Google Upgrades AdSense

An anonymous reader writes "According to a story in the New York Times, Google will now "give advertisers more control over where their ads are shown, how they pay for them and what they look like." Author John Battelle claims "The core philosophy of Google's advertising business is that these ads are actually valuable and useful to users: look for Chevy trucks and get Chevy truck ads. Now we are in another place. It's more about branding and more about advertising other things than what you are looking for, and, cynically, it may be about being a public company that needs revenue growth."" The other thing that other submitters noted was that AdSense would also be accepting graphical advertising as well; but for display on partner sites.

Comments

Non-registration links

[DeadSea]

Some registration free links:

• Search Engine Low Down - Google Tests Cost-Per-Impression Pricing and Targeting for AdWords
• San Jose Mercury News - Google changing the way ads are created, priced
• Silicon.com, UK - Google steps into banner ad world
• Houston Chronicle - Google testing systems that place ads on specific Web sites

Unfortunately, I don't see anything about this on Google's press release page yet.

--
Conversions of Currency Rates of Exchange

Re:Non-registration links

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, thanks! But BTW, the second link (Mercury News) is really a registration site.

Re:Non-registration links

[tehshen]

(From your first link): In addition to text-based ads, Google's site targeting will include another ad format option, animated image ads. This is an enhancement to the image ads option they launched last year.

I thought people liked Google's ads because they were simple, unobtrusive, and fit in with your website. Now we're getting animated image ads (although I can't imagine "If this is flashing you're a winner!" ads being done by Google, although it could happen now) and by the looks of things (see the main article) the look is chosen for you, even if it doesn't fit in with the rest of the site. I don't know what Google are aiming to do here, but it doesn't look too kind to the end-user.

Re:Non-registration links

[DeadSea]

If you have a site that uses adwords you have the choice of having text ads, image ads, or a mix. I gather that Google is still planning to give sites the choice about what they display.

I just hope they serve the images from a different domain than the javascript used to generate the text ads. Otherwise it won't be easy for most people to block the images without blocking the text.

--
Colored syntax highlighting libraries for Java

Re:Non-registration links

[tehshen]

Although many of the people who use AdSense know enough about people to know not to turn the image ads on, there are a few people who will think it is "better", or think they will get more clicks if they use the images, or whatever; I don't want *any* annoying ads there and I am just annoyed that Google is allowing those people to do this.

And the google ads are in an iframe, so if that is blocked the images won't be shown with it, thankfully.

It's okay

[shreevatsa]

Many of you might not like targeted ads ("privacy issues"), but face it --- Google's and Gmail's ads are far less annoying than the random irrelevant banners that, say, Yahoo puts up.

Re:It's okay

[Turn-X Alphonse]

I have no problem with that. They just need to improve a little. A good example would be an e-mail to a friend where for 2-3 e-mails we were talking about a milk allergy we both have. Now to me the most logical advert for that is "Lactose free" things. But instead I got loas of adds going "try our super fantastical milk drink you can't drink yay!".

I don't mind targeted ads because if google really want to read my e-mail I can't stop them.I'd rather a script which doesn't remember them check through them quickly then some guy who was just hired off the street.

Re:It's okay

[Threni]

> I don't mind targeted ads because if google really want to read my e-mail I
> can't stop them

I don't know about that - have you considered using encryption? Perhaps someone out there can knock up a Firefox extension which rot-13s whatever is in a browser's textbox, or is highlighted - this work work on the receiving end too.

Re:It's okay

[ceeam]

No they are not _far_ less annoying. Actually - they are annoying as hell (I'm talking about "partner" sites) because Firefox' back button lags on IFrames reloading noticeably. And, of course, it takes only several small steps from mono-styled short text messages at the screen side to a honking flash embedded in the middle of the page. First step..., or I'd say second since we already have up to 16 ads per search page, so this step is done.

BTW, while we are at it, would you like to buy a brand new DiMAGE Z2 camera? ;)

Re:It's okay

[cafegoer]

OK, but why am is my browser being asked to set a cookie from the site "www.toyota.com" when I do a google search for "toyota"?

Re:It's okay

[man_ls]

If I recall correctly, Google attempts to preload result #1 into your browser, so there's no load time.

This is both good and bad.

Re:It's okay

[nospmiS remoH]

I can see it now:

Me: Hi Mom, its me. I'm calling because I need you to set up your email to allow me to send you encrypted messages.
Mom: Ooookay. Er, what?
Me: Well, GMail snoops on all our messages to put targeted ads next to our email.
Mom: And?
Me: That's bad. All I need is for you to install this Firefox extension that will rot-13s anything we send.
Mom: So GMail is bad? I didn't know. I think I should just go back to my hotmail account.
Me: No, Mom, hotmail is really bad.
Mom: Well, I'll just stop using email then.
Me: No, Mom, wait...It is just a Firefox extension.
Mom: Right, no more email. Goodbye.

Re:It's okay

[CarpetShark]

The lesser of two evils is still an evil. I still like Google, but, unfortunately, they're already starting to lose that core principle of "don't be evil." I wonder how long they'll remain likable for?

Re:It's okay

[zoloto]

What I'd like to see is placement of ads in my GMail. It's free so I wont' complain, but I'd rather the ads were at the bottom of my message than on the right hand side. I've seen some gmail users have that feature (or bug??) but I'd really like the option to set it in either place.

Personally, if the ads were on the bottom, it looks nicer and I'm actually more interested in looking at what they have to say. I don't mind targeted ads based on automatic scanning (will they "learn" and generate even smarter ones???).

~zoloto

Re:It's okay

[nospmiS remoH]

You are correct, but I think it is the first "several" sights. Only in Firefox? Anyway, this can be VERY bad if you work in a place (as I do) where you can get fired INSTANTLY for looking at or even trying to look at (they block them) "inappropriate" sites (i.e. pr0n). If you search for something and a the first results happen to link to bad sites, you could have a lot of explaining to do, if they even listen. Usually they have enough proof that they show up at yoru desk with boxes, no questions asked. I've seen it.

There is a way to turn it off in Firefox; look in google's FAQ. How much time does this really save anyway?

Re:It's okay

[_Sprocket_]

Many of you might not like targeted ads ("privacy issues"), but face it --- Google's and Gmail's ads are far less annoying than the random irrelevant banners that, say, Yahoo puts up.

I've never minded targeted ads. It's the method of targeting ads that I've had a problem with. If you're taking a guess at my interest based on content, fine. Show me ads for AquaWeaver Magazine when I search for "underwater basket weaving" or reading an article on it. As far as I can tell, linking content to an ad has never been a "privacy issue".

The problem comes when you link ads to the individual. For example, I don't like tracking cookies (doubleclick gets added to every adblock config I've ever had). I will not have an advertising agency tracking me from site to site. If that means they can't target an ad at me as effectively, tough. They'll just have to take a guess at my interest by the content I'm viewing.

Re:It's okay

[mutewinter]

What really makes Adsense great isn't just that the ads are targetted but that they are much more efficient than untargetted banner ads. Even a low-traffic website (maybe 3,000 pageviews a month) can easily pay for its domain registration and web hosting if the webmaster is using adsense. There is a good reason why free webshosting isn't as big of a deal as it used to be.

Graphics and....ANIMATION?

[Anonymous Coward]

For Internet users, the most visible change will be an expanded use of ads with graphics and animation on many of the Web sites for which Google sells advertising, rather than the short text ads that have been Google's hallmark.

Looks like Adblock's going to be getting a new entry pretty soon.

Re:Graphics and....ANIMATION?

[dascandy]

FYI, it's http://*.googlesyndication.com/ Blocks their text ads on all sites except their own (google, gmail) since they then embed them in the web pages themselves. Found most ads hilarious however, I usually mail and search with type numbers and loads of words that could be used in multiple ways (and it occasionally even looks up english words in the dutch adsense, which gives totally hilarious connections).

Placement

[Tlosk]

I've noticed that as of late some searches will return a sponsered link at the top of the page above the results (as opposed to the standard list of sponsered links off to the right of the page).

The first few times I mistook the sponsered link for the top result, although it is labeled as such and has a light blue background (although on my monitor at least the blue is almost indistinguishible from the white background).

How long have they been doing this?

This doesn't happen for all searches either, just some, examples are "yellow pages" "dell" "coffee".

Re:Placement

[m50d]

Since they became evil. More seriously, a few months. I'm watching them and getting ready to jump ship as soon as they drop the blue background (make no mistake, they will do it).

Re:Placement

[pete_m78]

How long have they been doing this?

Since at least 2002 - at first advertisers needed to spend at least US$5000 a month to get up there. Nowadays normal Adwords can get to that position - provided the ads are fairly popular (i.e. they get clicked on a lot.)

Re:Evil?

[shreevatsa]

From the summary:
The other thing that other submitters noted was that AdSense would also be accepting graphical advertising as well; but for display on partner sites.
So you can continue using the Google search engine, no unobtrusive ads there. (More pointed text ads, yes, but that's just obtrusive/unobtrusive as before, right?).

Cynically?

[ScentCone]

cynically, it may be about being a public company that needs revenue growth

Everyone raves about, say, Google Maps. I do too. But is it "cynical" for them to move around enough money to actually pay for all that great stuff? Come on, folks, we can't have it both ways. There's nothing "evil" about growing the company. And all of you Google stock holders had better come clean now if your preference is that the stock stays low!

Re:Cynically?

[dubl-u]

But is it "cynical" for them to move around enough money to actually pay for all that great stuff? Come on, folks, we can't have it both ways.

You should tell the Google founders that. It has been their frequent claim that they can have massive success because of their philosophy, that they can do well by doing good. So far, they've lived up to that, and become billionaires in the bargain.

There's nothing "evil" about growing the company. And all of you Google stock holders had better come clean now if your preference is that the stock stays low!

Yes, yes. That's the conventional MBA dogma. A growing company and high stock values validate any behavior that gets you there. The end justifies the means. Et cetera, ad nauseam.

But Google claimed to be different. And so far, they've acted like it. Hopefully this is just a temporary abberation. But if you're right, and they're changing course to be just like every other company, whose to say it will help them? I'd think a move to be more like other companies would harm their brand and lose them their competitive advantage.

Re:Cynically?

[NDPTAL85]

Google is making so much money because of its keen business sense and superior technology, not their "Do no evil" clause. Brin and Sergey were smart enough to understand the incredible real world immaturity of the geek community and how literally they take almost anything. I mean look at your own post. Referring to "the ends justify the means"? We're talking about an internet search engine company here, not an industrial waste disposal company. No one is going to die if Google does something controversial. The founders knew they could establish instant and long lasting street cred by claiming to aim to "Do no evil". Deep down inside however they know they'll do whatever it takes to grow their business, geek cred be damned.

Re:Cynically?

[cyngus]

Firstly, Google is making vast amounts of money, over $300 million (or $400 if you back out stock options) while increasing the size of their work force by 15%. So, they have no problem paying for all this cool stuff as it is.

On the topic of this move being evil, I don't think it is. At the end of the day, it is the third-party sites that decide to display the image ads, not Google. They provide a way for you to make more money (I assume image ads are significantly more costly) if you want. You trade more money for you against the experience of your (not Google's) visitors. Does providing a way for advertisers to display graphical ads on third-party sites that want them make Google evil? No, it means they are enabling two parties (site owners and advertisers) an easy way to get what they want. At the end of the day, it is the site owners who decide. Hate the user, not the tool.

Re:Cynically?

[ScentCone]

Sorry, I should have been more plainspoken, even given the pretty obvious context. When I say we "can't have it both ways," I meant that can't have: 1) Successful companies like Google spending a fortune to develop and deliver (free to end users!) fantastic things like their mapping systems, and equally fantastic things like their stock in your portfolio. As well as: 2) A native dislike of all things "corporate" and the reflexive use of the word "cynical" whenever the words "growth" or "profit" have to appear in a sentence.

That's what I mean. The widespread, seemingly genetic slashdot attitude of contempt for the prosperity of big companies is mutually exclusive with the breathless praise heaped on products and services from those same companies.

Hopefully this is just a temporary abberation

Why? They're allowing third party publishers (of AdSense partner sites) to choose to display if they want a wider variety of ad formats. They're the middle man. No one's arm is being twisted, but advertisers and publishers who are comfortable with the wider range of choices, and who have an audience that will appreciate (or not mind) it, are ahead of the game because of it. Your normal visit to a Google page isn't even being discussed here (though it's not as if you pay for that service, of course).

A growing company and high stock values validate any behavior that gets you there

Careful, your biases are showing. I didn't say that, or even imply it. Read my comment again, and assume that I used the words I used for a reason. My (rhetorical) point was that lots of slashdotters have swooned over Google (and its public stock), and while they don't seem to crow too much about its elevated value, anyone who owns a piece of that company should be pleased by the performance. There's really nowhere in that comment or its meaning to infer some notion that just any behavior attached to a rising stock is somehow just fine. That's a bit of mythology that doesn't hold up very well in the real world of meetings with boards of directors, having the Washington Post business writers talking about you, or having your company's name mentioned in the same breath as a place formerly run by crooks (like Enron). Investors certainly won't invest without some expectation of a return on that investment. But they also don't want to lose their investment entirely (like Enron) because the people in whom they invested are behaving like jackasses.

Re:Cynically?

[hedora]

Google is making so much money because of its keen business sense and superior technology, not their "Do no evil" clause.

I disagree. Recent user studies have used "anonymized" searches from multiple search engines to judge the quality of search results. The "anonymized" searches were presented in a generic format that did not identify the search engine that produced them. Participants in the studies were asked to rank the quality of the results. If I remember correctly, Google came in first, but only by a very small margin. I don't remember the name of the study, or else I would link to it. :(

Assuming that other companies can produce search results that are competitive with Google, Google needs to maintain a good reputation, and continue to produce high quality secondary services like Google Maps if they want to keep their market share.

If they started to behave irresponsibly (eg: selling page rank, or compromising the usability of their interface to allow for more advertising), one of their competitors could easily steal the market from them. (MSN search comes to mind. *shudder*)

Having said that, I really respect Google's business practices, and wish them well in the future. I just hope their management continues to plan for a few years into the future. I've seen too many good companies trade their reputation for short term profits by abusing their customers, or by cheapening their product. (Personally, I don't see why everyone is so upset about Google's addition of animation to their graphical ads, but that's me...)

Re:Cynically?

[dubl-u]

Google is making so much money because of its keen business sense [...]

That's a bold assertion, but you give no data to back it up. And there's plenty of evidence on the other side. Take their UI, especially the way they handled ads. At the time, they were considered insane: all the search engines were moving the other way. It could be that they're two CS PhDs just happened to have business sense better than everybody else in the valley put together. But it's more likely that they were being honest: they put quality first, and ignored revenue maximization.

The clearest example is their IPO. There's no business justification for the risks they took in doing it such an unorthodox way. They must have taken fantastic heat from their VC firms, and VCs really know heat. But they did it anyhow. Why? I think it's because they see themselves as geek revolutionaries.

[...]and superior technology, not their "Do no evil" clause.

You really missed it here. I know a number of people who have taken jobs at Google. I also know people who work at their direct competitors. There's no question that Google gets first pick of the hardcore geeks. Why? Because Google as a company believes in the things that those geeks believe in: doing the right thing, doing that thing right, and making beautiful technology. In comparison, Yahoo's just a regular job.

Google's strong corporate philosophy isn't just window dressing, and it's why they have such great technology. If they abandon that, they'll lose their best troops. And I think they know that.

Graphical Google Ads

[Ford Prefect]

The other thing that other submitters noted was that AdSense would also be accepting graphical advertising as well; but for display on partner sites.

I've seen graphical Google ads for a while - I think they were followed by bits of text saying something like 'What do you think of these? We're testing them' or similar.

Of course, I can't for the life of me remember where I saw them - anyone else seen these adverts, or was I imagining them?

I do remember that they were relatively small and non-Flash - and much smaller than the whopping big Google AdSense advert at the top of Slashdot as I type this... ;-)

Re:Graphical Google Ads

[elbobo]

The graphical ads have been out of beta and running live for many months now. In my Adsense settings I can select whether I want a particular ad block to allow graphical ads or not. That meaning that the ad block will still display text ads unless adsense thinks they have a particularly relevant graphical ad to put in it on occasion, in which case they will.

They're still quite rare though. Whether that's because I'm not a targeted demographic, or not going to targeted sites, or because there simply aren't many people choosing to advertise graphically, or something else entirely ... *shrug*

Oh no it isn't

[CdBee]

Adblock googlesyndication.com - no banners for me under any circumstances !

Re:Oh no it isn't

[lukewarmfusion]

Great! Then you won't count as an impression for my Adsense campaigns. And you definitely won't accidentally become a clickthrough. Which saves me money. So my ads can get through to actual customers who want my products.

I don't personally have any ads...but we help our clients run an Adwords campaign. You can measure the success of these ads in conversions - interested parties that become a sale (or, in their case, a sales lead). If you don't intend to click on an ad, that's fine. Personally, I never click the paid listings on Google.

But a good number of people do. Where I consider natural listings to be more relevant, many users place a higher relevance on the paid listings. The numbers are there to back it up - so it's well worth my clients' time and money to use it. It's paid off quite well for them.

Re:Ads should be distinguishable from non-ads

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Which then take longer to load. Take more time and become animated, then flash, then pop up..

It doesn't work. The only reasonpeople accept google ads is because they are like 1-2k each and they don't have flashy pictures or crap.

Graphical Ad-nonsense on partner sites...

[Saeger]

...just one calorie, not evil enough.

Re:Graphical Ad-nonsense on partner sites...

[ceeam]

1. Do no evil.
2. Do no much evil.
3. Do just a little evil.
4. Do at least something good.
5. ???
6. Profit!

Re:Sad

[ScentCone]

I don't know about you, but I've had the option, so far, of accepting graphical AdSense ads or just sticking with text. It's in your account profile.

Program Terms

[CABAN]

There was an update to the Google Inc. AdWords Program Terms on April 19th. I can't figure out what changes happened that would reflect this article.

Re:Ads? What Ads?

[Marcion]

Extreme Adblocking is cool. Uninstalling Flash works well too. Often I have enough of all images and fire up lynx or elinks. The Internet is a hypertext medium, I want text, not flashy graphics or cola ads.

I couldn't agree more.

[Molly Lipton]

I think Google ads are great. They're not too intrusive and they serve out relevant content, unlike many of the banner ad services out there.

As a tech savvy parent, I know only too well how some ad services work. For example, in the course of looking over the logs on my home network's main server, I found that somehow my son had been receiving some very questionable banner ads through some of the sites he frequents. When I confronted him about it, he said he had been downloading "r0mz," which are basically dumps of old video game ROMs that can be played using software emulators. Of course, I talked to him about the ethical issues inherent in using other people's work without paying whatever price they ask for (if any), but that seemed much less serious to me than the content of those ads!

I tell you, the smut they put on those sites -- I couldn't believe it! I would think these webmasters would have the sense not to put that sort of material on sites that presumably only children would be interested in. I can only assume their banner ad provider just doesn't have the kind of targetting technology Google uses.

Re:I couldn't agree more.

[xtracto]

[quote]
I would think these webmasters would have the sense not to put that sort of material on sites that presumably only children would be interested in.
[/quote]

I think you are wrong, yesterday I started to download an Emulator and ROMS from the NES (Nintendo ) to play with my girlfriend, I am 23 and the NES was THE console to play when I was a kid so today I am doing my PhD abroad and of course I do not have my NES with me (nor I plan to do it because of the time) but with the NES Emulators I can play with my girlfriend over the Internet some old time classic games.

What I want to show is that, like me (23 yr. old) I am sure there are other people who more or less are in my position and as you can see we are not so "young" and I guess at our age, we are quite interested in the topics of those "questionable banners".

As for me? I do not get ROMs from the WWW now, I use P2P software (like emule or bittorrent) to ge them.

Do you know what do I recommend you? Firefox + adblock, and then you can download an AdBlock fiter file son the banners will be gone and you dont have to worry about your child's privacy =o).

Re:I couldn't agree more.

[maxume]

presumably only children would be interested in

There is plenty of adult interest in old video games. The 'children' who where playing their first video games in the early 80's are often still gamers today. 35 year old gamers.

I would bet that a big reason there are smut ads on rom sites is that of all the businesses willing to associate with something that is in a legal grey area, they pay the best. If I were a legit company, I'm not sure I would want my name associated with something that is at the very least borderline illegal...

Re:Evil?

[nmg196]

As the article clearly states, this does NOT affect the search engine. It affects only AdSense. The search engine will retain the text only adverts. RTFA.

Slashvertisement, seriously

[Nodar]

when I was reading this thread, there was a "Google adsense" banner at the top, just kind of funny I thought.

Not again?

[miffo.swe]

I cant count how many times we have read that Google is tunring evil. Is it some kind of projection on the part of some people, they seem to WANT google to be evil somehow. I just dont understand why.

Re:Not again?

[dustmite]

Because everyone in the IT industry has been screwed over in the butt time and again by a certain other major IT company and their unethical practices. Now whenever any other IT company looks poised to grow (e.g. Google, Apple), people immediately get jittery because they think every CEO in this industry must have the same lack of ethics, and so they think uh-oh, we're going to have to bend over again if we let this company get big.

Meanwhile 'that other company' continues to rip everyone off. But people can't do anything about that. So they take out their frustration on smaller companies instead, where they still actually have some control. I mean, how many times have we heard "[Google/Apple] is the new _________?" It's getting tired already.

Re:Sad

[Wieland]

According to TFA, they're allowing graphic ads om their partners sites only, not on google.com. I too will be blocking it, though.

Misleading Summary

[michaelhood]

This is quite possibly the worst summary I've ever seen.
Fallacies:

1. This affects AdWords advertisers whose ads are *published* on the AdSense network. Not AdSense publishers. At all.

2. Image creatives have been an option in our AdWords accounts for at least 6 months. You see them on some AdSense publishers already, you just don't know it.

The real news here is the following:
1. Google is *bringing back* (they had it years ago) cost-per-impression advertising. However, this comes with improvements. I won't spam, see references. (R1)

2. Google is going to finally allow AdWords advertisers to decide what content network sites their ads are published on. (R1) Now we can decide NOT to place our ads on shady sites and fall victim to click fraud.

On the real news item #1, this is of huge interest because Google is allowing some "creepage" back to the CPM (cost-per-mil impressions) model. This seems to indicate that they're finally recognizing that click fraud is a *huge* problem. To the tune of it being estimated 15-20% clicks in competitive CPC (cost-per-click) markets on Google might be fraudulent. (R2)

References: (R1) (R2)

Re:Misleading Summary

[dangitman]

2. Google is going to finally allow AdWords advertisers to decide what content network sites their ads are published on. (R1) Now we can decide NOT to place our ads on shady sites and fall victim to click fraud.

While that's great for preventing click-fraud, doesn't it also remove some major advantages of Adwords?

For example, one of the best thing about Adwords is the way that ads are matched up with different sites and content. If advertisers routinely restrict distribution - then that diminishes effectiveness - and is much like the old model of advertisers taking out ads on specific sites. So what's the point of Google being involved?

Additionally, the fact that Adwords is often used to support smaller sites, is also one of the reasons it is so popular. If we have to put up with advertising - then we want that advertising to benefit the small, struggling sites that we like.

It all just sounds like going back several years in internet advertising history, to an environment where certain sites, users and advertisers get all the rewards, but most don't - while having to tolerate increasingly graphical and intrusive advertising..

Re:Misleading Summary

[michaelhood]

You obviously didn't read my post sense you used the term "Adwords" three times where "AdSense" was the proper term. These are two totally seperate entities, but since even the submitters and/or editors can't keep them straight, I'll cut you some slack.

It's not been made clear what restrictions there will be on what *AdSense*-publishing sites you can specify your ads to run on. It won't be much different, however. If I decide I want my Airline to show up on a page about hotels serving AdSense, I just review the page and add some detailed hotel keywords to my Airline campaign. It works. This won't be much, if any, different.

As far as your "benefit small, struggling sites", I have no idea what you're talking about. The biggest spenders on AdWords are Fortune 500 companies, by and large.

The comment about graphic and intrusive advertising, these are standard-sized banners, *and they are only served if the site owner specifically says PUT AN IMAGE HERE.*

I avoided quoting your comment because most of it didn't make sense, and as for the rest of your comment, I can't figure out what you mean well enough to respond. Please clarify so I can help you to understand.

how to get rid of ads?

[diegocgteleline.es]

I use /etc/hosts to filter ad sites, but I wonder if it's the "best way" of doing it. I have some docens of lines on that file like this:

0.0.0.1 doubleclick.net ad.doubleclick.net ads.mcafee.com 247.vo.llnw.net
0.0.0.1 doubleclick.com m.doubleclick.net m2.doubleclick.net ad.au.doubleclick.net
0.0.0.1 ads.web.aol.com ads.web.de ads.web21.com adserv.newcentury.net
0.0.0.1 adservant.guj.de adservant.mediapoint.de adserver-espnet.sportszone.com
0.0.0.1 advert.heise.de banners.internetextra.com bannerswap.com customad.cnn.com
0.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com

which will make browsers fail when they try to show you ads. The list is longer (get it if you're curious)

But this seems a bit "hacky". Is there a better way to do this, is there some project which keeps track of such ad sites, or even ip ranges and allows you to block them easily?

Re:how to get rid of ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use the following script to automatically update my DNS server each night - keeps the ads away for me :-)

#!/bin/bash
cd /etc/blockedHosts

# rotate lists
for (( mm = 2; mm >= 0; mm-- )); do
(( nn = mm + 1 ))
/bin/mv adBlock.txt.$mm adBlock.txt.$nn
done
/bin/mv adBlock.txt adBlock.txt.0

# fetch new bogon list
if /usr/bin/wget "http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/serverlist.php?host format=bindconfig&showintro=0&startdate%5Bday%5D=& startdate%5Bmonth%5D=&startdate%5By
ear%5D=&mimet ype=plaintext" -O adBlock.txt ; then
/bin/echo "got it"
rm adBlock.zone
exec 6<adBlock.txt

while read -u 6 x;
do echo " ${x}" >> adBlock.zone;
done;
rndc reload
else
/bin/mv/adBlock.txt.0 adBlock.txt
fi

Re:how to get rid of ads?

[dchallender]

Depends on your needs. hosts is good solution if multiple users of PC or multiple browsers. If you are the only user and mainly use one browser then maybe a different approach. e.g. my primary browser is FireFox and I use AdBlock plugins to control what ads I see. This lets me control down to individual files or directory level, so I can allow "good" images but block images from "ads" folders in cases where urls have common "root" but ads are then in a separate folder from useful image data, but for the likes of doubleclick.net etc allows me to do high level blocking.

Re:how to get rid of ads?

[diegocgteleline.es]

Thanks!, so this page is the pointer I needed *duck*. Nice, it has lots of formats, from /etc/hosts to C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts, to BIND and MS XML files....

Re:how to get rid of ads?

[bsiggers]

Adblock for Firefox/Mozilla?

http://adblock.mozdev.org/

Similar to what you've got, but with regular expressions, controllable nicely from the browser. You could also use Squid as a proxy, and block things there.

Re:how to get rid of ads?

[ggvaidya]

You could give Opera a whirl. It's got this awesome feature which only shows cached images (from your hard disk). To load images from website, you hit shift-i. Quite cool!

Re:how to get rid of ads?

[Esine]

You can also have AdBlocker in Opera, see here: http://my.opera.com/jor/journal/ It's based on User CSS .. it blocks ads quite well, even some that Firefox doesn't.

Re:how to get rid of ads?

[pr0fess]

How about the hosts file from http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/? And if you run a server on your box, you can even have your custom 404 show up instead of ads...

Re:how to get rid of ads?

[cortana]

http://www.gozer.org/mozilla/ad_blocking

Assuming you are using a Mozilla based browser, you can kiss pretty much all adverts goodbye.

Re:how to get rid of ads?

[Emetophobe]

I personally use this hosts file. (Currently 239 kb, Last Update: 04-15-05)

Check out here for more INFO on hosts files.

The only thing I hate about hosts file blocking is, that when a site with an offending address is blocked, I can't access that site at all. I wish there was a way for my browser to continue loading the site while ignoring any blocked connections.

Re:how to get rid of ads?

[Emetophobe]

One thing I forgot to add to my previous post was that I also use the AdBlock extension for Firefox. Check out this site http://www.geocities.com/pierceive/adblock/ for up to date adblock filters.

Re:Sad

[anthony_dipierro]

For now, at least, I don't think the search engine is going to be switching. This is talking about Google's Adsense program, which is the text ads it puts on affiliate sites. As an affiliate, one can choose to display text or graphical ads. Some affiliates will switch to the graphical ads, others will remain with the text ads.

Personally I've clicked on a lot more text ads than banner ads, and I think text ads work better. If this is true, then there probably won't be much incentive for any affiliate sites to switch - if they work best with text ads (google certainly does), then they can use text ads, if their content works better with banner ads, then they can use them.

But if banner ads really do get better results, in addition to being annoying as hell, then you might see the price being offered for them reach levels which are hard to ignore. If so, maybe you'll even see google make the switch for its search engine. I doubt any of this will happen, but maybe it will.

Upcomming Yahoo Publisher Advertising Network

[vivekg]

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum110/4-1-10.htm
and http://publisher.yahoo.com/

To block or not to block?

[mshiltonj]

Google will not allow the increasingly popular formats that include video, sound and interactive elements. And it has restrictions on the animation, to keep ads from repeating endlessly or flashing in a particularly distracting manner.

Hmm. Dunno yet. I'm not unilaterally against all advertising, just irritating advertising. I may not block these ads. We'll see soon, I suppose.

Re:To block or not to block?

[marcosdumay]

If it is small and doesn't loop, I don't think I'll block it.

Lets see if google continue to "do no evil"...

Offensive Contextual Ads

[bigtallmofo]

What about ads that most will find offensive?

Search for negroes on Google.com and see what ads show up on the right hand side.

Re:Offensive Contextual Ads

[DoorFrame]

Negroes Sale
New & used Negroes. aff
Check out the deals now!
www.eBay.com

I don't think it's offensive, I think eBay just used a dictionary file to buy up every word it could think of. I admit, however, that could be seen in a bad light. In all fairness though, you don't get any bad ads if you search for slave, slaves, or the n-word, so I'm going to give Google the benefit of the doubt.

Re:Offensive Contextual Ads

[shreevatsa]

Oops, ignore that. I see no ads, but that could be because I'm not in the US, and Google has been known for delivering results based on geographic location.

Re:Offensive Contextual Ads

[dangitman]

I don't think it's offensive, I think eBay just used a dictionary file to buy up every word it could think of.

Offensive or not, isn't it actually illegal to offer humans for sale? Isn't there this whole prohibition of slavery thing?

Re:Offensive Contextual Ads

[Momoru]

Many people wonder why Ebay would have even used "negros" as a keyword, because many people associate the term with racism, but negro was actually a politically correct term in the 50s, and as such there are many collectors items on ebay that are called "negro" this and that. A good example are items from the negro league of baseball. But it really looks like ebay just bought up the spanish words for colors. Negro is "black" in spanish, you can test this by searching for "rojo" which brings:

# Rojo on eBay
Find rojo items at low prices. With over 5 million
items for sale every day, you'll...
www.ebay.com

Re:Offensive Contextual Ads

[Yer Mom]

The 'aff' stands for 'affiliate' - it's not eBay buying these ads, but another company that just bounces you straight to eBay on their affiliate ID.

Personally, I like this one:

Death Star For Sale
Low Priced Death Star.
Big Selection! (aff)
ebay.co.uk

Re:Offensive Contextual Ads

[snarerush]

Negroes Sale
New & used Negroes. aff

- I think eBay just used a dictionary file to buy up every word it could think of.

That ad was placed by an ebay affiliate - note the 'aff' in the ad. That means an enterprising individual made the choice to buy that keyword.

Re:Offensive Contextual Ads

[nmg196]

Please realise that this ad was not placed by eBay. It was placed by a random punter hoping to get some referral fees via eBays affiliate scheme. Hence the "aff" in the advert. Don't blame eBay for this unfortunate advert...

Re:Offensive Contextual Ads

[damiangerous]

I don't see any ads. I'm not being a smartass, they're not blocked or anything. When I search for other things I see ads. I'm guessing they changed something in the 6 or so hours since you posted this.

Re:Offensive Contextual Ads

[stoanhart]

why in god's name would anyone buy the word "negroe" for an eBay add? Who the hell goes online and says "you know what I need, some negroes. I hope there is an ad about it. Because I would click it if I saw it" Jeeze.

Re:Offensive Contextual Ads

[whitehatlurker]

Yeah - I see a non-specific ad for EBay Canada.

Re:Offensive Contextual Ads

[tomhudson]

They're not "negroes", they're african slaves, you insensitive clod!

Adblock/Proxomitron

[TitusC3v5]

The moment Google adds graphical and Flash ads is the moment I will no longer see them.

Re:Adblock/Proxomitron

[spacefight]

There are already banner ads on Google AdSense.

Re:Adblock/Proxomitron

[TitusC3v5]

Well, like I said... :)

Re:Sad

[wootest]

Image ads have been opt-in since they were introduced. I hope they stay opt-in. For what it's worth, there's also an option to block specific ads although that won't do a lot if all image ads turn into YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY WON seizure beasts.

Not surprising.

[bigtallmofo]

When someone stands up and declares, "I will never be evil!" you shouldn't be surprised when people start looking for the irony of them being evil.

People love irony.

I believe that Google is generally good but even I have a hard time believing that Google is not evil when I read this one.

Re:Not surprising.

[ajs]

US Copyright law requires Google to defend their copyright or lose it. There is nothing evil about doing what you are required to do in order to defend your brand name.

For those unaware, here's the timeline:

2000 the domain, Froogles.com was purchased 2002 Froogles.com goes live, followed by Google bringing up Froogle.com, seemingly in response, and filing for trademark protection for Froogle.com 2003 Froogles.com files for trademark protection and attempts to block Google's trademark on Froogle.com 2004 Froogle.com trademark is granted to Google.

As you can see, this was an escalation between the two companies, but the fact of the matter is that running a search engine called /^[a-z]oogles?.com$/ is pretty much guaranteed to make an adversary of Google. Oh the shock! ;-)

Evil, in my book, would be applying for and enforcing trivial software patents; forcing lesser companies to accept monopolistic strings attached to routine business dealings; or forcing users to accept ads that render useful content difficult or impossible to use (especially for the disabled). Asking companies to be creative and come up with their own names is about as far from evil as you can get.

Ads? What Ads?

[Sparr0]

Sorry, I must be in the wrong decade. Around here everyone just turns ads off. I haven't seen an ad on google, slashdot, or any other site in months, and not one before that in years. And I have never seen an ad in gmail.

Re:Ads? What Ads?

[rathehun]

Do what I often do. Use Adblock, and then just put in *.*.

Firefox becomes Lynx!

R.

Graphic ads

[j_philipp]

Graphical ads have been around for a while -- everyone with a Google AdSense account knows that. The only new thing is that there's now *animation* as well.

really a downgrade

[peter303]

I consider more ads that you dont want to be a downgrade.

AdWords, not AdSense

[freitasm]

The OP is using AdSense when in fact should be AdWords. Advertsisers use AdWords, publishers use AdSense.

Re:You are the reason the internet is going downhi

[hoomanb]

Ads are neccessary but they don't have to be graphical. AS USERS, WEBMASTERS AND ADVERTISERS, Google's text ads service really worked for me and just about everyone I know.

Re:But that would make me a hypocrit.

[xtracto]

While I do not agree with your position (I do use adblock) I respect it, but I think I would do it for my children, you see, I do not know how old is your kid but If I had a small kid (maybe between 8 and 12) I would take the time to install Adblock AND configure it so it could block those sites.

I am not telling that You should use it, only your child, anyway it is for his health. Of course you cuold also speak with him and tell him about those nasty sites etc etc etc, it all depends on you and how (if) you want to protect your children privacy.

Now, thinking it again, I guess the second option is better because, (from my own experience) after you had blocked the banners with FF or anything else, I am quite sure, your boy will find the way to unblock them...

Re:Of course I did.

[Saeger]

I expect my children not to use their internet privileges to look at pornography. I think most any parent would agree.

Only hypocritical parents who think of their children as little innocent angels who will somehow be corrupted, would agree. If your kid is "caught" actively (vs accidently) surfing porn sites, then TALK WITH HIM/HER to let 'em know it's perfectly natural to want to look at boobies, but that the younger they are the stupider they are and so they shouldn't consider doing any of it themselves until they're older.

Punishing them only forces them to learn how to go around your back and cover their tracks. And they will.

Go for it

[brontus3927]

I say, Google, go for it. use graphical ads. Use intelitxt ads on other people's websites. It will be easier (especially on my conscience) to Adblock google ads. Tom's Hardware Guide loads about 10% faster and scrolls much more smoothly after blocking the intelitxt ads and the floating navigation bar.

But back to Google. AdSense is has some major problems associated with it. I'm not even talking about the click fraud that's been getting discussion lately. I'm talking about keyword fraud (buying AdSense advertising for keywords not related to your product) and outright fraud. A search for the TV show JAG gives sponsored links for ebay and three seperate websites for a fraudulent company (selling a rebranded version of LimeWire and a notice not to download copyrighted material "Watch & Download JAG Unlimited Downloads. 100% Legal")

Re:Of course I did.

[brainburger]

Of course I confronted him. I expect my children not to use their internet privileges to look at pornography.

You are missing the point, just because an ad from a porno site appears on the logs does not mean your progeny has been looking at porno. Given that even very good adblockers don't filter everything (or require lots of knowledge to use), it isn't the average surfer's fault if they get porny ads. Such is the nastiness of unregulated advertising.
Asking him to not use sites that have those ads is pointless as they could pop up on any site which deals in R0mz
(Incidentally, most of the emulator roms out there are for abandonware, so pretty much free of moral quandries about Intellectual Property).

As you run a home network with logging, why not block the domains that are bothering you? (just the ad domains, not the sites your son is learning from).

Alternative solution:

[Molly Lipton]

I've been cooking up some scripts that'll do the blocking before it gets to his computer. Basically, it looks at the page and the ads and replaces the page with a randomly selected image that tells him he better find another site if it has anything unseemly on it.

Just a little weekend perl hack. I've been working out the kinks though. Don't want to be overbearing, obviously.

Re:Alternative solution:

[spiny]

this is the best troll account i've seen in ages, I salute you sir!

Upgrade?

[telstar]

"Google will abandon rules that require advertisements to be directly relevant to the pages on which they appear; it will now place a motor oil ad on a wine site if the refiner outbids the cheesemonger."

• Who, exactly, does this "upgrade" benefit ... aside from Google? Don't get me wrong ... I think they're great ... but why go in this direction? It's not like the company is hurting financially.

Re:Upgrade?

[cytoman]

Every publicly owned company has an *obligation* to its shareholders to maximize profits. Not hurting financially or making what is usually considered "enough" money doesn't cut it. In fact, it is illegal for a public company to not maximize profit.

This is my understanding of why good companies go bad when they go public. I could be wrong.

Re:You are the reason the internet is going downhi

[dangitman]

Here are the facts. Serving pages costs money. Creating content costs money. People are utterly untrustworthy when it comes to free donation of cash, even for a resource they might use everyday. The reason why you enjoy the Internet free at the point of use (ignoring the initial outlay for equipment) ie. page serving, is because ADVERTISERS PAY GOOD MONEY TO SUPPORT IT.

Here are the facts. You are about to suffer from a heart-attack or psychosis if you don't chill out a bit and look after your health. You are damaging yourself by taking things too seriously, and by having an overly bitter outlook on life.

Please consult your health professional, or at least take up yoga or Tai Chi or something, for your own sake.

Re:Ads should be distinguishable from non-ads

[compm375]

The ads in search results stay the same. It is the Google ads on other third-party sites that are changing. Also, I think most people prefer the text ads to graphical ones, especially animated and Flash. They just get annoying.

Re:I don't like it...

[zakkie]

They already do - kinda - by having their "safe search" options in preferences. I'd rather the default was left to "don't filter my results", but it appears not to be.

Ciao

Zak

I'd rather my child be an innocent little angel

[Molly Lipton]

than a sneaky pervert.

Whether it's natural to want to look at pornography is not the point. The point is that pornography is degrading and turns good kids into creeps. Believe me, I know. I grew up with a lot of guys whose parents let them watch porn (mainly because they were never around -- even they wouldn't have allowed it if they had known). Every single one grew up to be a creepy weirdo.

I will never, ever tell my son that it is okay for him to watch pornography. It promotes a disgusting view of sex and women that I don't want my son to be exposed to. He will grow up with proper guidance where sex is concerned and that is more than enough. I only wish my mother were as engaged with my as I am with my son.

Finally, I resent the implication that you know how to raise my children better than I do. If I want advice, I'll write Dr. Laura.

Re:I'd rather my child be an innocent little angel

[maxpublic]

The point is that pornography is degrading and turns good kids into creeps.

An empirical study published in an accredited, peer-reviewed journal backing up this claim would be of interest.

Hint: Readers Digest doesn't quite make the grade.

Max

Re:I'd rather my child be an innocent little angel

[shayne321]

will never, ever tell my son that it is okay for him to watch pornography. It promotes a disgusting view of sex and women that I don't want my son to be exposed to. He will grow up with proper guidance where sex is concerned and that is more than enough.

Please, you are sticking your head in the sand.. Your son will be exposed to porno (and cigarettes, and alcohol, and gambling, and probably drugs) whether you want him to be or not. If you have taught your son to think for himself and supported him to the point that he considers himself his own person he will make the right decisions when exposed to these things.. If you shelter him and pretend this stuff doesn't exist you don't know what will happen when he finds all of this cool stuff his family never told him about.

Growing up I was exposed to porn at an early age (10 or 11) through BBSes, however I never turned in to a "sneaky pervert". I had many homosexual friends that I met through BBSes, but never had a homosexual experience or desire to be homosexual. In high school most of my friends were pot heads, but I never smoked pot. I liked hanging around them but I decided for myself I had no desire to smoke a drug to make me lazy, stupid, and hungry.. I can do that on my own.

I'm not telling you or anyone how to raise your kid, just pointing out an alternate viewpoint that you can take or leave. I've had many friends growing up that were sheltered, and watched them all go wild and end up in jail, on drugs, or in rehab when they turned 18.

Re:Ads should be distinguishable from non-ads

[cyngus]

I think that Google's old method of embedding text ads in search result pages was a little bit underhanded. While they were off in another column of the screen, they looked just like regular search results.

For a long time, I didn't even notice the ads on the right side. Further, how could you think these are regular search results? The format of the "ad column" is totally different from the search results.

Re:Ads should be distinguishable from non-ads

[BabyPanther]

I think that Google's old method of embedding text ads in search result pages was a little bit underhanded. While they were off in another column of the screen, they looked just like regular search results.

What? You couldn't tell the difference? Are you really reading Slashdot?

Adding graphics to the advertisements seems to be a logical way of extending the power of advertising while at the same time minimizing the confusion of users.

No, no, no. How about more intelligent ads? How about understanding the context of what the user is looking for and placing appropriate ads? A previous poster mentioned that they were discussing milk allergies and that they would obviously want soy or other products, but because the search engine wasn't intelligent enough, it put milk products up.

How about timing the user's interest. Why bother the user at all until they are at the point of actually wanting to do research. So, during the first three e-mails with their friend, do not put up any ad. On the fourth e-mail put up a tastefully worded ad about soy products. Wouldn't this at least convey the impression of Google trying to understand the conversation before putting ads on the e-mail?

How about something of value within the ad. I'm not talking about FREE this or that, but rather *gasp* intelligent ads that talk about their product. How about just banning the word "FREE" from all ads and make them come up with something more useful -- like "trial pack" or "we will give you something to get hooked on our product in order to bash the competition into the ground."

How about introducing some sort of user rating system or ad review service that rated ads based on usefulness to the reader? Sure, this would be difficult to pull off, but Google can do anything, right?

There are plenty of ways to make advertising more effective without resorting to flashy crap. Yes, it is more difficult. Flashy crap pays for itself more quickly and supports graphic artists, which lord knows don't get paid enough, but that's another story.

The Adblock Mantra

[l3ert]

It is by animated gif alone I set my adblock in motion.
It is by the animation of images that ads acquire annoyance, the pages acquire stains.
The stains become a warning.
It is by animated gif alone I set my adblock in motion.

A company I used to work at

[benhocking]

used to have a Santa web-site that for many years they ran without any advertising. One year, they decided to use a 3rd party company to serve ads in an attempt to make a little money off the site. At one point a pornographic ad was served up, generating a phone call from an irate parent. Although this was not the norm (and as far as I know it only happened once), the president of the company immediately stopped using that company. If more companies acted this way what you say might not be true any more. Unfortunately, it is currently true.

As you run a home network with logging, why not block the domains that are bothering you? (just the ad domains, not the sites your son is learning from).

I think you missed the part where the GP mentioned what her son was learning - how to make pirated copies of software. In this case, blocking both sites would make sense. Kudos to her for handling the situation in a very cool-headed and logical manner.

What banners?

[RealProgrammer]

Oh, yeah. After training AdBlock once or twice, I haven't seen a banner ad on Slashdot.

I forgot they even had them.

Re:Ads? What Ads?

[southpolesammy]

Use Firefox to block pop-ups and install the Adblock extension with the latest filter list to block ads. Haven't seen very many in a long time now -- 1995 style with 2005 content.

(yahoo, not slashot)

[RealProgrammer]

I meant no banners on Yahoo!. Sorry for the thinko.

Graphical adds?

[Zangief]

I will adblock them. Even if they are just on partner sites.

Adwords not Adsense

[oirtemed]

Adsense is what webmasters use to display adwords to get paid. Adwords is what advertisers pay for.

Other examples of inappropriate gmail advertizing

[Dystopian Rebel]

I exchanged some e-mails with a female friend who had just had several teeth knocked out in a sports mishap. Not a happy event for her, not a cheerful discussion...

The ads were things such as "Be Kissable 24/7 Fresher breath, whiter teeth, plus being kissable may save your life!"

I would hate to think of what ads I will see should I ever be discussing a fatal illness.

Graphical Ads

[Spacejock]

I doubt anybody goes to great lengths to try and block text-based google adsense boxes (not sure if it's even possible, since they don't bother me.)

But should they introduce graphical ads...

Re:Graphical Ads

[Yaotzin]

I rather enjoy the text-ads actually.

Re:Ads? What Ads?

[Marcion]

Thats cool, can you make it work in an Emacs buffer too? ;) I tend to download the latest one of these (the bottom) every so often and import it into adblock: http://www.geocities.com/pierceive/adblock/ That guy deserves a knighthood.

I bet you all...

[Patrick Mannion]

That the more scrulpous advertisers will try some way to put some mailicous code into the ads or maybe even images.

On a side note, Gmail finally supports IE5 in a limited form for me. So now I can log on to it without having to deal with Gmail-Lite. This is schoolwise, at home I use good ole' Firefox.

Adwords Accuracy

[arevos]

It would be nice if Google Adwords worked as well as its search engine. It would also be nice if broad keywords actually worked full stop. Searching for "Foo Bar" will trigger ads with the keywords "Foo Bar", but won't trigger with "Bar Foo" or "Foo in Bar" or "Foo Bar UK".

It would also be nice if the keywords weren't mysteriously put 'on hold' and disabled for no apparent reason. Considering Google makes its money from adwords, why is it so badly programmed?

Re:Other examples of inappropriate gmail advertizi

[manthrax3]

I read someplace in the privacy policy that they try to filter ads for personal situations like a death or a breakup.

If you have an e-mail thread yielding lots of advertisements, reply with:
"my grandmother died"

And they're all gone.

Maybe I'll make it my sig.

You mean like this?

[Dachannien]

give advertisers more control over where their ads are shown, how they pay for them and what they look like.

<font size="+6" color="#FF0000"><blink> {insert advertisement here} </blink></font>

Don't feed the Dancin_Santa

[dustmite]

Dancin_Santa is one of the craftier trolls on slashdot. Check his post history, he is often trolling ... his "hooks" are usually fairly subtle though, which simply means he is good at trolling. In this case though it's not subtle, it's obvious that he is outright lying about Google's ad results. People, don't feed the trolls.

I hope they improve those stupid ads

[morryveer]

I'm tired of seeing eBay ads with stuff like this:
get a new Ontario Hydro on eBay today!
its easy to bid on Ulcerative Colitis on eBay!
best place to buy blonde midget S&M porn is eBay! Bid today!
ok... well thats a bit of paraphrasing but you get the idea. Not that I've ever searched for any of those items. Nope.

wine *after* beer or wine *before* beer?

[Heisenbug]

OK, I have a question ...

How the hell do you remember which one is AdWords and which one is AdSense? Is there some kind of mnemonic rhyme I can memorize? It might not have been quite as sexy if they called the programs AdBuyer and AdShower, but it sure would have been easier on my brain.

Seriously, do you write it on the back of your hand, or what?

Re:wine *after* beer or wine *before* beer?

[michaelhood]

LOL, I just use both.. but um, as far as a mnemonic device:
AdSense makes me only a few cents a day..

Shades of gray

[dustmite]

Like people, all companies have some amounts of good and bad in them. It's not some binary zero/one value - it's shades of gray. Also like people, some companies are mostly good but occasionally bad, and others are mostly bad but occasionally good. We judge people on the sum of their actions, not individual actions.

It's true though that saying your company's motto is "do no evil" is just asking for extra scrutiny. OTOH, it's a clever marketing move in an industry whose collective image has been VERY much tainted in the public eye by certain dominant players. They're standing up and saying, "look, you CAN get IT companies that don't try rip you off and do actually provide quality products".

BTW since when is defending the generic form (or similar forms) of your company's most valuable trademark from abuse by other companies "evil"? Not only is it not evil, but you are required by law to protect your trademarks if you don't want to lose them. I don't get it. If I try to start a search engine called e.g. "Boogle.com", of course I'm trying to make money riding off the popularity of Google's trademark.

Hello flashy CPM viagra pill ads

[Serveert]

It was only a matter of time.

YSL.

Ads selected by revenue

[DavidNWelton]

Apparently, according to the article (you read it, right?) the ads are selected to maximize revenue, not just on the ads that pay most per click. This means that if an ad is not clicked much, because it is, say, annoying, then it won't actually come up as much...

Yeah

[Apotsy]

They often choose the most sensationalist write-ups around here, pehaps because Slashdot's owner is also "a public company that needs revenue growth".

I cant

[criticalmass24]

I cant even get adsence on any of my sites. Textbox Networks is the only site that its on so far.. but i just dont understand how people can make mad cash off of any of these.

That explains what happened to my site

[Ammalgam]

My homepage has 2 adsense ads and a few days ago it was driving me crazy because I have a PeopleSoft site and they were showing ads for real estate in Pleasanton. I wrote them (Google)an email and they wrote me back asking to see a screenshot. When I went back to take a screenshot, it was fine again (now showing PeopleSoft related ads). They were probably beta testing at the time.... My homepage.. http://www.peoplesoft-planet.com/

Re:Other examples of inappropriate gmail advertizi

[Neoncow]

Um.. if you abuse it, you ruin the whole point of the system. The point being to prevent extra emotional damage to the bereaved.

You would be spamming a system designed to help people.

Re:Other examples of inappropriate gmail advertizi

[manthrax3]

It's called a joke, douchey.