On their AdSense blog, Google indirectly responded to the controversy surrounding the massive influx of unwanted “Yes on 8″ ads that showed up on many websites right before the election. Not only did these ads appear on blogs like Laughing Squid in response to “No on 8″ posts, they also showed up on blogs that had absolutely not political content at all, including blogs that haven’t even been updated recently.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I was surprised and annoyed that I had to deal with this shit on my hardware hacking blog.
This is rather interesting. I suppose that going forward publishers who wish to keep their political viewpoints safe from having to share page real estate with ads from the opposing viewpoint will have to be more selective in their choice of advertisers. Either that or Google will have to come up with some sort of at-will political/ideological self-categorization system for advertisers, so that Adsense publishers can easily opt-out of ads with which they'll probably disagree.
Are you kidding?
These people set out to stomp on civil rights, and Google turned a buck on it? And now tells people they can “filter” if they didn't like it?
Whatever happened to “Do No Evil”? If Google doesn't want to lose business they should issue a serious apology and donate the proceeds they made off Yes On 8 ads to an appropriate charity.
I can see how this would piss off AdSense clients who disagree with the content of served ads. But on the other hand, this may have ended up being a good thing, since, with the wrong criteria, the ads got exposed to a bunch of people who had already made up their mind against 8 or ended up on sites that aren't going to attract visitors. Sounds like Prop 8 proponents spent $$ on “lost” eye balls. Not that it had a big impact in the end but I kind of like to think of this as a huge F U to the Pro8 group he he he .