I cannot believe that I am reading people defending Incredimail.
Do they have some great product that I am not aware of?
I beat my kids with a wet noodle if they install this crap on one of my PC’s.

As others have mentioned, I imagine the traffic to advertisers was simply awful.

I imagine the traffic to advertisers was simply awful.

Ok, let's assume the traffic to advertisers was terrible and there was no system abuse.

But does it give Google the right to terminate the account? I'm just curious (as EFVGIMG said, we don't know the exact reason) - is there anything in the Adsense TOS that allows Google to terminate an account just because they determine the advertisers' ROI is not good enough on the particular website/s?

Yes, they do it all the time, by site or by account. If you can find a "you cannot be turned down" passage in the TOS, saying that Google is required to sponsor your site even if they don't want to, I'd like to see it.

I thought that as long as you don't violate the rules, you are good and your account cannot be terminated.. Especially because of the advertiser's low ROI.

Whatever your view, a big weakness with Adsense and increasingly feeds from other providers are the threat that they can cut you off at short notice or smartprice your revenue to death. The lesson to learn is be vary careful who you sign with and on what terms, those who pay better, may in fact end up costing you money in the longer term.

Consider also that accounts are often terminated or traffic discounted based on their analysis of your traffic quality, set against metrics you cannot see or respond to. Set against conversion bars that you also cannot see or react to. Talk about a shot in the dark.

Since virtually ANY form of monetization has similar, or slightly different problems, this isn't really saying much. You may not know that, for example, reversals in the CPA field (plus account terminations and nonpayment) has always been a problem in the CPA world.

You may not know that the CPM model is such that it's not uncommon for sites to get turfed (if they can get in at all with major companies), and that CPM rates look great until you find that there is severe frequency caps.

Direct advertising has problems in terms of collections, credit issues, customer service time, etc.

and, to your point there is NO advertising monetization that can't be SHUT OFF, unless of course you rope some turkey advertisers into signing long term contracts and ridiculously high rates, and get them to prepay in advance!

PS. on the incredimail thing, if they were premium partners, their deal would have had an expiration date, and the conditions of their contract would have been negotiated individually. So, they might have had conditions you and I wouldn't have, and we have no way of knowing anything more about the termination unless someone official squeels.

I thought that as long as you don't violate the rules, you are good and your account cannot be terminated.. Especially because of the advertiser's low ROI.

No, either party can terminate the agreement at any time.

No, either party can terminate the agreement at any time.

You're right:

"Google may at any time, in its sole discretion, terminate all or part of the Program, terminate this Agreement, or suspend or terminate the participation of any Site in all or part of the Program for any reason."

Point #6 at [google.com ]

That sums it up nicely and this thread may be closed now... I think it will only be smart of me to use this sentence above in all my business partnerships.

Seems pretty fair to me. You can quit at any time, and they can do the same. Neither side has to give notice, file for divorce, wait for an NDA to expire, etc. In fact, you don't even have to quit: You can just stop serving ads without saying good-bye. It sure beats being locked into a contract that you wish you hadn't signed.

No, either party can terminate the agreement at any time.

Only for non-premium partners

Only for non-premium partners

Yes, which means an overwhelming majority of AdSense publishers (who can take solace in their freedom whenever they're inclined to feel jealous of premium partners!).

Yes, which means an overwhelming majority of AdSense publishers (who can take solace in their freedom whenever they're inclined to feel jealous of premium partners!).

Sure in a fight between Woody Allen and Shannon Briggs, Woody has all the "freedom" to hit first ..

@walkman, re spyware issues, download.com only lists spyware free programs, and incredimail is currently listed on their site.

[download.com...]

They even have a litte "Tested spyware free" note beneath the name of the software.

Sure in a fight between Woody Allen and Shannon Briggs, Woody has all the "freedom" to hit first ..

Publishers who think they're in a fight with Google should bow out before they're bloodied. :-)

On the notebook of my doughters, there had been suddenly IncediMail.

I do not know how, but I could imagine, that a high percentage of IncrediMail users are children.

I have now experience how 5 (my younger doughter 2006) to 9 year old children are using the internet.

When my imagination is true, I can imagine why AdSense...

Not to kick them when they are down… even more…, but we are talking about a company that has a huge banner campaign that cries out to children with talking and animated smiley faces that all but takes over the control of a browser looking to force a download that most adults would not allow.

I often feel the need to take a shower just from viewing one of their banner ads.

Removing this parasite from AdSense should relate into a positive for all who provide good content and benefit from the AdSense inventory.

Not to kick them when they are down… even more…, but we are talking about a company that has a huge banner campaign that cries out to children with talking and animated smiley faces that all but takes over the control of a browser looking to force a download that most adults would not allow.

That's exactly the way, how IncrediMail was coming to my childrens notebook.

Suddenly at restarting, there was a message, "Do You want to install IncrediMail"

Actually I looked up the site on Quantcast and it supposedly skews significantly towards senior citizens. Go figure.

Actually I looked up the site on Quantcast and it supposedly skews significantly towards senior citizens. Go figure

Maybe it is true that we complete the cycle and become children again as we get ready to say bye-bye :)

The rub here is that IncrediMail -- annoying marketing and all -- has been doing this for ages. Google had to know this coming in. Is that really the reason? We don't know.

And for those who suggest that IncrediMail got booted because it proved to be a bad ROI for Google, is there anyone that has been booted for that explicitly?

When us small fry have crummy ROI for Google we don't get booted. We get smart-priced. IncrediMail wasn't smart-priced. The account was disabled, and according to IncrediMail, it came out of the blue on Wednesday (though the press release didn't go out until Friday).

Maybe it got too much bad press about spyware?

The rub here is that IncrediMail -- annoying marketing and all -- has been doing this for ages. Google had to know this coming in. Is that really the reason? We don't know.

We don't (and can't) know the specific reasons, but there's nothing unprecedented about a company reviewing a business relationship and deciding not to continue it. Google's decision to part ways with IncrediMail may be nothing more than the equivalent of a disillusioned AdSense publisher's deciding not to continue with AdSense.

there's nothing unprecedented about a company reviewing a business relationship and deciding not to continue it.

Right. That's why I try to click on Adsense ads from time to time when I read emails on Gmail - that should save my email account from getting suspended. Using free Google resources without giving something in return could be a risky business these days.

As an advertiser I certainly wouldn't want to be paying for clicks like that!

As an advertiser I certainly wouldn't want to be paying for clicks like that!

I can understand that. But why would Google want to give me 6GB for free - they count on users like me too and it's not free to provide so much web space.

Besides, I only click on ads that interest me (from time to time).

>>why would Google want to give me 6GB for free

In a word, data. To Google, the best data is "more data."

Unbelievable that any adsenser could say that about deliberately clicking in order to give Google a few extra pennies as a thank-you, and not be joking.

Reading this thread, I went to Incredimail's website, clicked here and there, and got prompted to download Cleanator, a rogue security software. That is enough to cancel any agreement with Google, and to make me feel even sicker about Incredimail's offers.

Don't forget that gmail is a competitor to incredimail...

Don't forget that gmail is a competitor to incredimail...

I suspect they serve different target audiences, but in any case, Google has ad partnerships with all kinds of competitors and semi-competitors. And Google wouldn't have partnered with IncrediMail in the first place if it had been worried about IncrediMail's being a competitor.

In summary...

Those of you who worry about incredimail's ad generating revenue & their future... They'll do just fine. With 10+ milion users, the other AD companies are already lined up with sweet offers.

Those of you who just realised that "OMG G just banned a big publisher with no reason... what about me?" Well... what about you?

Or those that are trying to justify G's move and seperate themselves from incredimail as a "better" publisher... Roll up a newspaper and smack yourself in the nose screaming "NO! NO! NNNNNNNNO!"

The moral of this story boys and girls is that Adsense Publishing is not a business. Forget the dreams of handing down your AS sites to your children. Adsense is just a customer. The business is your websites. Any business that cannot survive without losing any one of their customers shouldnt be in business. Diversifying is the key (even at a short term loss). Diversifying will not only protect your future in case of G suddenly dropping you with or withour reason... but it will also strengthen and assure competition which is good for the website advertising market as a whole.