Personally I've never had an ethical dilemma. If the site landing page isn't right for my site, if it's an MFA or whatever I'll simply block it. If the site goes so far over the TOS there is no question it's a multiple violation with knobs on then I would report it. But as they never act, I never bother these days.

That's not the problem - the problem is that if you report violations such as this to Google, it bats back and forth between adsense and adwords and never gets deleted. Why have the TOS if you aren't going to enforce it is my question.

EFV:-

As for reporting sites that you feel are violating the TOS, what's the problem? If they're breaking the rules, screw 'em; if they aren't, Google simply won't act on your report.

Whilst I agree with this statement, the problem you fail to grasp is that Google simply will not remove advertisers no matter how bad the arbitrage landing page they use to scam is.

Then don't report it. No big deal. Google probably relies on algorithms to catch most violations anyway.

But they don't work - and don't bother defending them either. Just save time and say "See past posts".

Personally, I don't think the TOS can be absolutely black and white. To cover every eventuality that ever could exist would be a marathon task - and futile. I think it's better to have a general TOS as now, that allows interpretation. In fact, I think it's the only option Google has. Therefore they can use the spirit of the TOS in making decision rather than the letter.

Which is all very fine - but when are they going to enforce the TOS they already have?

Why does everybody think we are talking about TOS change?

Hi,

I don't Hobbs, but maybe some of us are saying why G is not going to be any clearer in its explanation of its existing ToS.

Rgds

Damon

It's already necessary to read the Program Policies AND the lengthy Terms & Conditions. They also have further clarifications in the online help.

If they're also going to start putting critical information in their blog, per your suggestion, they might as well forget about anybody ever knowing and understanding all the rules of the program.

Whilst I agree with this statement, the problem you fail to grasp is that Google simply will not remove advertisers no matter how bad the arbitrage landing page they use to scam is.

This thread isn't only about arbitrage landing pages; it's about TOS violations in general.

Plus, if Google won't enforce TOS violations (an allegation that suggests all the "I've been banned" threads on Webmaster World have been fictitious), then what's the point of having a TOS FAQ or tutorial?

If they're also going to start putting critical information in their blog, per your suggestion, they might as well forget about anybody ever knowing and understanding all the rules of the program.

Hmmm. I seem to remember there have been times when the Program Policies and/or Terms have changed and I, as a publisher, wasn't notified by email. I found out about it here, on JenSense, etc.

FarmBoy

Plus, if Google won't enforce TOS violations (an allegation that suggests all the "I've been banned" threads on Webmaster World have been fictitious)...

Aren't most of those "I've been banned" threads related to "I clicked/my friend clicked on my ads" type situations?

In the context of this thread, I think people are speaking in general about Google not responding to reports of TOS violations - a figure of speech if you will.

If people posted here every time a violation was reported to Google and nothing happened, I think those posts would outnumber the "I've been banned" posts by about 100 to 1.

Personally, I don't bother reporting anything anymore, regardless of how bad the violation. Reporting violations (along with complaining about MFA's) is an exercise in futility at this point, in my opinion.

FarmBoy

Which is all very fine - but when are they going to enforce the TOS they already have?

When the marketplace forces it on them.

And that's probably not going to happen until they have some serious competition. If then even.

FarmBoy

The use of Referrals as alternate ads

Can you expand on why you even address this issue?

The way I look at my site. I own the page and therefore I own that spot where the ad is displayed.

I give Google first shot at it. If they don't take it, I use the space to advertise one of my other sites.

What's the problem?

Or have I misunderstood what you said/meant?

Hobbs... Are you a lawyer who can exactly say what is worng and what is right according to TOS? And why do you feel Google should repond to you at all, so that you know how to eliminate your competition?

Case 1: Google TOS does not permit Adult sites. But aren't all dating site kind of adult? What about safe sex sites?

Case 2: Alpha is a dumb SEO who can't get ranked. So he starts reporting all his competition; blah spam, blah violation of TOS, blah blah. In the mean time the publisher position himself ahead strategically and works on his site.

Thats why we have lawayers. Don't rat on your publisher, unless the publisher is one of the lowest scum on the planet.

We don't need more self righteous people who think they have PHD in SEO.

Don't rat on your publisher, unless the publisher is one of the lowest scum on the planet.

We don't need more self righteous people who think they have PHD in SEO.

Huh?

What in the heck does AdSense have to do with SEO?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

And what does ratting out AdSense violators hace to do with SEO?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Losing your AdSense account does not impact your search position whatsoever so if that's what you're doing to try to get ahead in the SERPs you're completely wasting your time.

They'll still be ahead in the SERPs with YPN, Clicksor, or affiliate programs.

Also, if doesn't take a rocket scientist, let alone a lawyer, to interpret the AdSense T&Cs for such issues as "CLICK THE ADS PLEASE!" or ADULT content as nudity isn't allowed, nor is erotic, as a matter of fact erotic is a KILL WORD that generates PSA's and I had to filter it from my own site.

>>> as a matter of fact erotic is a KILL WORD that generates PSA's and I had to filter it from my own site. <<<

Is there a list of "KILL WORDS" that sites cannot use with AdSense?

If they're breaking the rules, screw 'em; if they aren't, Google simply won't act on your report.

Right as usual EFV.

Incredibill - what? Are you suggesting that there are some lazy complacent opportunists out there in internet land? I'm telling Google so they can clean up the internet right away!

Hobbs, I sure hope you don't lose any sleep on this one dude!

The single best thing they could do is email back the person who made the report saying "Thanks so much for letting us know about XYZ.foo, we've banned them from every using Adsense again and are investigating the possibility of legal action"

Plus, if Google won't enforce TOS violations (an allegation that suggests all the "I've been banned" threads on Webmaster World have been fictitious), then what's the point of having a TOS FAQ or tutorial?

EFV. The thread top post is about reporting TOS violations to adsense, and whether it's ethical or not. My comment was in direct reference to this point. No matter how many times you report TOS violations to Google they won't ban them - no matter how bad the violation. Anyone who has ever reported a site will most likely reort back that this is the case in their experience.

I wasn't trying to drag the debate off to an "I've been banned" threads discussion. I was trying to stay on topic. You can't confuse publishers who most likely get banned for click fraud with reporting tos violations. They are two separate topics.

TOS violations in respect of page content and ad copy will always be subjective to some extent. Click fraud, the encouragement of it and the consequent "I've been banned" because of it is an extremely black and white decision. Bearing in mind that Google have been sued, and probably will continue to be sued over click fraud they are bound to act swiftly to ban publishers. Style content of sites isn't something they have been sued over.

There is a point in having tutorials - I never said their wasn't. However, there isn't really any point in having clauses in the TOS that allow Google to terminate publishers (or advertisers) that violate the TOS unless you are actually going to use them. That is an entirely separate issue from the click fraud "I've been banned" threads, and they should not be confused with each other.

I agree with Hoobs,

We need to do more to guard the wellbeing of the program. If the advertisers get discouraged because of what some publishers may be doing that will hurt good publishers, good advertisers and a a good portion of the world economy. Yes, Adsense is so huge that by accounitg about 90 percentof G's revenues is worth more than some economies in the world.

Guard the network.

In my opinion, the only thing a publisher should be discouraged about is clickfraud. I guess I just don't really care where adsense ads are, if someone clicks them, then they have done their job.

WTH do I care if some lame MFA site has a billion adsense ads on it with absolutely no content? If someone stumbles on it looking for widgets, clicks on my ad for widgets, and buys a widget, I could care less if it came from an MFA or a 100% compliant site.

I think most people feel that other sites are robbing them from ad revenue that they think they should be getting because they spent more time building their site.

Honestly, I think it is just jealousy more than anything else..

Keeping this thread on topic is like kicking marbles uphill!

Jafo:

I think most people .. is just jealousy more than anything else

Not that this is related, your statement Jafo could offend a lot of hard working people that care where their visitors end up, and how the quality of a link on their site can reflect badly on their sites, you make it sound like most people that report MFA do it out of spite.

Jealousy? There is nothing difficult in throwing up thousands of no content pages, what takes hard work is building the good content and traffic that the lazy MFA scum tries to steal at the lowest rate possible not caring about visitor experience.

Please don't drag us into the classic "what is an MFA", we have too many of those in here.

[edited by: Hobbs at 11:59 am (utc) on Aug. 31, 2006]

Not that this is related, your statement Jafo could offend a lot of hard working people that care where their visitors end up, and how the quality of a link on their site can reflect badly on their sites, you make it sound like most people that report MFA do it out of spite.

If they are so worried about this, then they should manage their own advertising. If you sell your own advertising, you can then approve or deny ANY ad. MFA links will not hurt a sites SERP unless spiders have started rendering javascript and following the links therein. If the webmaster cares so much about where their users end up, they will not let ANY third party pick ads for them.

Jealousy? There is nothing difficult in throwing up thousands of no content pages, what takes hard work is building the good content and traffic that the lazy MFA scum tries to steal at the lowest rate possible not caring about visitor experience.

I think you just proved my point. Your mad, or probably more accurately, jealous, because they did it easier than you.

I think we probably agree what an MFA is. I will not dispute it. My point is, who cares? Anything less than clickfraud should not concern a PPC advertiser.

[edited by: Jafo at 12:34 pm (utc) on Aug. 31, 2006]

Jafo, honestly I have no idea what you are talking about or if your reply is any way related to what I wrote, read my post again please.

Any way, yes I am jealous and green with envy, now excuse me while I go report some more MFA to feel good again.

Added: (tip: I am a publisher not an advertiser)

[edited by: Hobbs at 1:10 pm (utc) on Aug. 31, 2006]

Jafo, honestly I have no idea what you are talking about or if your reply is any way related to what I wrote, read my post again please.

If you really do not understand my reply, perhaps you should take your own advice and read MY post again. :)

Any way, yes I am jealous and green with envy, now excuse me while I go report some more MFA to feel good again.

Thanks for at least coming forward with it, eventually...

Now the question should be: "Is reporting violations out of spite an Ethical Dilemma?".

[edited by: Jafo at 1:15 pm (utc) on Aug. 31, 2006]

I read something timely this morning regarding this thread and in particular, whether the terms are clear.

There is a certain well known blogger. I guess the rules here prohibit me from identifying him but let's just say his blog is popular and I'm probably not the only one on this board who reads his blog regularly.

His wife also blogs but has less traffic. He often calls attention to something on his wife's blog and sends a lot of traffic over there.

This morning, he put up a blog entry announcing that his wife now has "Google Ads" on her blog, provided a link and even commented on the targeting of the ads.

Considering this man's real life profession, you would think he would be the type to read agreements very carefully.

If what he has done is a violation of the terms/policies in regards to not calling attention to the ads, are the terms/policies clear enough that a reasonable & educated man would know not to call attention to the ads in this manner? Does Google need to provide some examples?

Also, since a lot of people read his blog, he probably just introduced a number of people to AdSense.

If someone were to report him or email a friendly note to let him know he is (probably?) in violation of the terms, he could do a lot of people a service by explaining the situation on his blog and explaining why he won't do it again. But wouldn't that also be calling attention to the ads?

FarmBoy

Thanks farmboy for steering us back on topic.

Even under the vague "undue attention" rule, I wouldn't consider that blogger in breach, if large sites are allowed to announce their joining AdSense, why should small ones be denied?

Now if he solicited clicks, that would be a different matter, also commenting on the ad targeting I would guess is in this blogger's line of work, so nothing suspicious there too.

But you see, this is what you get with vagueness.

Hobbs, the "undue attention" clause is indeed vague. There is no way around this -- if you want to proposed an IMPROVED clause, go ahead and try. I'll see you in a few months when you have written your encyclopedia containing specific rules covering every possible scenario.

Farmboy, in that example I would expect that even if someone reported the blogger, Google would simply send an email asking him to remove the post. We've heard of plenty of examples of this in the past.

Farmboy, in that example I would expect that even if someone reported the blogger, Google would simply send an email asking him to remove the post. We've heard of plenty of examples of this in the past.

If you think Google would send that email, you must think he is in violation?

Also, if he then told people about it on his blog as a friendly warning to his readers against doing the same thing, would that be calling attention to the ads again?

FarmBoy

I don't want the TOS modified jomaxx, there is no need specially that Google holds the sole right to its interpretation, so any modification on that matter is pointless.

What I was hoping for is for Google to communicate clearly few examples of what can make the attention undue, explain better how their or our business is hurt by the rest of the violations as well as they did with click fraud, and like it has been said before, put a foot down in implementing their own TOS, show is that our eventual reporting did make a difference by acting faster on obvious cases, make better use of the army of publishers already on their side to clean up the network.

...if large sites are allowed to announce their joining AdSense, why should small ones be denied?

Hmmm. I wonder if I put AdSense on a new site today, could I get away with using one of those press release services to tell the world I now have Google ads on example.com?

FarmBoy

Yes I think you can get away with it if done professionally, there is precedence, but if your press release says that you are depending on ad clicks from visitor that like your site to pay for your college tuition fees, that is called soliciting clicks.

(only my free given opinion, don't go cashing on it)

EFV. The thread top post is about reporting TOS violations to adsense, and whether it's ethical or not. My comment was in direct reference to this point. No matter how many times you report TOS violations to Google they won't ban them - no matter how bad the violation. Anyone who has ever reported a site will most likely reort back that this is the case in their experience.

Not according to previous threads on Webmaster World.

Still, if you were correct, the lack of enforcement would mean there wouldn't be much point in having a "TOS for Dummies" document. Is that what you're really trying to tell us? If so, we're in agreement on the need for such a document.

"Once in a while I report program policy violations, like sites with no content but full of ads, sites with very adult content displaying AdSense ads"

Sites with no content full of Adsense. Why won't Google do anything about it. Because they make money off of those sites. If they don't have a problem with this:

[google.com...]

Why would you think they have a problem with other sites that look like that?