innerpeace - yes, there have been a rash of suspensions again. We not sure why they are happening. We have reached out again to YouTube. At this time, i would suggest not using account chaining. The only thing we can think of is that YouTube has a way to see that you are using multiple accounts, which may be the issue.

Slashvre - thanks for response and you are entirely correct. Here was my response to Dualreality's email.


Believe me we are doing whatever we can to resolve the issue. Flying to YouTube HQ would only help if someone would see us. We updated our suspended page with the information below. We are in discussions with YouTube’s Manager of Policy Abuse and Spam. However, we can’t force them to respond quickly. As soon as we get new information, we will update the suspended page. If we gave an update every few hours we would just be saying “waiting to hear back from YouTube”.

We have asked YouTube not only to reinstate people but to give us guidance on what we should tell our customers regarding compliance. Regarding our FAQs, we hope to hear something in the next couple of days and will update it at that point. We still believe the FAQ is accurate, if used properly; Tube Toolbox will not get your account suspended. However, based on guidance we get from YouTube, we may be more specific on how to use Tube Toolbox and how not to use Tube Toolbox.

The main thing I would like to convey is that we are as anxious as anyone (probably more than most) to get a response from YouTube that provides resolution and guidance.

June 8th
We have received emails from several customers stating that YouTube is not reinstating their channels due to violations of YouTube's Terms of Service
We have reached out once again to YouTube for an explanation as we have designed our software to comply with YouTube's Terms of Service. We will let you know when we hear back from YouTube.
At this time, we recommend you do not request reinstatement until we hear back from YouTube.

You should use the link above to get the latest update. We will update it when we receive a response from YouTube.

Sincerely,
Chuck
Tube Toolbox Support

Hi there,
I guess they can ban anyone who already has a suspended account already?
(Because they say if you have an account suspended you are not allowed another account regardless of what you do or dont do) So any new acounts are in danger until it is sorted?)

As far as I am aware there is no difference between a suspended account and a terminated one. They are the same thing.
Is that correct?

I would like to know the numbers?
How many accounts have been suspended?
How many have been reinstated?
how many have not got any reply so far (Im one of them).
I did however get a subscription update last week about channels I have subscribed to. (which I thought was weird)

Is there anything different about the accounts that were reinstated and the ones that were not.

Ie....did the people who were reinstated not for example do the multi-chaining thing.


I obviously am upset as everyone and want to get my account back but I do think that Toolbox are doing all they can
I didnt understand however why in the suggested text they recommended to use in appeals they did not specifically mentions Tube Toolbox

""Due to a software issue my video was shared with the same set of YouTube users over and over. I had no knowledge this was occurring and respectfully request my account be reinstated. Thank You.""

There is a lot of software out there that does not comply with youtubes terms and conditions and because the issue was (a) specifically with toolbox and (b) toolbox are trying to talk to youtube about it.......I would have thought it better to specifically mention toolbox in the appeal
Is there a good reason why it wasnt suggested?

On a completely different point Toolbox (when it is working ) only follows youtubes terms and conditions if there is one copy running.
If there is more than one copy running then it breaks it (and this is pointed out by Toolbox). So if you have ever used two copies running
simultaneously you will be sending out messages or sharing videos quicker than someone can manually do and this would be quite apparent
to youtube and easily established and therefore youtube would rightly be able to say that your account "was found in Violation of TOU #4 Section H"
And there would be noone to blame. I do think however that that is a funny feature and Toolbox should not enable two copies to run simultaneously if it
does break youtubes T&Cs.

I can also understand TrackMakers outrage at the FAQ...I guess even if it said "when working properly" it wont get your account suspended. Because it did get accounts suspened that never multi chained or never used drones or never used two copies simultaneously.

I was/am a Partner since 4Q 2011and I share both monetised and non monetised videos.

The saga started happening to me on 29 May. I only ever use TTB to 'share video with a message'. I started using TTB about 4Q 2011. I will share with you my experience of what are the symptoms to look out for before you get banned. And what you may be able to do to get YT to hear your pledge.

I was chaining 4 drones and my main account - very stupid of me now with the benefits of hind sight. I was doing a mailing run to target share videos, the campaign was running on and off for a few weeks. Looking at my stats, the chain had sent in total of 43,000 shares of multiple videos using a total of 5 accounts over the month of May until 29 May.

Everything was fine until later in May evening when I was responding to video comments to my viewers. I was into perhaps the 30th reply to a video comments and then YT started asking me to type in 'verification codes/Turing Image' for each video comment reply; you know that thing where they show you a graphics image and ask you to type the combination of letters and numbers to verify you are a human and not a bot replying to comments.

What I didn't realise at the time was this was a warning sign that YT's systems had picked up it perhaps by counting the number of messages in my 'sent box' has exceeded some sort of limit on my main account and the drone accounts pointing to the same set of videos I shared. They probably also used an IP address check to tally up all the sent items counts.

Surely enough, after I logged out and log back on YT that night of late May, my main and all the drone accounts were suspended.

I followed the instructions on YT page and did the following:

1. I reset my password

2. I then clicked on the link to report that 'my account was suspended in error' and told them that my account was suspended while I was simply replying to my viewers comments and believed my account might had been comprised and asked YT to review the situation.

3. Separate to action 2 above, I also replied to an email I got when YT previously asked me to provide more information on that I own the rights of the videos I have asked to be Monetised - you know that message where they reply and say thank you for providing the documentation and "your videos now has been approved for Monetisation" email. If you are a Partner, you will know what I am talking about here. I think it is this email that ultimately saved me because I have been regularly replying to these emails and the YT team member reviewing my video actual signs with his name on the email! This is rare!

I was certain that YT would not reinstate my account. However much to my pleasant surprise, a few days later, I got an email from YT to say that they had reviewed my situation and determined that I was not in violation of the terms of service and they had 'unsuspended' my account and recommend I change my password immediately.

Just for perspective, I do create and upload original videos once or twice a week and have more then 100 original videos, over 10,000 subscribers, nearly half a million video views spread over the 100 videos. All the comments on my channel and videos are positive. About 50% of my channel traffic comes from 'Search Terms' within YT, some 30% from TTB, others from the web and Facebook referrals. I pull in over 20,000 views every month because my videos. I actively reply to every comment made to me on my videos. I am what YT will consider as an active partner. And in fact I think some of my subscribers are probably YT team members!

I have now stopped using TTB just to be sure until this situation clears up.

I hope this information helps you

The following quote is untrue and is not pointed out by yt toolbox

On a completely different point Toolbox (when it is working ) only follows youtubes terms and conditions if there is one copy running.
If there is more than one copy running then it breaks it (and this is pointed out by Toolbox). So if you have ever used two copies running
simultaneously you will be sending out messages or sharing videos quicker than someone can manually do and this would be quite apparent
to youtube and easily established and therefore youtube would rightly be able to say that your account "was found in Violation of TOU #4 Section H"
And there would be noone to blame. I do think however that that is a funny feature and Toolbox should not enable two copies to run simultaneously if it
does break youtubes T&Cs.

You can find this next bit of information on the toolbox support at

http://support.tubetoolbox.com/entries/21452647-info-youtube-s-sending-limits



Do you have any tips on keeping my account safe? Sure. Using Tube Toolbox will not get your account flagged or banned. The way that your account gets flagged or banned is if too many people mark your Channel or Messages as SPAM and draw attention to you. To help avoid this, we allow you to send messages from multiple accounts and exclude your main account. People will get your messages and you can feel safer but the downside is that it will be harder for the message recipient to find your main channel because the message they receive will be from a 'dummy' account. When using additional accounts in your sending rotation (also called 'dummy' or 'proxy' accounts), we recommend spending some time making those Channels presentable. Match the colors and theme to your main account. Make sure you have at least 1 video for the user to watch if they click through to your channel. You might also want to use YouTube's Annotations within the video to direct people to your main site. Make sure to have a link to your Website and/or main YouTube Channel from your proxy accounts.

This obviously advocates the use of multiple accounts as a safety feature against falling short of youtube TOS. and this is mentioned in other areas on toolbox support.

tubetoolbox is obviously dead. once again i had dozens of accounts banned. i was counting the days til when this would happen. i knew it would after tubeblaster pro dissappeared. i was hoping to make it to christmas. on a positive note, tubetoolbox really helped me launch some things. therefore, on behalf of my company i would like to thank chuck and the rest of the tubetoolbox team for their fantastic customer service and i wish them the best with their future endeavers.

goodbye tubetoolbox.. :-)

Hey man, let's not be so negative! I think it's just a rough patch just now, Youtube and Google are going through a period of lots of changes, and soon things should be sorted. It may not be exactly the same as before, but I'm sure something will be worked out.

They did update it. now it reads:

Q. Can my YouTube™ account get suspended for using Tube Toolbox?
A. We remain dedicated to staying within YouTube's Terms of Service and "playing by the rules"

*the word NO was removed since now people are suspended, obviously a new user wouldn't understand that but they are indirectly implying that yes your account can be banned*



Yet you removed the NO from your FAQ ^_^.


Well I've enjoyed the run that tubetoolbox has provided but I'm unsubscribing. I wish Tubetoolbox & its support team goodluck in the future :)

TTChuck & TTB representatives,

I have two life-time licences to your product and one of them is banned by YT only a few days ago - which I had not attempted to recover that 2nd channel (which was less than 1 week old) as it was an interim channel before I got my original one back.

I bough my 2nd life-time licence in the last two weeks when my original one got banned and before I recovered it. It shows you how much I have placed in you and your company.

I would advocate that you clearly advise your customers that using multiple copies of TTB at this point in time (June 2012) and doing the 'same' action such as video share will surely get YT's attention get their primary and chained accounts banned. This happened to me.

Been following this thread for a few days, and I have to say that playing around with the vague wording of your FAQ of removing the word 'No' is in poor form. You are perceived the way you and your company respond in situation like this where it is clearly upsetting a lot of your customers. Don't beat around the tracks - be upfront with people. There is nothing worse in not owing up to what you think is happening.

As much as I am disappointed with what is happening, still, I thank you for keeping me updated. Keep going with your effort and I hope you get some results soon for your customers - I for one have invested in your company even as you are going through this issue since late May

This new update:
June 12th
Communicated with YouTube yesterday, they requested some information which we sent. If we do not hear back tomorrow, we will contact them again on Thursday. They did not give any indication of how cooperative they are going to be but we are hoping for some guidance on requirements beyond their Terms of Service (which we follow).

It seems to be that the dialogue between toolbox and youtube is about preventing the suspensions happening again (to new customers) rather than about getting actual customers who were suspended reinstated.

What is the update on that? Should that not be the priority? Or at least an equal priority.

agreed trackmaker

this whole thing makes me feel like i done something wrong, this is so crap, but a few people did get their accounts reinstated, in my view, most responses are automated, but the few that arent get reinstated, in my opinion just keep sending the reinstatment emails to whatever link it was until someone in youtube actually reads it, its gotta be a matter of luck and chance