Google Taking Money From Site Owners

Guys, this might be of interest to all who run the Google Adsense  & Google Adsense for Search Programs on their sites.  Check your e-mail for a nice little message from Google, I'll post it at the end of this message.

It appears, that Google would like to keep track of what OUR members do on OUR sites, and that we must allow them to drop 3rd Party Cookies to OUR members via OUR sites.  In addition, this is not a program that we can opt in to, instead it's one we have to Opt out of by April 8th.  Now, I personally have promised my members that I will not be seeling off their information or allow others to sell their information off.  This means that I now have to break my promise to them if I want to continue with Google Adsense and have the best ads on my sites.

Moving on, it is my decision to gather and sell data concerning my members, the same as it is for each site owner to make this decision as to whether they want to sell of the data concerning their members.  When Google steps in and says, you run our ads we get the data for free, then Google is attempting to strong arm the site owners into handing over the data that I myself, and each of us, has gathered through our own hard work.  Every major site out there gathers member data and sells it off, this is an extremely profitable part of the owning a site.  For Google to step in and say they get the data for free is an insult. 

I am currently seeking out a new Advertising Provider for my site, because I will not be allowing Google to collect this data, nor will I tolerate having to do additional paperwork to get served with crappy ads from them.  This demonstrates that advertising revenue is down and Google is simply looking  for a way to get things for free that the rest of the world pays for. 

Here is the E-Mail they are sending out:

Hi,

We're writing to let you know about the upcoming launch of interest-based advertising, which will require you to review and make any necessary changes to your site's privacy policies. You'll also see some new options on your Account Settings page.

Interest-based advertising will allow advertisers to show ads based on a user's previous interactions with them, such as visits to advertiser website and also to reach users based on their interests (e.g. "sports enthusiast").  To develop interest categories, we will recognize the types of web pages users visit throughout the Google content network.  As an example, if they visit a number of sports pages, we will add them to the "sports enthusiast" interest category.  To learn more about your associated account settings, please visit the AdSense Help Center at http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=20310.

As a result of this announcement, your privacy policy will now need to reflect the use of interest-based advertising. Please review the information at

https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=100557 to ensure that your site's privacy policies are up-to-date, and make any necessary changes by April 8, 2009.  Because publisher sites and laws vary across countries, we're unfortunately unable to suggest specific privacy policy language.

For more information about interest-based advertising, you can also visit the Inside AdSense Blog at http://adsense.blogspot.com/2009/03/driving-monetization-with-ads-that.html.

We appreciate your participation and look forward to this upcoming enhancement.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Email preferences: You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your AdSense product or account.

Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

Also of note, I have recieve a SEO news letter and one recent news letter was about Google not paying their Publishers!!!!

People have been waiting for months to be paid and they are blaming it in a computer clitch, when the truth probably is more about waitng until they had relesed their recent revenue numbers which was just done this week.

There is lots if shifty goings on!!!

Thank you for posting this.  Is just more ammo for my all-paid no-advertising site.  I can't wait to remind my members that competitors with adsense are scuffing thier data to google.   [insert glee here]

We kinda knew it was coming though. 

ladybugn - don't want to be the messenger of doom here but history has shown that there is only ONE industry on the internet people will pay a membership for.. porn.

If you start charging your members will drop like flies. If you don't like Google then just find REAL advertisers to buy space on your site. Or use one of the other 3 pay per click companies.

Come on Buck... People pay for stuff besides porn on the net... Though that is the most popular thing they pay for... LOL...

Now, how do I find the best alternate PPC Advertiser out there until I can manage to sell my own ad space?

Here is one a friend of mine uses. I have been meaning to check it out.

http://www.bidvertiser.com/

http://www.bidvertiser.com  doesnt pay, you can try http://www.widgebucks.com .

Fleatrax, I've looked into bidvertiser, actually used them during the build phase.  There ads are broken, appear but do not go to anything half the time, poor customer support (still better than googles)...

I think the trick is going to be to test a few of them out and then pick from there until I can start selling the space myself.

Finding or devolping a program that will allow you (any site owner) to take control of the advertising is the best way.

Its on my list for the first thing to do once I convert the site over to 7 is find a way to sell advertsing directly using all the members info.. favorite things and location other such information.

I know there is software you can buy that will do this, but for me being so early my devolpment its not worht yet. If come across anything I will post the lings here.

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Thank you for posting this.  Is just more ammo for my all-paid no-advertising site.  I can't wait to remind my members that competitors with adsense are scuffing thier data to google.   [insert glee here]

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@ladybugn

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Yup, we feel the same way. The internet has finally gotten so saturated with unbelievable and/or useless crap that many people are getting sick of it, and sicker by the day. That's why we too have created a project where people can opt into "the new internet" without ads or junk, with tons and tons of free features, plus dirt cheap apps & options for only apx. 4.50 USD per month. Granted, it will take a ton of members and time to make any decent money, but hey, the internet isn't going anywhere ... and neither are we! As the internet becomes ever more a gobal junkyard, many people, especially internet newbies and seniors, will become more receptive to paying a little bit for something, in order to have piece of mind while saving lots of time too.

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Greetings from Germany

Buckm, got ya on the idea, agreed in some ways.  But I had a few porn sites and the only people making money with porn are the guys that produce either one premium site that is updated intensivly, like daily..  or the ones who blast out 30+ new "free porn" circle jerks a day and spam the universe. 

My porn sites got pretty good, but it gets boring color correcting a vein in male organs and getting the glisten just right on the money shot.  pffft. 

My swingers and BDSM site has been going since 2002, and people definately pay for dating sites that end up with real matches.  The eHarmony commercials where people are married is enough to encourage new members to pay upwards of 39 a month. Oddly, those people put up with ads for e-harmony's subsidiary sites and free site competitors also.  Go Figure.

But the most surprising case study I found on paid members only sites was... an organic gardening site. Guy has something like 1100 members paying 19 bucks a month for his daily recipes and gardening tips.  And he never has to waste time with ad-sense 0r ad words or whatever the adserver routine is that's popular these days. 

There is something to be said for forcusing on content and making something worth buying.  Course, that's labor intensive too, so make it something you love.

I don't like it either Mydatery, but maybe for a different reason than yours.  As I understand it, Father Google will now display ads based on information they collect about the viewers interests.  Previously, it was based on the content of the website.  So, for example, my international trade site got fairly interesting and relevant ads from Google about international trade.  Now, however, if a member is interested in "baseball" my site will display baseball ads instead.  I don't like it.

-

Rob

Try this one: www.FreeKii.com

They pay on a daily basis providing you have accumulated upto and over US$10. They also pay it direct into your paypal account.

 Rob,

Google is going to use the 3rd party cookies to display ads on OUR PROPERTIES that Google so eloquently deems THEIR PARTNET PROPERTIES based upon the habits of our users internet wide.  This opens the door to many issues:

1.  You can not possibly know all the ads being displayed on your site.  This means if you have a problem with a specific site not agreeing with what you want on your site, then you have no way of getting it off because you have no way of knowing it's there unless a member tells you.

2.  Even if you do not run Google Adsense on your site your Marketing Data will be collected and considered to be Googles Data, regardless of your position on this.

3.  3rd Party Cookies are notorious for being used by hackers to obtain personal/financial information.  The Google Adsense servers are not secure SSL certified servers and can not guarantee the safety of end user data collected.  How are we, the site owners & end users supposed to know what Google is collecting via these cookies, that the information will not be misused and that it is secure from less than ethical individuals inside & outside of the Google Monarchy? 

Simply put, this is a bad idea for everyone except Google and Hackers. 

Another thing that makes me dislike this idea is the crossing over of our interests.  The example of being tagged as a "sports enthusiast" and then shown ads targeting that interest while on sites unrelated to sports..  disturbing.

Say I like football.  Say I like ladies porn.  I probably like them separate.

When I'm on peeking ladies porn, I'm not in the mode to be receiving football ads..  and I surely don't want ladies ads popping up while I'm looking over Football scores in a place that adult content would't be appropriate. 

Anyone thinks there won't be crossover issues with ads displayed not appropriate for the users current situation is missing how laptops are used.  It's kind of like random friend yahoo IMs popping up while useing your laptop to give a Powerpoint presentation at work.  At least one can shut off yahoo, but I don't image google is going to offer us a way to shut off ad serving.

Why, it'd be like Dolphin footer icons showing up on the bottom of our sites without reason. Imagine that.

[/rant]

This a site that I have seen advertised alot.

http://www.adbrite.com/mb/index.php?spid=15

Has anyone had any experience good or bad with them?

 Well i just signed up with Adbrite i will let you know how it works out. Adsense is  not the best choice in my opinion!

Gatekeeper....So how have you liked adbrite so far? I want to get away from adsence in part or compltley ASAP

I just found an ad network, people may be interested in. Now I have not used them and just stumbled on to them doing some research but here its for anyone interested

Gunggo.com serves millions of impressions monthly delivering targeted visitors to Entertainment, Gambling, and Dating advertisements worldwide.