Does Google withold its ads if posts are not to its liking? Will we lose the ads if we say certain things or speak on certain topics?
If so, then if we become dependant on the ads for revenue, we would have to skip to Google’s tune (as TV, radio and print media do) by censoring out content so as to keep Google from droping us.
Admins: a simple question for you. Does Google impose any content requirements or restrictions as part of the agreement to post their ads on our boards, and if so, what are those requirements or restrictions?
To clarify, I should have said “as TV, radio and print media skip to the tune of their advertisers.” (Sorry for the muddle – too early in the morning for coherency.)
If the current crop of hysteria is any indication, Google ads make some people absolutely senseless. But I’m sure that’s not what you mean.
My understanding (which is not an expert view) is that Google does not index porn sites and refuses business from such sites, though I don’t think the SDMB could be considered as such.
So you’re saying I shouldn’t post my thread asking for advice about selling marijuana to support hacking into government servers in order to help the terrorists so that I can buy prostitutes for entertainment at KKK rallies?
" … (viii) act in any way that violates any Program Policies posted on the Google Web Site, as may be revised from time to time, or any other agreement between You and Google (including without limitation the Google AdWords program terms), or engage in any action or practice that reflects poorly on Google or otherwise disparages or devalues Google’s reputation or goodwill. You acknowledge that any attempted participation or violation of any of the foregoing is a material breach of this Agreement and that we may pursue any and all applicable legal and equitable remedies against You, including an immediate suspension of Your account or termination of this Agreement, and the pursuit of all available civil or criminal remedies."
Let’s say that I decided to start a thread the burden of which was that Google is Evil Incarnate and, in short, sucks. Would you, by the terms of the agreement, be obliged to remove it?
It kind of strikes me funny that Google does not allow profanity or pornography on its Ad-Sense sites. However it seems they have NO problem pandering to the spam merchants who seem to make up the majority of the ads I’ve seen so far on the SDMB.
Well, anything is remotely possible when someone decides to involve a lawyer. However, the agreement is between Google and the Chicago Reader, not the posters of the SDMB. I doubt that permitting an opinion to be voiced by some anonymous voice on a message board would actually violate the agreement. If the Reader (or the SDMB staff) launched some sort of campaign to have Congress or the SEC break up Google or if the Reader specifically planted stories on the SDMB that maligned Google, there might be cause for concern. However, the boys that run Google are pretty net savvy and they understand what message boards and newsgroups are like.
(In addition, if Google took action against the Reader for a thread or two on the SDMB, they would frighten off a lot the potential business from any other free-range message boards and all computer industry boards. Why would they want to shut down that sales channel over some random postings?)
How do google monitor the chosen sites for content? Does someone pop in here anonymously from time-to-time, or is it spider-based?
If it’s the latter, does a human then review it, or does the automatic filtering software have a spaz? Because I can see a lot of pit threads, and possibly even some GD threads, that might get busted by a spider.
