My technical team is using my blog for their experiments (in return of blogging back the experiment to my blog), I was thinking of taking some days of rest from blogging but here comes a blunder from Google (my sole rescuer- you know it helps me search everything….from my lost brain to my hair pin) – an email that said:

Hello,

We are writing to share some important information with you about referrals to the AdSense product. As part of ongoing efforts to optimize revenue opportunities for our publishers, we’re
constantly experimenting with new revenue-enhancing features as well as tweaking those products already available to our publishers. This is the case for referral units directing visitors
to sign up for AdSense. After experimenting with this program over the past year, we’ve concluded that there are other products that are of higher value than this program to publishers in your region. As a result, referral units for the AdSense program will be retired in the coming weeks. Referrals to other products and services remain unaffected.

If you’re currently displaying referral units on your site directing users to sign up for AdSense, read on below for details about what to expect in the coming weeks. In early January, the option to add referral units directing users to the AdSense product will no longer appear in your account. You will continue to accrue earnings for all existing referrals yet to generate $100 until late January, at which point the program will be fully retired. Existing referral units will continue to appear on your pages.

By the end of January, you should remove all referral units directing users to AdSense from your pages. Referral units that you do not remove will continue to be displayed on your pages as normal, but conversions will no longer be recorded. We suggest you replace the AdSense referrals with referrals to another product or service or an additional ad unit. Thank you for referring users to AdSense in the past. We apologize for any inconvenience this news may cause.

Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team
Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

Email preferences: You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important new AdSense features.

SPAM OR GENUINE?

As a user it is very difficult for me to cross check the authenticity of such emails. This advice goes to Google and all the businesses. Here are a few things that you must do to have an educated and aware  customer. (I think the whole blogosphere should take the charge):

• Step1: Send an email to all your customers (and new users) that any email not having a blog URL should not be trusted. Inform them that every email sent to customer will have a copy on the official website.
• Step2: Create a blog called /customer/ (or something) and keep a copy of the email sent to the customer (or a small blog post that an email was sent). This will let the customers know that the email is genuine.
• Step3: Whenever you send an email send the URL of the blog post along with it. This will make it easier for your (techy and non-techy) customers to verify the source of the email.
• Step4: Put a google analytics and keep tracking how many people are cross checking the email authenticity. I advise you to track this using some other application than google analytics, which can even track which users have clicked the link. This is very much possible with applications like phplist (I haven’t used it, I asked our technical department for help). If some users are not clicking on the links make sure to reach out to them through phone to avoid such phishing.
• Step5: Enjoy a better business model for email communication with your educated customers.