Google AdSense's Idiotic And Hypocritical Morality Police Force Us To Remove Ads On News Stories

Failures

from the morally-pointless dept

Thu, May 29th 2014 10:53am — Mike Masnick

Google's Adsense¹ team has apparently decided that it is the morality police and that this 2012 story we wrote, about a lawsuit involving a porn star and the rapper Bow Wow, is somehow improper and a violation of Google's high moral standards. The story involves no nudity or porn. It's about how the porn star Katsuni (aka Celine Tran) was suing Bow Wow because a video for one of his songs used a bunch of video clips -- allegedly without permission -- from a music video by a different band (Electronic Conspiracy), which included video of Katsuni pole dancing. We noted it that wasn't a copyright case, because Katsuni doesn't hold the copyright, but rather she filed a publicity rights claim over the use of her image in the Bow Wow video. In other words: it was a fairly standard Techdirt news story on a legal dispute involving intellectual property. We embedded the two videos, which seemed rather important to demonstrating how the videos were similar -- the key issue at play in the lawsuit. We further noted that there was no nudity in either video, but they did show pole dancing, which might not be entirely safe for work, depending on your workplace environment.

A week ago, we received an email from the AdSense sales team, forwarding an email from the AdSense "policy team," saying that the ads on this page violated AdSense's policies, and that we had three days to stop monetizing the page or our account would be shut down. The specific concern was that AdSense's policy includes this:

Google ads may not be placed on pages with adult or mature content. This includes, but is not limited to, pages with images or videos containing:

Strategically covered nudity
Sheer or see-through clothing
Lewd or provocative poses
Close-ups of breasts, buttocks, or crotches

We immediately appealed the decision, noting the ridiculousness of the claim. It was clearly a news story, not "adult" content. One of the videos in question was even hosted on YouTube and had Google ads enabled on that video. In fact, we've since discovered that both of the videos in question are on YouTube and have Google ads. You can see the original video here and the Bow Wow video here. Both of them are monetized by YouTube with Google ads. And yet, somehow we're the ones violating Google's policies?

We got back a short note yesterday, telling us that our appeal was rejected and we needed to remove ads from that page immediately. Here was the entire explanation:

It looks like the video in question is fairly suggestive (ie there is a picture of a stripper pole) . I would not consider this instance a false positive, please ask the publisher to stop monetizing.

Note the vague standard being used: "fairly suggestive." And also the impeccable level of scrutiny employed: "looks like." Yippee for such a data driven analysis.

Again, this was on a news story about the copying between the videos, and the very same videos are found on YouTube where they are both monetized by Google's ads. Furthermore, it's not as though Google shies away from ads involving strippers. Here's a Google search I just did (which I may now need to explain to my wife, should she look at my history):

So, what possible purpose does this serve? Since we weren't set up to deal with deleting ads on specific pages like this, we had to have two people waste much of their time yesterday figuring out how to remove ads from a page that got less than 50 pageviews over the last year, just to please the ridiculous morality police at Google AdSense, who have a problem with a news report embedding a video that they themselves are monetizing on YouTube.

To put it simply: this is idiotic. Yes, Google has the right to make its own decisions about what it will allow ads on, but you would hope that there was at least some common sense employed. While we (thankfully!) aren't reliant on these ads as our main source of revenue, the whole situation is ridiculous. You could see how other news sites might even change their own reporting to avoid having to deal with such ridiculous and arbitrary policies from Google's nameless morality police.

For our part, we've actually been hard at work for a couple months now on some new sponsorship opportunities that we're increasingly hoping would let us do away with display advertising altogether. Before this we thought maybe the two could co-exist but, frankly, I'd love to just dump AdSense from the site outright at this point, given this sort of intrusion. If you work for a company that would like to be loved by our community for helping us to get rid of display advertising altogether, while also providing great content to a great and engaged audience, contact us ASAP. Alternatively, for individuals, feel free to support us over at the Insider Shop, where we've got some lovely items and services for sale.

Separately, because people will likely bring it up, about a month ago, a story made the rounds about a big conspiracy within Google to cut off AdSense users after they'd accumulated a fairly large amount of revenue due, allowing Google to then keep that revenue. The story seemed far-fetched, because even just some quick back of the envelope calculations would call into question how such a program could possibly make sense. Google would be cutting off revenue earning partners to "steal" one month's worth of revenue? How could that possibly make sense? Either way, Google quickly and convincingly denied the whole thing. And it's unlikely our situation has anything to do with that story, anyway.

That said, Google is somewhat infamous for arbitrarily cutting sites off with little to no warning or explanation. There are tons of reports of people who suddenly had their AdSense accounts shut down with basically no recourse whatsoever. Just a week or so ago, the company Free Range Content (disclosure: which provides the "Repost.us" syndication technology we use on our site) filed an interesting lawsuit after having its own AdSense account shut off. The details of that story seemed particularly bizarre. Free Range Content had actually noticed odd behavior with the account itself and alerted Google to the issue, specifically noting that its revenue seemed way too high for the given period. Someone on Google's AdSense team agreed to meet with Free Range Content, but two days before the meeting the entire account was shut down, and Google refused to give any explanation or present any recourse at all. At least we were given a heads up and a (absolutely ridiculous) reason.

Given stories like this, you can certainly see why people get so frustrated and fearful about the power that Google potentially has. Just the fact that there's an implication that we should change what we report on just to keep ads on our site seems immensely troubling. The fact that Google's AdSense policy team stood by the decision after we appealed suggests a broken process. While it seems likely this is a case of sheer and utter incompetence rather than malevolence, you can see why some people fear companies like Google.

^{1. A little background on Techdirt and AdSense: While we had experimented on and off with Google AdSense over the years, a few years ago we completely took them off the site (2011, I think), in part because of another ad relationship we had, but also because we found the performance to be abysmal. Just a few months ago, a sales team at AdSense made a very aggressive push to get us to start using it again, insisting that the performance would be much better and sending over "predicted revenue" that was significantly higher than we were getting at that time. We were skeptical, but also frustrated and annoyed with our existing ad provider, who all too frequently let through awful and obnoxious low quality ads (that we had to have someone monitoring constantly to remove), despite promises to keep them off our site. After running some tests, and realizing that Google clearly was very much overselling what AdSense could do, we still agreed to switch, in large part because the other solution we were using was so bad, we figured even if the payouts were similar, at least the experience would be marginally better. The terms of our deal forbid us from revealing how much we make from AdSense, but it's really not that much. We're basically covering our bandwidth bills. We're not making any profit from it at all, but we've kept it around to keep from flat out losing money on our hosting bills. ↩}

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Filed Under: ads, adsense, bow wow, katsuni, morality, reporting
Companies: google

62 Comments

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Rikuo (profile), 29 May 2014 @ 10:53am

This article is cast iron proof that Mike Masnick is a Google shill. See how widely he sings their praises here! You can't doubt it!

As an aside - article talking about how bad Google Adsense is...has ads for Google Ads on the side.
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Michael, 29 May 2014 @ 11:02am

Re:
It is clearly another case of Mike and his friends at Google conspiring with each other to make it look like his reporting is not ALWAYS pro-Google.

Haven't you noticed that they do this whenever Mike is getting ramped up for some big pro-Google "reporting" about how great they are at customer service?
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Violynne (profile), 29 May 2014 @ 11:04am

"Given stories like this, you can certainly see why people get so frustrated and fearful about the power that Google potentially has."
There's an easy solution to this, but I imagine millions won't do it because "it's too hard".
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Ryan Jones, 29 May 2014 @ 11:15am

yup
I've gotten several notices about some sites of mine because the user comments contained profanity and Adsense didn't like them. I had to implement a swear word filter in my comments just to continue running ads.

Seems to me simple "show this ad on pages with adult content or profanity" check boxes for advertisers would solve this issue while not hurting Google's bottom line.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2014 @ 11:16am

Re:
Why the hell would they disable Adsense on a specific page without being required to?
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That One Guy (profile), 29 May 2014 @ 11:19am

Probably not the best idea, given you'd dropped their ad service before for being so lousy, and only recently picked it up again because the one you had been using was also terrible. Talk about incentive to shop around and look for a better service to sign up for.

Hopefully you can find a decent replacement, one who isn't interesting in dictating morals to you and throwing hypocritical fits over what you write about/display on the site.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2014 @ 11:19am

the worse thing about Google is that when it does something, no one is given the chance to ask why or what those involved have done wrong. Google thinks of itself as being the dog's danglies, just like the entertainment industries, and that it can do whatever it likes, at any time, for any reason and the rest of us is supposed to just go merrily along regardless of how we are affected! it's seriously about time that Google got off it's high horse! sooner or later, it's going to be asking all of us to back it because the USA Congress wants to do so-and-so which will encroach on Google more than anyone else, but we will be expected to care. the way i feel about Google and the stupid escapades it carries out is get going boy, there's others out there!!
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Michael, 29 May 2014 @ 11:24am

The problem is the name
If they called it AdNonSense, this would not seem so strange.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2014 @ 11:25am

(which I may now need to explain to my wife, should she look at my history)

Mike may not be a Google shill, but he is a Google porn search noob
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jameshogg (profile), 29 May 2014 @ 11:29am

Here's what I predict:

- Google via YouTube, once they have enough power, will start offering very shitty streaming deals for artists - music, film and game alike - in exchange for copyrights, in an attempt to get as many copyrights as possible. Or all the studios will tactically negotiate with Google.
- Google become far more ready to police infringing content that IT holds the rights to - not just within themselves, but any puny alternative website out there that doesn't have the same power that they do and cannot defend themselves against the lawsuits.
- The supposed enemies of copyright embrace copyright and really do take a dangerous stab at the internet's foundations.
- MPAA and RIAA start praising Google for being such admirable copyright defenders.

And then the copyright believers will have got what they always wanted: central power to strike down anything and everything that infringes, even the slightest derivative.

MPAA and Google may be enemies now, but I fear a pact a-brewin. A merge between them would be disastrous.

I really don't think the Google Fiber revolution will succeed in any sense. Just because they offer such powerful speeds does not mean they will GIVE such speeds. Just look at the monopolistic ISPs of today.

You think corruption stops with ads? They've yet to become far more corrupt than you can imagine.
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Rich Kulawiec, 29 May 2014 @ 11:32am

Google's impenetrable wall
One of the annoying things about Google operations is that the people behind it seem to consider themselves too important to play nice with the entire rest of the Internet. Let me give you an example.

Every domain that sends or receives email is required to have a working "postmaster" address, e.g., postmaster@example.com. I mean "required" in two senses: first, it's in RFC 2142 and RFC 5321 and its predecessor RFC 2821 and its predecessor RFC 822 which dates back to 1982 and the late, much-missed Jon Postel. Second, everyone expects this to work: it's been not just a de jure standard, but a de facto best practice FOR OVER 30 YEARS.

Now try using it at Google. For extra credit, try using the other role account addresses (e.g., abuse, webmaster and others, see RFC 2142) and see what you get. Is it a cogent, well-reasoned, technically sound response that indicates that the recipient read what you wrote, performed any necessary research, took any necessary actions, and summarized both for you?

Google is not some cash-starved organization trying to get by with a severely limited budget and a skeleton crew. They have enormous financial and personnel resources. They could afford to implement this with their spare change -- and they should, because that's what responsible, professional entities do.

(Sometimes when I point this out, the counter-argument is made that their "abuse" mailbox would overflow. My response to that is that if your operation is emitting so much abuse that inbound complaint volume is overwhelming, then you have bigger problems than you think and maybe you should unplug your operation from the Internet until you get a firm grip on it.)

Anyway, my point here is that trying to engage human beings at Google, peer-to-peer, has proven to be exceedingly difficult -- so it's not surprising to see a laconic, formulaic, nearly completely useless response from their AdSense people. It's what they do.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2014 @ 11:34am

Re:
Maybe Project Wonderful? I've never heard anything bad about them.
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Rikuo (profile), 29 May 2014 @ 11:43am

Re: Re:
They shouldn't. I just thought I'd point out the laughable irony. I had a nice chuckle after reading this article then glancing to my left and seeing what ads were there.
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Rikuo (profile), 29 May 2014 @ 11:44am

Re: Re: Re:
...er right, glancing to my right. Not left.
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Rich, 29 May 2014 @ 11:46am

Re: Re:
Your sarcasm detector broken?
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DavidL, 29 May 2014 @ 11:46am

Re: Re:
I've heard they're very easy to work with but even relative to the not-exactly-princely sums AdSense gives out, they pay peanuts.
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Ima Fish (profile), 29 May 2014 @ 11:48am

"Strategically covered nudity" is the best example of doublespeak I've seen in a long time.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2014 @ 11:52am

Google has a long history of cutting sites off of adsense because they were making too much money. Given its poor customer relations in trying to get anything done in dealing with Google, it is amazing to me that anyone still agrees to use them.

Personally I refuse to let advertisement on this computer. Even with it's proclaimed watching ads, over the years, time and again, malware has been distributed through their system just like any other.

It's a security matter and until it is cleaned up to where it doesn't happen at all, it will remain this way on my computers with no ads displayed. I notice that if I get malware, no one from Google nor any other advertiser sends someone over to straighten out my computer. Nope, the whole thing rests on me taking care of it. So it's a matter of self protection.
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Ninja (profile), 29 May 2014 @ 11:59am

Re:
Oh just you wait, some troll will manage to twist this as Mike supporting Google. Or worse, supporting lascivious stuff such as strippers and poledance.

Although I'm all support for those things so he would actually manage to get a second yearly subscription from me just for that.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2014 @ 12:01pm

Dissapointed -1
I was searching google for adult content, specifically dirty strippers listening to techno music.

I ended up here and all I see is some journalist whining about add revenue. Google sucks and so does this site for not having what I want!
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Ninja (profile), 29 May 2014 @ 12:02pm

Re: Re:
Mike Rogers is a freedom fighter and fierce critic of NSA and the mass surveillance programs. His pro-NSA stance and his constant attacks at Snowden are actually him getting ramped up in some big alien invasion.

Hopefully you were as serious as those lines above are...
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Indy, 29 May 2014 @ 12:04pm

Purpose?
What purpose does advertising serve? It's malware for the mind.
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Ninja (profile), 29 May 2014 @ 12:05pm

Re:
Makes up for their "strategically placed stupidity" I guess.
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That One Guy (profile), 29 May 2014 @ 12:29pm

Re: Purpose?
Only if you're lucky, sometimes the digital versions have malware of a different sort along for the ride.
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Michael, 29 May 2014 @ 12:36pm

Re:
Google has a long history of cutting sites off of adsense because they were making too much money

Can you cite some real confirmed examples of this? It makes absolutely no sense.
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zip, 29 May 2014 @ 12:47pm

As "Morality Police" go, Google is nowhere near as bad as PayPal, which routinely freezes funds from a wide variety of businesses -- such as VPNs and 'cloud' hosting -- just because the MPAA doesn't approve of their business model.
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zio, 29 May 2014 @ 12:56pm

Re: Re:
Webmasters have reported being stiffed by Google, presumably on suspicion of click-fraud or whatever else.
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Leigh Beadon (profile), 29 May 2014 @ 1:13pm

Re:
It also raises the question: if the stripper had been wearing regular clothes over her getup, would that be strategically covered strategically covered nudity?
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Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2014 @ 1:18pm

Re: Re:
What influence, if any, Mike Masnick had is gone. Over the past few years it's been made clear that this blog isn't any more "fair and balanced" than Fox News. He is mocked just as they are. It was time to cut him loose.
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John Cressman, 29 May 2014 @ 1:21pm

Google is the DEVIL!
Good is the devil. While once nice and benevolent, they are now nothing more than the evil corporation they tried so hard to set themselves apart from in the early days.

I am one of the people who had his AdSense account banned for some idiotically explained non-reason. It didn't really bother me, because I wasn't really making much money from it... but still, the odd and arbitrary decisions remind me too much of the Nazi-like Apple App store and it's contradictory and haphazard app rejections.
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Michael, 29 May 2014 @ 1:29pm

Re: Re:
No.

A bathing suit over her getup would be "strategically covered strategically covered nudity"

Regular clothes would be "haphazardly covered strategically covered nudity"
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Mr. Oizo, 29 May 2014 @ 1:33pm

Now that is what I am talking about
This article basically summarizes some of my complaints about Google, yet 2 days ago I was the troll ? How weird. Anyway, thanks for posting; also thanks for sharing that your revenue also sucks (as does mine, tot the point that I will not be running ads anymore either).
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Gwiz (profile), 29 May 2014 @ 2:05pm

Re: Re: Re:
Over the past few years it's been made clear that this blog isn't any more "fair and balanced" than Fox News. He is mocked just as they are.

Really? Mocked by whom?

I know that The Trichordist and it's dozen or so loyal sycophants do, but who else?

And for a site you claim is without influence and that is so readily mocked, Techdirt's million+ monthly page views seem to dispute that.
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John Fenderson (profile), 29 May 2014 @ 2:18pm

Re: Google is the DEVIL!
"Good is the devil"

Does that mean that evil is god?
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John Fenderson (profile), 29 May 2014 @ 2:21pm

Re: Now that is what I am talking about
Looking back at your comments, I think you'll find that you weren't called a troll because of your comments about Google. You were called a troll because of your name-calling.
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2014 @ 2:33pm

Re: Re: Re:
You really don't need to be so obvious when displaying your ignorance, but you do bring up a very funny image.

Mike says, "Mike, I'd like to talk to you. Your Fanboyism with Google has gone too far. Your fired." Mike responds, "Thanks, that's a load off my mind, now where the hell are those two Tim's and what's the next story?"
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Mr. Oizo, 29 May 2014 @ 2:59pm

Re: Re: Now that is what I am talking about
Me name calling? You must have confused me with other people.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2014 @ 3:13pm

Re:
Google's moving toward a full embrace of copyright and a closer relationship with large content providers. It knows the money is in content and that's about all it cares about.
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This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it

Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2014 @ 3:51pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
He's certainly mocked by a good number of Congressional staffers who are involved in IP issues. He's dismissed as a shrill, tinfoil hat wearing tool.
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John Fenderson (profile), 29 May 2014 @ 3:54pm

Re: Re: Re: Now that is what I am talking about
Perhaps I was reading wrong, but I thought I read you calling Mike a shill.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2014 @ 4:21pm

Re: Re: Re:
It apparently has enough influence for you to come here and troll.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2014 @ 4:24pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
95+ year copy protection lengths and retroactive extensions says the system is corrupt.
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Devonavar (profile), 29 May 2014 @ 4:24pm

Re: Re:
I think the original article qualifies as strategic coverage of strategically covered nudity.

Anyone who knows anything about SEO or advertising knows that sex sells, so covering a story about strategically covered nudity is a very strategic move.
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NeuronsFromSpace, 29 May 2014 @ 4:37pm

One day, you guys will realize operation choke-point is not limited just to banks, but every entity in bed with the feds (Google et al).
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Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2014 @ 5:24pm

Re: Re:
So if Google is working towards what you want why are you so obsessed with whining about Masnick's alleged toadying?
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JMT (profile), 29 May 2014 @ 5:57pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Wow, mocked by Congressional staffers involved in IP issues! That must keep Mike awake at night!

Are we supposed to be surprised that the people involved in pushing bad copyright laws at the behest of deep-pocketed content providers would be critical of people publicly shaming their actions?
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Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2014 @ 5:57pm

What if the DOJ is forcing Google to do this, similar to how the DOJ forced Citibank to close down the bank accounts of adult entertainers.

If Google's Adsense policy also states rules against gambling and firearms, then there's a good chance the DOJ is manipulating Adsense policy. Similar to how they dictate the policies of most financial institutions, such as banks.
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Ignis (profile), 29 May 2014 @ 6:13pm

Re:
I don't think your predictions are by any means far fetched. Google has been gradually appeasing the whims of the entertainment industry. Besides, with Google being one of the primary proponents of Encrypted Media Extension, they may very well already be on their way to merge with/bow down to/lord over the entertainment industry.
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This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it

Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2014 @ 6:58pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Don't assume it's only on the IP enforcement side of the table. He's looked at by mainstream reformers the way the GOP regards the Tea Party.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2014 @ 7:30pm

Re:
Maybe this story was just a cunning ploy to cover his burgeoning google strippering habits?
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Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2014 @ 8:10pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Well, yeah, the 'mainstream' or incumbents in power are not interested in more government transparency. They are not interested in removing all the corruption and back door dealings that the government is involved in. They are interested in scamming the public for personal gain. So of course they look at anyone that criticizes them for this negatively. But why should I care?
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Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2014 @ 8:26pm

Re: Re:
Incep-ripping?
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JMT (profile), 29 May 2014 @ 8:34pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I'm sure you'll happily provide links to all the people publicly stating these opinions of Mike. After all, if he's truly considered as crazy as you say, I fing it hard to believe they'd all just whisper it amongst themselves...
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Michael_P_Shipley (profile), 30 May 2014 @ 7:08am

Techdirt should just sell ads directly and eliminate all ad networks. Its harder but you make more money and have more control.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 30 May 2014 @ 10:24am

Re:
Techdirt should just sell ads directly and eliminate all ad networks. Its harder but you make more money and have more control.

We do. But it's nearly impossible to eliminate ad networks for a variety of reasons. And, honestly, it's become more and more difficult to sell ads directly. The companies who have big ad budgets don't want to buy on sites our size individually -- too much work. And companies with smaller ad budgets can't afford to pay the (very reasonable) rates we offer.

So we're right in the middle, where actually getting people to pay for ads on the site is next to impossible. We've been able to do it for years, but it's getting harder and harder, and many prefer to just use ad networks.
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Anonymous Coward, 30 May 2014 @ 11:23am

I've told people many times before that NSA's Google is evil yet they continue to use their services and products: search engine, email, phone, browser, OS, etc.

Deal with it.
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techflaws (profile), 31 May 2014 @ 3:55am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
If an anonymous asshat claims this it certainly must be true!
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techflaws (profile), 31 May 2014 @ 3:57am

Re: Now that is what I am talking about
What this actually does is proving you're a liar for claiming Mike is a Google shill. You're welcome.
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Pragmatic, 1 Jun 2014 @ 2:23pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Name one.

Derek Khanna, a staffer who specializes in IP actually wrote some guest posts here. He doesn't think Mike is a fool.
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spankydoesdallas (profile), 1 Jun 2014 @ 6:01pm

Re: Here's what I Predict:
Correction: Google has become far more corrupt then you can imagine. If you were able to see and understand the amount and scope of user information Google has turned over to the U.S. government with regard to NSL's, it would shake the www to the core (pun intended).
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rajendra, 31 Jul 2014 @ 4:15am

AdSense
I have started my blog http://studymywoman.blogspot.in/?view=classic when we can apply for adsense? it saying "Your blog doesn't currently qualify for AdSense",so my question is can we apply for adsense within a month,if the content is good insense not copy from anywhere in google and good pageviews 50/day.
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Mark Brown, 22 Mar 2015 @ 12:50pm

This scares the living s%#t out of me
I can't imagine what I would do if something like that happened to me...I really feel like I must start diversifying my income beyond my current SEO + Adsense setup - because Google can be a really cruel mistress indeed. :S
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