I just got an email saying "no longer detecting PII being passed". A quick search found a lot of people getting the same thing and none of them had a previous email complaining about PII. Sigh.

[edited by: martinibuster at 1:26 pm (utc) on Mar 2, 2015]
[edit reason] Fixed forum formatting [/edit]

I also got the "no longer detecting PII..." email last night, but I didn't receive anything prior to that. The e-mail seems legit, I don't know why I got the e-mail but I won't worry about it for now.

Hopefully the G AD team publishes some explaination. Subscribing to this thread for now.

According to Google, the PII email was sent in error, and Google published an apology.

This weekend the Google Ads Policy system inadvertently sent publishers a message informing them that they had resolved a violation of the Identifying Users policy, or that Google had not seen PII sent from their account for a certain number of days.

The message was sent in error; we would like to convey our sincerest apologies for the alarm that this must have caused you and your colleagues.

You do not need to take specific action on this erroneous message however, due to the dynamic nature of publisher monetization we encourage you to periodically review our resources regarding PII. PII email error sent by Google [productforums.google.com]

[productforums.google.com...]

heheheh... mine said for the last 16,494 days. For anyone who doesn't have a calculator, that 45+ years. Yes, apparently my site is that impressive. It existed before the public internet. ;)

I would love to have had the only website in the world when the Moon landings happened.

You must have had a TON of traffic hanna. Hope you made hay!

I would love to have had the only website in the world when the Moon landings happened.

That would sort of be like having a TV station before anyone had TVs. :)

I got the apology letter today, but never received the notice of the breach.

I got the apology letter today, but never received the notice of the breach.

ditto

Same here, apology but no breach notice.

I got the warning and the apology but I still have no idea how I could sent any personally identifiable information to Google by using AdSense.

You didn't

Ditto on the 16,494 days. Most webmasters will be doing a relatively good job of maintaining their own websites but who will be keeping an eye on the Googlers who make these kinds of mistakes?

Regards...jmcc

Well, I never received the policy breach notice. But, today I received an apology for having been sent such notice - even though I never got it in the first place.

Very strange...

Dear Publisher

Google recently sent you an email in English from publisher-policy-no-reply@google.com, with the subject of "policy breach notice," regarding personally identifiable information.

The message was sent in error; we would like to convey our sincerest apologies for the alarm that this must have caused you and your colleagues.

You do not need to take specific action on this erroneous message however, due to the dynamic nature of publisher monetization we encourage you to periodically review our resources regarding PII.

As you know, our policies prohibit partners from sending us data that could be recognized or used by our systems as personally identifiable information. When we learn of violations, we notify the publisher and take swift action.

We know that you take user data and our program policies very seriously, and this message must have caught you off guard. For more information about the specific policies that govern passing PII to Google, and tips for continuing to keep your account compliant, please visit our help center.

Thank you,

[NAMES OMITTED]
Google Publisher Policy Team

Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043

You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your AdSense or DoubleClick product or account.

[edited by: martinibuster at 7:23 pm (utc) on Mar 5, 2015]

Right old mess this one: Yes, they sent emails to people who shouldn't have got them. They then sent apology emails to people who should not have got those.

Other than the confusion, the real issue here is that somewhere some poor publisher is going to find their account suspended because they didn't repsond to a real policy notice in all the confusion.

Well, I never received the policy breach notice. But, today I received an apology for having been sent such notice - even though I never got it in the first place.

Yep, just noticed that this has happened to me too...knickers and twist come to mind.

Me, too. No warning, but an apology. Better than the other way around, I guess.

Not to mention that all the emails looked like a 5-year old sent them -- even the "apology".

knickers and twist come to mind

Yet again, RedBar, you bring laughter to my otherwise bleak state of mind. Many thanks! :)

It looks like English is not the first language of whomever drafted that e-mail. Perhaps it is one of those wonderful AIs that Google is going to use to rank "facts" on websites? :)

Regards...jmcc

I hadn't received the e-mail in March, but I did just now. Another mix-up?

Which email did you get? The "nothing to worry about one" or the "we have detected" one? If it is the latter then you should look into it. I haven't heard more reports of false positives.

I got one as well, the one saying thank you for fixing it. I never received the first one. Just another screw up I think, exactly the same as last time. I'm just ignoring it