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Google Advertising The Internet

Google's Blogger To Delete All 'Adult' Blogs That Have Ads 192

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."
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Google's Blogger To Delete All 'Adult' Blogs That Have Ads

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  • by schneidafunk ( 795759 ) on Friday June 28, 2013 @02:24PM (#44135409)
    How does google benefit by eliminating advertisement revenue? Where did this policy originate?
    • by omglolbah ( 731566 ) on Friday June 28, 2013 @02:25PM (#44135415)

      They're not getting the revenue would be my guess...

      • by jandrese ( 485 ) <kensama@vt.edu> on Friday June 28, 2013 @03:00PM (#44135855) Homepage Journal
        So Google is basically saying: If you want to make money from the blog we are hosting for free, you have to cut us in on the revenue? I can see how this is a gross violation of people's civil liberties and why they are up in arms over it.
        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Civil liberty? Really?

          Stupid business decision? Possibly (Short notice, un-clear motives, lots of pissed off people, etc). But... how is this stepping on any rights? Tons of other Blogs out there... lots of other options.

          Reason for people to be pissed? Definitely... This is somehow a civil rights violation? You sir are a retard.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            Of course it's a civil rights violation. It involves the internet and a bunch of fucking geeks. Now if Google said we were removing all ads that contained gun ads, that everyone would be like Hell Yeah Google, way to stick it to ignorant rednecks. I hate double standards. Do what you will, but don't step on things we like.

            • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

              by geekoid ( 135745 )

              One involves sex, one involves killing people. yeah, I can see how you would mix that up.

              • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)



                And you think that gun ads are about killing people. Sounds like another mix up.
        • by jythie ( 914043 )
          Well, if I understand correctly, Google is not asking for a cut of their revenue, they are just kicking off anyone who has a blog which has adult ads. Within their rights since they are a private company, but is still pretty chilling since it cuts a significant number of people out of a well known and shared space simply because somehow sex is involved with their topics. I know as a blog reader, I am not thrilled with the idea of Google playing morality police with deciding what I can read on their site.
          • by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Friday June 28, 2013 @04:52PM (#44137263)
            Then pay the $10 a month (or less) and host your own server, and you can put any ads/content you want to on your blog (including Google ads). It's really not that expensive to get shared hosting or even a VPS to host your content on. I really fail to understand why anybody who's actually making money off their blog would host it on Blogger. They could decide to cancel that service at any time (see Reader and iGoogle). Blogger is fine if it's just a blog for you and your friends to read. But as soon as you make the decision to make money off of it, and get some serious readership, you should move to a VPS/Shared server as soon as possible.
        • by pitchpipe ( 708843 ) on Friday June 28, 2013 @05:15PM (#44137465)

          So Google is basically saying: If you want to make money from the blog we are hosting for free, you have to cut us in on the revenue?

          Basically.

          Explicitly they are saying: If you want to make money from hot anal orgies, you have to cut us in on the revenue.

        • by Mitsoid ( 837831 )

          so.. you understand that Businesses exist & want to make money

          Yet you fail to realize Freedom of speech is protecting people from government limitation.. NOT promising the people they can say what they want and have a business reprint it for the public.

          Must be watching too much Fox news...

          Asking google to host your advertisements blogs for free under the guise of freedom of speech is akin to demanding CNN, NBC, and Fox to show on air a 30 second advertisement commercial for your business. This advertise

      • by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 28, 2013 @03:31PM (#44136209)

        Yeah, that's pretty much what I get out of it. The article was nearly incomprehensible, though, especially when it started rambling into irrelevancies about the number of Tumblr users.

        If you want to make money, enter into a commercial relationship with a hosting service. Don't expect Google to host you for free so that you can make money off their servers and bandwidth. Being "sex-positive" isn't the same as being handing-profit-to-freeloaders-positive.

        From the article:

        The fact is, no one is making tons of money off porn ads or affiliate links. The porn ad business has dried up, and the well went dry for affiliate sales off ads years ago.

        If that's "the fact," then why not just delete the ads and affiliate links? Why continue to host ads that aren't making any money? Do these people just enjoy ads? Do they enjoy the malware that gets installed through them and the scams that get pushed in them? This rings pretty hollow, like the sound of people who actually are making a buck or two off ads claiming that they're not and then invoking all sorts of "Google is 1950's Censorship" and "Google Hates (insert oppressed group)" because that tactic is known to misdirect anger pretty aptly in America.

        In, I hope, B4 "Google is run by the NSA and therefore the first amendment applies."

        • by jythie ( 914043 )
          Sometimes even a small amount of money is considered worthwhile to people. Even if people are not getting rich, they were at least having some compensation.
        • by tnk1 ( 899206 )

          Google is run by the NSA and therefore the first amendment appl...

          Shit, someone got in B4 me. Off to find another Snowden thread, I guess.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      Google is consistent in enforcing 1950s-TVs-style anti-sex morality on the web. You seen this in all of their properties. I'm sure they know which side their bread is buttered, and they stand more to lose from people being offended and calling for bans in school filters, but it's still damned annoying.

      • by hedwards ( 940851 ) on Friday June 28, 2013 @03:16PM (#44136047)

        Normally, I'd agree with you, but in this case it doesn't appear that they're banning those sites from having ads, just restricting what kinds of ads they can have.

        Unfortunately, the policy seems to be a bit vague, which makes it hard to know what types of sites they mean when they say adult sites. Presumably, you could have ads that Google has already screened without trouble, but using other ad networks or having your own banner ads would put you at risk for having your site deleted.

        But, really Google needs to be a bit more open about what people can do to avoid having their site deleted, as it doesn't appear to bar people from having adult sites or advertising, just from advertising adult sites on those sites.

      • "consistent in enforcing 1950s-TVs-style anti-sex morality on the web". Really? I don't remember Wally, Eddie, Lumpie or the Beaver looking at any porn. Google makes it fairly easy to find from what I hear. I've found it just for not being careful in my search terms.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday June 28, 2013 @04:55PM (#44137297)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • First: President Clinton was impeached, not nearly impeached.

          Second: He was impeached for lying while under oath about his practices of sexual harassment, not for getting a BJ.

          I agree that America needs to grow the fuck up.

    • by hedwards ( 940851 ) on Friday June 28, 2013 @03:13PM (#44136001)

      They can still have advertisement, they just can't have ad links to adult sites.

      I'm guessing that the goal of this is in part to clamp down on human trafficking, illegal porn sites and related crimes.

      From what I can tell, the real problem here is that the policy is somewhat vague. A company selling sex toys would arguably be an adult site, but is probably not what Google is intending to bar from those ads. But, without a clearer policy it's hard to say for sure.

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by cdrudge ( 68377 )

        I'm guessing that the goal of this is in part to clamp down on human trafficking, illegal porn sites and related crimes.

        Yeah. That's it. I'm sure once the policy is implemented that all those things will be a thing of the past on the internet.

        Just like how busting the guy at the local flea market that sells hemp-related products has eliminated weed sales everywhere, and indicting the guy that sells flame stickers for cars has stopped people from exceeding the speed limit across the nation.

        • Sigh, because clearly unless you can stop all crime of a type everywhere, you shouldn't take any steps at all.

          Also, WTF do flame stickers for cars have to do with speeding? And selling hemp related products is perfectly legal. I've even seen hemp products being sold by retailers.

          • by jythie ( 914043 )
            I think that is part of the point. The ads are generally for legal material, so they are clamping down (in the GP's theory at least) on legal speech under some idea that it will impact other only somewhat related illegal activities.

            Sometimes, taking no steps is better then taking some steps, esp when those 'some' steps are not only ineffective but target a larger group of people engaged in legal but stigmatized behavior. It is a classic example of doing bad things to a weak group in order to appease a s
        • by Holi ( 250190 )

          Again the idiot comment of, if this doesn't stop the bad thing immediately then why bother doing it at all. If everyone were like you we would still be banging rocks together.

      • by Dputiger ( 561114 ) on Friday June 28, 2013 @04:20PM (#44136887)

        Precisely. What's "adult?"

        Is a site with sexual advice "adult?" What about explicit sexual advice? What about discussion of non-normative sexuality (LBGT, BDSM, etc)? Does adult mean "Pornographic?" It's a ridiculously overbroad policy that's been horribly communicated. No one is arguing that Google doesn't have the right to make changes to its own services, but what the hell does or doesn't constitute "adult?"

        • by geekoid ( 135745 )

          No ,it isn't over broad. It' vague becasue you can't really define all the situations. The world is full of rules like that.

        • Well adult is

        • Senior information like health & retirement, alumni & reunion sites, credit reporting, bars, any hobby club or organization or even forum with 18+ or 21+ limits on membership... all of these are technically "adult" sites.

          I, for one, am sick of "adult" always implying adolescent, sexual, or vulgar topics. It's impossible to use the word for grown-up stuff anymore without people looking askance.

        • Precisely. What's "adult?"

          Wikipedia is an adult site. Seriously check out this picture on the right of this article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boobs [wikipedia.org]

        • by cffrost ( 885375 )

          Precisely. What's "adult?"

          Off the top of my head, anything related to: marriage counseling, retirement planning, realtor services, military recruitment and VA, alcoholic beverages, car rental, AARP, lottery and OTB.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by dargaud ( 518470 )

        I'm guessing that the goal of this is in part to clamp down on human trafficking, illegal porn sites and related crimes.

        And pray tell, how do you differentiate between illegal porn site and legal porn site ?!? I don't even have the remotest idea what "related crime" may mean.

        From what I can tell, the real problem here is that the policy is somewhat vague. A company selling sex toys would arguably be an adult site, but is probably not what Google is intending to bar from those ads. But, without a clearer policy it's hard to say for sure.

        So would a website discussing Kafka or Finegan's wake.

    • by egamma ( 572162 ) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [ammage]> on Friday June 28, 2013 @03:32PM (#44136219)

      How does google benefit by eliminating advertisement revenue? Where did this policy originate?

      Possibly with advertisers who weren't aware that their ads might be shown next to pictures of goatse.

  • Scam (Score:4, Funny)

    by Java Pimp ( 98454 ) on Friday June 28, 2013 @02:31PM (#44135503) Homepage
    Was there a link in the email that took them to a page to confirm their login information before Google deleted there accounts?
  • was "Google Is Going Puritan On Us". But this one will do.

  • by DrGamez ( 1134281 ) on Friday June 28, 2013 @02:32PM (#44135529)

    I have completely forgotten about Blogger.

    • I have completely forgotten about Blogger.

      Same here; in a world with uber-cheap hosting and $10/yr domain names, 'free blog' sites like that are about as hip as bell-bottoms and piano key ties.

  • by SuilAmhain ( 2819677 ) on Friday June 28, 2013 @02:35PM (#44135555)

    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...?

    • by i kan reed ( 749298 ) on Friday June 28, 2013 @02:44PM (#44135675) Homepage Journal

      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.

    • by fermion ( 181285 ) on Friday June 28, 2013 @03:18PM (#44136061) Homepage Journal
      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.
    • 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...
    • by geekoid ( 135745 )

      "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?

  • Non-Google ads (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Friday June 28, 2013 @02:35PM (#44135559) Homepage

    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.

    • Ok, that makes sense, cause there's Fetlife (Imagefap with an event calendar),
      Imagefap (Fetlife without a stupid event calendar), and sub-Reddits (I think that's the term) that fill the gap for people that want both porn and a friends list.
    • And if they're not careful they can wind up on the wrong side of an antitrust suit. Remember, that Google bought the number two ad network and at this point, there's relatively little competition between the ad networks because Google doesn't really need to compete. They've got so many eyeballs that there's little reason to go with the #2 network.

    • Ya, but not that many people make $10 a month in ad revenue.

  • IMO googles constant attempts to filter and block access to certain types of content via its portals is abusive. There is not a lot of competition in this field. Others exist, but Google is the proverbial 800 lb gorilla, compared everyone elses 20 lb lemurs. They become a defacto gatekeeper and while other routes may still exist, when google decides to not show something it effectively ceases to exist. This gives them a lot of power, leaves the wider internet using masses dependent on google's good intentio

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 28, 2013 @02:39PM (#44135605)

    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.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      No it won't. The company you're paying will still clam to be able to change your terms and conditions at will. You're completely at their mercy.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 28, 2013 @02:41PM (#44135627)

    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!

  • Related ? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dargaud ( 518470 ) <slashdot2@@@gdargaud...net> on Friday June 28, 2013 @02:48PM (#44135715) Homepage
    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 ?!?
  • by NReitzel ( 77941 ) on Friday June 28, 2013 @02:58PM (#44135827) Homepage

    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.

    • uh, when did anyone have 'control' over television or radio? They're one way streams that you are entirely at the mercy of. Hell that's one of their 'features'.
      • by NReitzel ( 77941 )

        I'm -old- ...

        In days of old, you could hoist a mast and run a transmitter. It was long after that that media giants were formed and moved in. As recently as 1957, you could run a TV channel without too much difficulty, though the capital investment in equipment was pretty ferrocious.

        They didn't -always- belong to the kings. Don't believe it? Look up Pirate TV.

  • there were several times i found what appeared to be a blog containing pics of ladies nudes and scantly clad posing to look at but not actual porn only to find it full of links to non-free porn from outside sources and some were downright malicious, yeah ill say google needs to clean that off of blogspot
  • by Ardyvee ( 2447206 ) on Friday June 28, 2013 @03:01PM (#44135871)

    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.

    • and the 'in only 3 days' issue. There's absolutely no reason to force a very vague mandate on people with little to no notice.
  • This is a chance for someone else to start a blogging platform for these sites to move to. Let's call it Flogger for the BDSM sites and Bangger for the heterosexual sites and so on.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Google is more and more moving towards controlling everyone who uses their services. I used Adsense for years, but I started getting more and more junk mail from Adsense saying I had 3 days to change pages with "Adult" content. The last case was a poem from the 18th century with the word "Lover" in it. That made me drop Adsense. Google changing their Blogger policy should come as no surprise. They simply want everyone to use Adsense and they do not want other advertisements on Blogger - or elsewhere. Adsens

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