Is Google turning evil?
Google updated their terms of service recently and on the surface it doesn’t look good for publishers. As John details on his blog in the post “Google Updates AdSense TOS“, Google is pretty much requiring you to only run their ad services by disallowing any other ad that looks similar to theirs, in colors, etc.
As you can see from the reactions on his blog, the first instinct to call out Google for bad competition practices. That may be for those looking for multiple ways to monetize their site, but to play devil’s advocate here, Google’s position could be that they are trying to protect their customers (i.e. the advertisers). It is the advertisers after all that are footing the bill for that advertising and wanting to get those click throughs. A logical response here would be that it shouldn’t matter who is serving the ads, it is the ad itself that gets the click through if its copy is compelling enough for the reader.
Either way, it is sure to cause an uproar in the blogosphere where is a huge publishing base for AdSense. I personally think it is a poor and unnecessary tactic. What do you think?
Don’t miss anything, subscribe!
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment