Censorship or not, I have trouble with the fact that Google’s TOS do not make a distinction between TV Tropes, a site which basically is built on intelligent and witty discussion of media tropes, and Teenage Suck Sluts R Us. Seems to me a major business opportunity is being wasted here. Surely some advertising aggregator could go in there and eat Google’s lunch by intelligently distinguishing between sites which host adult conversation and sites which host actual porn.
Does Adsense have competitors? And do they make such distinctions?
I’m not intimately familiar with TV Tropes, but it sounds like the action here might have been a bit on the heavy handed side (which ought to make site reconsideration a fairly low hurdle)
Here’s the relevant bit of policy:
I guess it comes down to the definition of ‘excessive profanity’, unless there are some other areas of infringment also.
Sounds quite excessive … anything Ned Flanders might object to. I still sense opportunity for competitors in that list. Lot of weapons, cigarette, liquor money out there.
My mind just boggled by some of the comments in this thread. Google is paying money to TVTropes. How the holy blue fuck does anyone think that Google doesn’t has every right to make whatever rules they want on how they will give out that money? You have two choices, do what Google says or find another source of revenue. You think that it’s unfair? Fine. Get your money another way.
This deserves a special mention for its ignorance. Google isn’t “suppressing free speech” by deciding how they will enforce their contracts. TVTropes can still say whatever they want. Google is under no obligation to pay for it though.
You really want to make a statement, do what at least one person who posted here did. Get out your credit card and send TVTropes some money. I bet most of you never sent them a dime or even bothered to click on a Google ad in the first place. People who never sent money to the site and then complained about the way in which Google intends to send them money are totally full of crap. If every regular reader sent them $5/year, I bet that they wouldn’t even need Google ads.
Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it ? I have no idea how it works in practice, but at a guess I’d think a Google employee would cursorily check the website of a prospective AdWhore for objectionable content before agreeing to a contract.
If they don’t, and only check when someone whines, then theirs is a bad, unevenly enforced policy. And if they do, well, they knew what TVTropes was about when they signed their end of the contract, and the site hasn’t changed since.
Maybe the site was fine when they originally signed up but then their content drifted. In any event, there is no law against a bad, unevenly enforced policy. The remedy, if this bothers you, is to not use the bad company’s services anymore. Problem solved.
hajario,
This is about the size and power of Google and the affect it’s actions could have on the internet, something it does not own. That is what the holy blue fuck people are complaining about.
And, in all respect, I think it’s a legitimate complaint. Certainly there are rights and principles but we shouldn’t adhere to them so blindly in every instance that we ignore the affect they have on the rights of smaller entities that have very few options.
We cannot adhere to free market principles in such a blind manner that we risk drastically reducing the amount of freedom and competition in that market.
Do you really not mind if we lose free discussion forums such as TV Tropes or the Dope? Is your support of the totally untrammeled laissez-faire market place so uncompromising that you’re content to see the internet reduced to a censored medium with all content provided by, or at least pre-screened by, a few pre-approved providers? That’s no longer a free market.
Would that actually happen? I don’t know, but I do think it’s a legitimate concern and I think that’s what the discussion should be about. It shouldn’t be about how we need to protect the rights of the biggest player on the block come hell or high water.
I get your point davidm, but it’s not a strong enough argument for me. I don’t see how somehow forcing Google to provide ad content to anyone who wants it is a better option. Should Google be forced to provide ads to hard core porn sites? Who decides where the line should be drawn? Seriously. Do you think that there should be an independent commission or something? I still say that Google should get to decide.
TVTropes is going to have to find another source of revenue. As I said, the people who are upset about this need to put their money where their mouth is and give some of their own money to TVTropes. How many of the people who are outraged by this have done that? I challenge all of you to give $10 to them once a year with the exception, of course, for those who truly can’t afford to do so in this economy.
I’m one of those crazy people who donates money for shareware if I end up using the program a lot. I am also on record with supporting the PTB here when we went to a pay to post site several years back. If everyone behaved similarly, Google ads would be irrelevant.
There is also the problem that if Google leaves it up to complainants to point out non-compliant sites for them, they deliver all their subscriber sites into the hands of trolls of the sort that are suspected of reporting TV Tropes, and professional trolls like most bluenose groups and the RIAA. This is a VERY bad thing. But hey … it’s not government censorship! So it’s got THAT going for it!
So your solution is, “Everyone should spend more money on stuff that they might otherwise get for free!” Don’t think it’s gonna be real popular for some reason, Hajario. Especially in this economy.
Are we sure that the advertiser was grassed up here? Google AdSense is context-sensitive - it tailors the ads according to keywords on the containing page. Doesn’t seem like it would be very difficult for Google to implement an algorithm to detect policy violation.
That’s one way of looking at it. Maybe no one should donate to charities either. I certainly don’t get anything out of some of my favorite charities. Yeah, I think that people should pay for what they use and enjoy. They shouldn’t be forced to do so, of course, but they should do it if they can afford it. I have donated to loads of message boards that don’t require memberships because I used them and wanted to help keep them ad free.
I personally had to deal with this issue and constantly came to dead ends when trying to talk to an actual person at Google. I had two pages on my site that were labeled “Wet Bitches” which had pictures of dogs that were in the water and were wet, and then another that was titled “Shaved Pussies” which was a bunch of pictures of cats that had been shaved. At the bottom of the pages it said “What were you expecting to find?” and they were obvious joke search bait pages. I got pulled from Ad Sense because of this and no matter what I did, I couldn’t find a way to get someone from Google to actually look at the supposedly offense content which was actually quite innocent. The whole thing is automated and is almost impossible to get any real people to look into it. Total bullshit.
Well, monkeybutler, I would have dropped you for having such a lame, long ago played out joke on your site.
Seriously, I get that you don’t like it. What is your solution? If Google had to hire enough additional people to significantly increase their monitoring, would you be cool with it cutting what they could pay out by 80%? Obviously, pulled that number out of my butt but I bet the cost would be significant.
Like Google can’t afford to pay people to actually be contacted by customers. They pay people to manually screen YouTube videos for copyright violations.
Sure! Puts people to work, it’s not like Google is isn’t dripping with money, and the people hired might be a bit more objective than the troll varietals out there.
Exactly my point. To have a section of their company that does business with SO many sites but to have so little…almost non-existant…customer service is absurd.
