Amazon Ad Sales to Compete With Google?

theodp writes "Today, Amazon confirmed that they are testing what some are calling 'Amazon-Sense', a paid ads program in its affiliate network that resembles Google's ad program." From the article: "The speculation about Amazon's potential AdSense clone arose from the statements made by one of the members of the e-tailer's associates program."

Comments

Wonderful

[st1d]

I wonder who's going to win the common sense patent on this, ala "one-click".
.
Not a big amazon fan anymore, in case you wondered.

Payments

[hopethisnickisnottak]

Will they set $100 thresholds and then claim click fraud and shut your account when you're near that threshold too?

Re:Payments

[quokkapox]

If they're really doing that, then why don't you document it, get some corroborating reports, and go public with it. Put up an article about this alleged practice on Wikipedia. Other people will investigate it and bring any wrongdoing to light.

Re:Payments

[dustmite]

Haven't you heard? Mindless and unsubstantiated Google-bashing is currently "in".

Gotta love mob mentality. It's fine and well when the mob's in your favour, but better hope they never turn on you.

Re:Payments

[Daengbo]

I'm confused. Is it your assertion that Amazon is doing this now with another service, or that Google is doing this and Amazon will "set $100 thresholds and then claim click fraud and shut your account when you're near that threshold too"? My gut says the second, based on what you've said, but something about the tone tells me that you're already angry at Amazon.

Re:Payments

[evilNomad]

Hm, then I guess I am not the only one that has happend to then, but hey, with the TOS and the Google worship going on what good will complaining about it do..

Re:Payments

[dustmite]

Do you really think Google is intentionally scamming people at $100 a shot with false claims of click fraud? Why would they do this, have you checked their financial results? They're making billions in revenues and hundreds of millions of dollars in profits, so your measly $100 is nothing --- in order for such a scam to be financially worthwhile to them, they would literally have to be scamming millions of users $100 each. Somehow I doubt that's the case, as there would have been a huge uproar by now and the whole AdSense program would have collapsed.

Re:Payments

[evilNomad]

Sure, but clearly i am not the only one this has happened to, and i know for a fact that i did not cheat in any way.. So what am i suppose to think? I wrote them and gave them a chance to explain their actions, they replied with some standard reply that was worthless, so i do not care how much you love google, their business ethics are questionable at best.. But like i said, i doubt there is anything i can say to make you people not love google unconditionally..

Re:Payments

[Morgon]

I agree, this happened to me, as well -- so thankfully, I signed up for Yahoo's Publisher Network (http://ypn.yahoo.com/).
Still beta-ish, a little low on advertisers, and probably a lower revenue output than Google...... but it's been SOMETHING to help keep the bills paid.

Re:Payments

[dustmite]

We don't love Google "unconditionally" - there just happens to be absolutely no real evidence that Google's business ethics are "questionable", as you put it.

i doubt there is anything i can say

Actually, you'd be surprised how easy it is to convince me, simply by using "evidence" rather than "ideology" and "hearsay". So please do go ahead and post some actual evidence that Google's business ethics are questionable. (Unless you think I'm supposed to take the word of one or two anonymous users posting on an online forum who got ripped off (or claimed to have been ripped off) 100 measly bucks by Google. I can honestly think of far worse things that corporations have done.)

Re:Payments

[evilNomad]

Who said i only lost $100? I my case it was way more, but the google TOS does not allow me to disclose anything about that.. So what more than my word can i give you? My site rely heavily on peaks, sometimes one weekend will bring in the same amount of clicks (and pageimpressions) as an entire month, during such a peak we were closed all of a sudden with "click fraud" being the reason, we then contacted google and made them aware that there must have been some kind of mistake, they then send some email which said their algorithm was proprietary and that i was just shit of luck..

"Please note that due to the proprietary nature of our algorithm, we cannot
disclose any details about how our monitoring technology works or what
specifics we found on your account."

So what do you expect me to write? How can i prove it to you?

Re:Payments

[Anonymous Coward]

but the google TOS does not allow me to disclose anything about that

You said Google has already ended their relationship with you, so you are no longer bound by their TOS.

Re:Payments

[Zerth]

>So what do you expect me to write? How can i prove it to you?

Your logs for the site and what you did to gain clicks or traffic that might have been picked out by Google as "naughty".

Even better, start up another website. Join adwords. Do a comparison between the sites when you get canned again and see if there is any similarities. Publish them if there are any. And then sue Google's rich ass for fraud.

Re:Payments

[stonecypher]

Baloney. Those billions are coming in $100 at a time, and out of the eighteen people I know who ran Google ads, exactly one hasn't had them shut off in exactly this fashion.

I kept open an exchange with Google AdSense and Google Legal for almost three months, just trying to find out what I did wrong. They refused to tell me through almost 15 replies. (That's for more than 40 mails sent.)

Re:Payments

[dustmite]

Hmm .. well, I actually recently signed up for AdSense. So I'll see what happens when I hit $100. Admittedly this thread has made me a little 'nervous' now, although I realise

Either way, it would be good if AdSense had some competition. If affiliates get better returns from e.g. Amazon, they'll move over.

Re:Payments

[Anonymous Coward]

It's happened to A LOT of us small time guys. You get up near $98 and they cut you off, don't pay you a cent. Its really insulting.

Re:Payments

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, to add to the bashing, another Google annoyance is their one e-mail address per application policy. My AdSense application was rejected for some trivial reason (something about my mailing address, IIRC), and I couldn't use the same e-mail address for a new application attempt! Pretty lame. My gut feeling is that they get so many applications they really don't care if any one particular application is successful, nor do they care about driving away the occasional applicant. Applicants are like cattle to them, IMO.

Re:Payments

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, you found a flaw in their 'proprietary algorithm'. In their computers' eyes, one link from Slashdot would amount to click fraud. Sadly, only the most stupid fraudsters would think a billion clicks in an hour would not be completely obvious. Google should worry about the smart fraudsters, instead, who blend in seamlessly with other site traffic.

They're welcome

[broothal]

I hope it will be an international service. Google has absolutely no competition in my country, and I welcome an alternative.

So tell me...

[rf0]

when is it going to end up the entire internet will be funded off advertisers paying other advertisers and the end user just being bombarded over time as the rules for placing adsence etc on websites are relaxed?

Rus

Re:So tell me...

[st1d]

Never, because the telecoms are going to split the internet into two parts, one where the wealthy can enjoy fast, hassle free service, and the other, whatever bandwidth is leftover.

Re:So tell me...

[Anonymous Coward]

what, you mean like how dial-up and adsl/cable have already polarised the market in favour of the rich.

if you want a service you gotta pay.

(score -1 offtopic i know.)

Re:So tell me...

[Anonymous Coward]

you missed a good opportunity to quote "fight club". I can't remember the quote, or else I'd use it.

Google Looble

[FidelCatsro]

Google Looble Doompadee Doo
I've got a perfect puzzle for you
Google Looble Doompadee Dee
If you are wise you will listen to me
What do you get when you Patent everything
Patent as much as an SCO freak
When are you going to get a patent on fresh air
What do you think will happen when you meet someone else like that
You'll get sued for something dumb
Google Looble Doompadee doh
If you're are greedy you will get screwed
This time you are steeling our idea
Says Google Looble gooble hooble
Google'dee doh

Re:Google Looble

[nordelius]

Why can't I mod -1 for "rhyme scheme"?

could be interesting

[DarkClown]

so i wonder how google will view this - if it's pay by the click then it will definitely be a violation of google's terms to run them on the same page as an adsense ad, but if not and is just putting up relevant product that only will yield commission as currently, then maybe google will not have a problem with it.
hopefully amazon will make their ads more attractive than the affiliate stuff they're doing now - it is ugly and not very effective, they seem to be more interested in the amazon logo taking up a quarter of the space than actually selling product, better off building your own ad units with their stuff..

Re:could be interesting

[inter alias]

Dude, google doesn't care if they're PPC, the issue is if they're contextual or not. Chitika is PPC.

I agree with you regarding the amazon logo. Lots of free branding for them.

google vs. amazon

[wwmedia]

last month i made $1800 with google

compare that to $45 from amazon afilliate program for last 3MONTHS!

amazon has a long way to catch up to google

Re:google vs. amazon

[TheRaven64]

last month i made $1800 with google

This month, you violated Google's T&Cs by divulging that fact. Better hope no one from Google reads Slashdot.

Re:google vs. amazon

[Kasracer]

last month i made $1800 with google

What websites are you putting ads on? I can't make more than $.50 a month and my site has been linked from slashdot several times.

Re:google vs. amazon

[wwmedia]

yes and how would they find what site the ads are on or what my account username is?

Re:google vs. amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

yes and how would they find what site the ads are on or what my account username is?

You mean you didn't know Commander Taco owns Google?

Why do think there's so many Google stories on Slashdot?

Re:google vs. amazon

[dustmite]

There are also plenty of Microsoft stories on slashdot. And plenty of Apple stories on slashdot. (Funny, that there should be a lot of stories on a *tech* news discussion site about some of the biggest and/or most interesting *tech* companies.)

Re:google vs. amazon

[dustmite]

I signed up last month and made about $16. My site has about 1000 visitors per day. It's not much but it's higher than I expected. Of course given some of the discussions on this story it remains to be seen whether or not I actually get paid out.

Nice name

[szembek]

I wonder how many hours they spend trying to come up with a name for their program before saying, ah what the hell will just use 'Amazon-Sense'.

White Labeled Adsense

[slashkitty]

Why wouldn't it just be a white labeled Adsense?

I'm sure they are letting the rumors run amock to get some press, but google is already doing the white label thing for AOL. Since Amazon has a market for selling ads, this would make sense. They wouldn't want to get involved with the yahoo patents either.

Smite them! Smite them! Smite them!

[Roadkills-R-Us]

Dare I hope that google has a bunch of patents on this, and a trademark on "Google-sense"?

And that their lawyers are all over Amazon?

That wouldn't be evil.

It would be Justice.

News at 11, Google scams millions of users $100

[voxel]

each by claiming click fraud. Stock resulted in dropping by 300 points to just $100 a share.