The Thread discusses the animated series The Tick, which currently has yet to be released on DVD. The Google Ads ended up bringing up direct links to sites that sell illegal DVDs of this series (Otto said there were two such links at the time of his posting, when I read the Thread there was one).
The Board rules are pretty strict about copyright and if a poster gave a direct link to a site selling illegal DVDs the Thread would be closed pretty quick and the poster would get a warning at least.
Can TPTB monitor this at all?
If this was covered in another of the “All the Things Wrong With the Google Ads” Threads, I apologize. There are so many such Threads an efficient search is difficult.
I’ll have to refer this to Jerry, but I think there is some sort of complaint process for illegal sites/abuse situations. I would think a site that is illegal on its face would not be something Google would want to defend and they wouldn’t expect us to either.
TubaDiva: We’re probably lucky that Google is (probably) a bit more reputable than a lot of other adspace vendors, and will (hopefully) care that they sold adspace to a criminal.
If we ever decide to go with more ads here, issues like these could become quite prominent.
The first ad on my view of this particular thread reads “Download TV Series! Over 90 million TV series download Fast & Easy. No Fees Per download!” I have my doubts that any such site is legitimate.
The second ad, for a “superhuman suit,” is for a product that is almost certainly a trademark violation: a replica Superman costume minus the S-shield in the chest
FWIW, I once reported a Google ad on another site to Google; the ad was for clearly illegal, pirated software. I actually got a personal email from Google saying that they were going to dump the errant advertiser from adwords.
And the Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again… Any discussion of an ad is bound to contain keywords relevant to that ad. And hence, the ads at the bottom of this thread are the very ones under discussion here.
We’ve had all-out discussions of child porn on the SDMB before (prior to the Google ads). If Google doesn’t like ‘mature content’, it could well refuse to do business with us if it uncovers and flags those threads.
The SDMB isn’t advertiser-friendly and it shouldn’t be, at least if it wants to keep a large proportion of its paying membership. That is why ads have drawn such criticism even from people who usually don’t mind looking at advertisements (or have very effective ways of blocking them anyway).
Nothing. Google only shows what it’s got, and “adult content” just draws a blank or confuses it, which seems to revert it to a default mode of Katrina and spam lists. We tried filthy trigger words fairly comprehensively in a MPSIMS thread, and it just throws its arms up at “nude lesbian teen cheerleaders are waiting for your call”.
This sort of thing happens constantly on the Bad Astronomy BB, now the BAUT board. It just kind of goes with the territory, as our understanding is that the website owner is limited to banning only a certain number of ad URLs–he can’t ban “simply everything” that he finds annoying (as opposed to “illegal”).
It’s actually kinda fun to watch astrology and UFO ads turn up on a serious astronomy board, if you think about it.
But mainly we’re just used to it. You’ll get used to it, too.
we dopers are smarter than that–we know the difference between a doper thread and a pop-up advertisement. We can fight ignorance, and tolerate a bit of comercialism. Just like a church can both feed your spirit, and ask you for a donation to fix the roof.
Who clicks on the ads, anyway? I just ignore 'em.–and that ain’t gonna keep the hamsters fed.
Number one, I’m not particularly concerned about “we Dopers.” I’m more concerned with the lurkers that might use these discussions to form opinions about homeopathy and psychic readings and so forth. Renting ad space gives tacit approval to the entity running the ads–not a position I’m comfortable with in this particular case. Agreed that most people can tell the difference between threads and ads, but I do dislike the direct and unrefuted link to the very ignorance the SDMB is supposed to fight.
Number two, I’m not talking about “fighting ignorance” versus “tolerating a bit of commercialism,” so this isn’t analagous to a church both feeding the spirit and asking for a donation to fix the roof. I’m talking about fighting ignorance versus literally promoting ignorance, so it’s more analagous to a church both feeding the spirit and asking for a donation to support nun-euthanizing puppy-kickers who spit on the Eucharist.
Well, we felt the exact same way about the woo ads on the BABB, to be met with the exact same shrug from the Bad Astronomer–there’s nothing the website owner can do about it. Under the terms of the Google agreement, the website owner is only allowed to block ads that are actively offensive, and “ignorant”, “Woo”, and “silly” aren’t the same thing as “offensive”. At least, not to the GoogleAds people, who presumably do not have the delicately enlightened sensibilities of ignorance-fighting Dopers.
Yes. And the banks could give away free money. We need to get over the idea that fighting ignorance is the mission of the SDMB. It may be the mission of Cecil, Little Ed, the SDSAB, every one of the 55,179 registered SDMB users, the countless lurkers, and the rest of the Teeming Millions, but the raison d’etre of the SDMB is to make money for the Chicago Reader, and that’s it. So far, it hasn’t. If you can think of any good reason that will convince the Reader to turn down this opportunity for money, I’d be happy to hear it. Fighting ignorance might convince them, but I’m not counting on it.
“The ads will kill the Boards,” won’t work either, because, a) they won’t, and b) why should the Reader care? (Besides that they seem to have a soft spot for us.)
