I have added some anti-'congressman's name' banners to my web site which also runs adsense. I am hoping this is ok tos-wise. Anybody know?
david_uk
7:26 pm on Jul 10, 2006 (gmt 0)
Not sure if it's against the TOS, but I'm not sure that politics is necessarily a good advertising theme to allow unless it's relevant to your site. I always steer clear of politics and religion themed ads on my site as they really are not relevant to the site topic, and I don't want to offend visitors.
Powdork
7:46 pm on Jul 10, 2006 (gmt 0)
I'm not concerned about the theming of ads as a result of this. Both the adsense and the banner are being served indpendently at runtime by phpAdsNew, and the political banner is flash. As far as mixing politics and visitors. It is a cause related to my site.
humblebeginnings
8:13 pm on Jul 10, 2006 (gmt 0)
Heya Powdork,
Adsense Program Policies state:
Site may not include: (...) advocate against any individual, group, or organization
Powdork
12:51 am on Jul 11, 2006 (gmt 0)
Thanks, humblebeginnings. I have seen that, but I don't know if it applies. In instances like this, politicians can not expect the same guarantees of privacy that individuals can. I just don't know if Google feels the same way in this regard. Additionally, that is under the section of Site Content, wherein this is an advertisement that shows up randomly on some pages with adsense, and all the time on some pages without adsense. Anywho, I sent Google an email asking them if it was ok.
Powdork
2:31 am on Jul 14, 2006 (gmt 0)
An update- The adsense team got back to me (twice). Essentially, the ad was ok because it advocates against a political stance rather than the character of a person. I would add that you may be able to stretch things a bit using images that evoke the thoughts rather than actually saying it.
For instance, having the politicians suit change to orange while bars slam shut in front of him might be ok, while saying "You should be in jail you lying SOB" might not.