International Law

Offensive Google AdSense

Image via CrunchBase, source unknown

From the SEO Round Table blog on adsense fraud

"A WebmasterWorld forum member who runs Google AdSense on his travel site was a bit appalled when he saw that the ads being run are of nude Asian women.

He has no idea how those ads got there and is extremely disgusted that the ad was placed on his site which now makes him guilty by association.

In fact, it's causing this publisher to consider removing Google AdSense from his site altogether.

The ad borders on illegality, he suspects.

It's not the first time.

Another person who ran Google AdSense on a children's website discovered adult and teen gay chatroom ads on their site.

When the parents complained to the publisher, the publisher claimed that it was Google's responsibility. At the end of the day, though, the parents said they'd stop visiting the website -- and that ultimately means that the publisher is really at fault.

What did this publisher do? Let's put it this way: they're not using Google AdSense anymore."

This is a standard problem for online newspapers using Google AdSense.

When we write stories about Fraud X, invariably we find that the ads are for variants for Fraud X!

Google AdSense now promises "automatically crawls the content of your pages and delivers text and image ads that are relevant to your audience and your site content."  Nice to be able to deliver on that promise.

Full post as published by Misleading Advertising Law on December 17, 2008 (boomark / email).