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Google's Blogger To Delete All 'Adult' Blogs That Have Ads
DougDot sends this excerpt from ZDNet:
"In three days, Google's Blogger will begin to delete scores of blogs that have existed since 1999 on Monday under its vague new anti-sex-ad policy purge. On Wednesday night at around 7pm PST, all Blogger blogs marked as 'adult' were sent an email from Google's Blogger team. The email told users with 'adult' blogs that after Sunday, June 30, 2013, all adult blogs will be deleted if they are found to be 'displaying advertisements to adult websites' — while the current Content Policy does not define what constitutes 'adult' content. To say that Twitter ignited with outrage would be an understatement. Blogger users are panicked and mad as hell at Google."
How does google benefit by eliminating advertisement revenue? Where did this policy originate?
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Was there a link in the email that took them to a page to confirm their login information before Google deleted there accounts?
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
was "Google Is Going Puritan On Us". But this one will do.
I have completely forgotten about Blogger.
While I fully understand the anger and frustration of bloggers and users a like at this change in Terms and Conditions, I do not really have any sympathy either.
The bloggers in question were using a free platform to derive an income from arguably questionable sources. What do they believe their actual entitlement is here?
Anybody who gives control of their "business" to a third party is probably foolish.
Anybody who gives control of their "business" to a third party and has no claim of ownership to it is probably foolish.
Anybody who gives control of their "business" to a third party and has no claim of ownership to it and was not even paying the third party is probably foolish.
Do you see where I am coming from here...?
This is about Google eliminating non-Google adult ads on Blogger sites. A site has to have both adult content and adult ads to have a problem. Presumably the adult ads are not coming from Google.
Wordpress doesn't allow third-party advertising on their hosted blogs at all. Blogger probably does only for historical reasons. Google may be planning to transition all Blogger sites to Google ads only. Their pitch to new Blogger users suggests that new sites should only have Google ads.
If this bothers you, buy commercial hosting. It's really cheap to host a blog. Less than $10 per month.
You play on someone else's site, like Blogger, you are at their mercy. Even if they've been "nice" for years, that's never guaranteed to last.
If you want control of what you put on the net, buy a domain, and then either buy a hosting site or set up your own server. It may seem expensive, but it'll be yours.
There are a lot of these, which we all like to not publicly admit we've all seen. They fill themselves up with robo-copied text and material from other parts of the web, stuff in links to "affiliate" websites, and generally take up space. They differ a little from outright spam blogs, since a little bit of what they have is what the user is looking for, some basic content or something, but it's mostly a cover to link to for-profit sites, and doesn't represent an actual blog as blogger is intended to host.
Google has a bit of a vested interest in having blogger be a platform with real people, as it increases the value of their ads. There will be sites of value lost in the cut, but I don't think there will be very many actual people who lose their blogs.
I used to have an adult blog about elderly care - you know, old people don't like being called. It's "senior", "adult" or some other euphemism to help them not to feel that they aren't old. It' s good thing I don't have it now.
Then I once walked into an adult bookstore. I was exited! I wanted a book on Social Security, Long Term care insurance, retirement homes, and things like that. You know, adult topics.
What did I see!
Naked people having S-E-X! I asked the clerk, "Young man, were is the section on Social Security?"
And he took me over to this section where there were old people - 70+ years of age - having S-E-X! He mumbled something about Rule 34 or Section 34 or something....
I called my lawyer asking him if I were breaking the "34 law". He said, "Stop drinking!" and hung up on me!
But what does Google have against old people?! I'm gonna contact the AARP and organize a protest.
I'll get every adult and senior I know to protest Google about eliminating blogs about senior issues!
The expense of setting up your own physical server, installing custom software, and maintaining it, would almost certainly exceed all ad revenue anyways. The very premise of these "businesses" was built on how cheap it was do dump "content" on a blog, against how much money you could earn from ads.
I have an old but popular personal website that's been running since 96 and using Google ads since the very beginning (2003? Can't remember). Two weeks ago I received a sternly written email that because there was ONE 'adult' picture on the entire site (700 pages), I had 3 days to remove it or adsense would stop. I thought it was some scam but it was the real deal. And yes, it was an artistic rendition of a breast as a mountain with minifig climbers on it. WTF, Google, you turning into baptist hypocrites or what ?!?
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends and Foes
Welcome to the Cloud. In Bad old Days, the phrase ran "All your Base are Belong to Us"
When you give up control of a media - be it television or radio or web sites or email - what you do with that media is by definition under someone else's control. If that someone else, Google or Microsoft or DPRK, object to the content for _whatever_ reason, you're kid of oout of luck. You can tweet or protest or moan about it, but the bottom line is this: That media is _theirs_ and not _yours_ and if you don't like what they do with their media, tough.
Richard Stallman has railed against "The Cloud" for years, and this is just but one of the reasons.
If you want an adult blog with adverts, buy a $500 computer and a $30 domain name and put up an adult blog. If it gets popular, buy more $500 computers. Or hire a place that rents raw compute resource, and put up _your_ web site.
I should point out that for years now, places like RackSpace have been claiming that the sites hosted there belong to their clients, not themselves. Their position is simple enough, and designed to prevent someone with deep pockets (RackSpace, for example) from being sued by some bluenose for hosting content that someone finds objectionable. Now, they can hardly do an about face and tell people hosting sites, "Oh No! We don't like -that- particular content."
A decade ago when it cost your firstborn to host a web site, using "The Cloud" made sense from a financial perspective. Now, for half a hundred dollars a month, and a sub-thousand investment in hardware, you can host your own web site, which will be picked up by search engines, and blog to your heart's content about whatever it might be you want to blog about.
I've looked at the Cloud from Both Sides Now... Screw it.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
or is everyone panicking a tad too much?
As far as I can read in the e-mail they send (pics all over the place), you will only have a problem if the ads are to adult websites/content, and not just "having ads".
Relevant Quote: After June 30th 2013, we will be enforcing this policy and will remove blogs which are adult in nature and are displaying advertisements to adult websites.
Of course, I'm aware of the issue of "what kind of ads am I supposed to display, then?". I have no solution for it.
I don't care if I'm wrong. I only care about everyone obtaining something from the discussion.
the new rule is not that "vague" at all
Define adult. Define occasional "adult". Any rule about adult content tends to be vague since that's the nature of the subject.
I'd like to see the definition too... TFA says it's not defined: "while the current Content Policy does not define what constitutes "adult" content." Is Victoria's Secret an "adult" site because they sell lingerie and other merchandise that's oriented towards adults? How about a ship-in-a-bottle websites because that's an interest generally held by adults? How about Good Vibrations because they sell sex toys and videos? How about a nudist oriented site because it shows people in the nude? How about a "Hot girls in bikinis!" site because it shows hot girls in bikinis? How about a school swim team site because it shows girls in bikinis?
I'd really like to see how Google draws the line between adult and non-adult.
What I will add is that Google has shown more than a common tendency to pull the rug from under users who depend on their services. Recall that they arbitrarily removed access to all services for those who violated the TOS for google+. I saw educational instrutitions develop entire curriculum based on google wave, which was unceremoniously pulled. Google Dcos was morphed to Google drive, and though it still exists there really has been little done to expand the features, even though google wants to rent the services to companies. In the end companies like Apple and MS has one advantage over google in the consumer and enterprise space. MS and Apple actually are accountable to end users, while Google is simple accountable to a rotating group of advertisers. The services, such as they are, exist so that I will allow google to keep cookies on my computer, so that advertisers can track me. If the services become less valuable, then the cookies do not get set, and they end up like 2o7.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I do not want to sound like I agree with what is happening, but I don't see how anybody could trust for anything else to happen.
Google's core business is advertising through the 'best' data gathering and best data indexing. That's what they do. Everything else is tertiary and transitory.
You're points are fine. But giving people 3 days notice? What if someone happened to be on vacation?
Yes it's free and you get what you pay for, but reputation is a fickle thing that can't be bought back no matter how much money Google spends...
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
It seems like these days, I find myself making a comment about every two weeks saying that people should not trust Google not to take away services that they depend on. "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further." This is actually getting rather tedious at this point, and yet people still get up in arms about something they should have expected. How many times does this have to happen before everyone recognizes Google for what it is—a search engine and advertising firm that uses the promise of free services as a means to get more eyes on their ads?
The bottom line is this: If you want to provide something to the public, you really only have two viable options—set up a server yourself or set up an account with a hosting provider and back it up regularly to your own machine so that if they decide they don't want you there, you can migrate rapidly and nearly transparently to a different hosting provider. The entire notion of relying on a free web service is a fundamentally flawed concept. You cannot truly trust anything that can be taken away on a whim. You get what you pay for, and you do not get what you do not pay for, at least in the long term.
If you do not own the software that is used to provide access to your data, you do not really own the data in any meaningful sense.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
You're completely missing the point. It's not about whether or not you or I can tell the difference. It's whether or not Google can tell the difference using some arbitrary algorithm constrained by some arbitrary definition of "adult".
Here's another one. How many free-to-play MMO ads have you seen that do little more that draw the eye with hyper-sexualized fantasy women? The contents of the game are not adult in nature, but because the target demographic is teenage boys the advertisements certainly could be. How about the overtly sexual GoDaddy ads? Or the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue? Sex sells, even when the product itself has nothing at all to do with sex.
So, is an "adult ad" and advertisement for adult content, or an advertisement that contains adult content in the ad?
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
"Anybody who gives control of their "business" to a third party is probably foolish."
that's all business name one that doesn't depend on some 3rd party.
"Do you see where I am coming from here...?"
That you are obtuse?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
How Google (a private company) defines "adult" is irrelevant. Google's not under any contractual relationship with its users to provide them with free hosting and bandwidth so that the users can make money off ads whether adult or not.
I'm not arguing this for anyone, mind you, but... I believe there is an implied contract, which would mean shutting these sites down based on their content is a form of promissory estoppel resulting in a condition called detrimental reliance. Because Google offered these blogging services for free, and had not placed prior restrain on the content.
The upshot?
- A promise was made
- Relying on the promise was reasonable or forseeable
- There was actual and reasonable reliance on the promise
- The reliance was detrimental
- Injustice can only be prevented by enforcing the promise
I think it could be reasonably argued that had Google itself offered a venue for the advertising now prohibited, the majority of the blogs would not have gone to third party affiliates for their advertising, they would instead be using Google provided ad services.
I understand Google is under increasing pressure, both with regard to adult speech and grey market pharmaceuticals, from government as well as other agencies using the government as a cat's paw *cough*pharmaceutical industry*cough* to enforce artificial price barriers; it will be interesting to see how they deal with this.
What pisses me off is how many blindly wave their little flags and defend ANY policy by "their company" like its a fricking ballclub when in reality ALL of the companies would happily have you run over with a steamroller if it would give them a 20% bounce in stock price.
So let us be clear folks, NONE of these companies are your "friends" NONE of these companies "have your interests at heart" at the end it ALL comes down to their bottom line and the agenda of the corp, no amount of flag waving or treating them like ballclubs will change that.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
So now to move into this void you just need to:
- Provide free webhosting/blogging for adult websites
- Allow them to make money off your bandwidth/resources while paying you nothing (free)
And then just watch... the money... roll in?