to move to each section below):
What We’ve Been Up Against
How We’re Fighting Back
How You Can Earn More Rewards
What to Do if You’ve Been Banned
What We’ve Been Up Against:
Increases in Fraud Attempts: Small groups of users continue to try to fraud reward sites and apps. These users have increased their fraudulent activities dramatically recently, forcing many platforms (including Hideout.tv) to significantly increase fraud-prevention measures. Increased fraud-prevention measures cause fewer earnings, potentially-false bans, and other negative consequences.
Companies and Users That Don’t Care: Some users engage in activities like phone farming, or running machines 24/7, and end up defrauding advertisers. A few rewards sites and apps ignore these fraudulent practices, which gives users the impression that these practices are allowed. We work with a number of third-party companies to verify quality of our viewership, and they typically measure a user based on their actions on all sites/apps. Therefore, viewers that are following our rules may still be banned by those third parties if engaging in bad behavior on other sites/apps.
Fewer Earning Opportunities:As a result of points #1 and #2 above, there are less opportunities for legitimate viewers (like you) that follow the rules. Users that engage in bad, or fraudulent, behaviors are ruining the chance to earn rewards for everyone.
Overly-Sensitive Bans: With all of the fraud tightening we’ve done over the last few months, we’ve seen an increase in bans that may lock out legitimate viewers.
Educating Our Viewers: Viewers that watch our content legitimately earn more rewards in a shorter period of time than viewers who attempt to game our system (and end up banned). However, we’ve had difficulty explaining these best ways to earn rewards and keep an account in good standing to our viewers.
How We’re Fighting Back:
Increasing Transparency: Transparency is critical to helping everyone understand what is occurring. Over the last few months, we’ve had to significantly reduce our transparency, to prevent fraudulent users from using that info to exploit our platform. Now that we’ve developed significantly greater controls, we’ll be working to give you more information to help you keep earning more on our platform (without tipping off the fraudsters).
Removing More Bans: We’ve taken steps over the last week to unban legitimate viewers that may have had some bad behavior in the past.
Better Explanation of Bans: There are many types of bans that occur via our own system, or third-party vendors that we use. Most bans are temporary, while others are permanent. In the past, we’ve haven’t been able to share much info on these bans, for fraud-prevention reasons. This has been a big source of frustration for many banned viewers. However, we’re now working to overhaul our user experience to ensure that our viewers better understand if a ban is just temporary, or if there are any other details we can share.
Overhauling Our Ban System: We’re also working to overhaul our permanent ban system to temporarily freeze accounts, and require manual human review prior to a permanent ban. By implementing manual review before the full ban, we can study each ban “case by case,” and ensure a permanent ban is truly deserved. Note: This overhaul may take a few weeks to complete.
Manual Withdrawal Reviews: You may have noticed that certain redemptions may be temporarily withheld for review by our team. We implemented this change a few weeks ago to ensure fraudulent users are unable to redeem rewards. Please keep in mind, however, that just because a redemption is flagged, does not mean it won’t be approved.
We Changed to a One-Device Limit: It is difficult for our-third party partners to verify if individual viewers are attempting to watch on multiple screens, or if different individuals are watching---causing bans by those partners. Therefore, we recently had to change our device limit to one device.
Here's How Our New Device Limit Works: Going forward, we’re officially restricting viewers from earning rewards on more than one screen at a time in the same household. While our videos can still be enjoyed by multiple people in the same household, viewers may only earn rewards on one screen at a time.
How You Can Earn More Rewards:
Watch More Content that Interests You: We’ve worked harder than any other rewards site or app to partner with more emerging (and enjoyable) content creators. If you watch videos from creators that you enjoy, you’ll naturally stay engaged more, and you’ll likely earn more points by actively watching.
Use All Reward Platforms Responsibly: If you’re engaging in any bad behavior elsewhere, stop. Don’t support rewards sites or apps that enable bad behavior. It’s hurting your reward opportunities everywhere.
What to Do if You’ve Been Banned:
To have your ban reviewed (and possibly overturned), please submit a support ticket with the subject “Ban Reconsideration”. Make sure to provide your Hideout.tv email address, IP address, approximately when you were banned, and if you participated in anything that may have led to your ban. Our team has been trained to handle these tickets, and we’ll be working diligently in the coming weeks to address every case. Viewers that have participated in bad behavior may not be eligible for an account unban.
We’re Here for YOU!
Though recent challenges have been difficult, they have also given us an opportunity to improve our offerings, service, and ultimately to be better. With hard work, and your continued support, we plan to make Hideout.tv stronger than ever.
Thanks for being a loyal Hideout.tv Viewer!
PS: If you need anything, definitely submit a support ticket and we’ll get back to you ASAP!
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