SubscribeGoogle Ads are great for bloggers – or anybody else who owns a website – looking to make a little beer money and I heartily recommend them. Go on… click the banner ad below to put them on your own blog. But it is important to remember that they are generated by a very fast and powerful computer running a sophisticated algorithm. That is, they’re chosen by a robot and that robot is not necessarily clever in the way we’d apply that term to a person.
Occasionally Google picks out ads that I think unsuitable. The sad truth is that Google’s famous ‘Don’t Do Evil’ policy has required a considerable amount of clarification. They used to ban beer advertising, but not wine and as a beer drinker and ex-brewery PR man, I took exception to the implication that I was evil. Still they ban ads for fireworks, which I know can be problematic, but would not call evil (this might have something to do with allowing pet dogs on campus).
But as always with the web, the real problem isn’t the big stuff, but the rather silly stuff. For example, I was reviewing my piece on local councillor Tony Bethell’s phone mast campaign and found it full of ads for people who say stuff like we’re all electrical beings and make bold, scary, but unsubstantiated claims: ‘The artificial electrical system in which we have to live plays a dominant role not only in immune deficiency illnesses but in general in the lowered intellectual development that has come to characterize our age.’
So here’s a disclaimer: There are well over a thousand pages on this website all with space for ads served by Google, different ads may appear in different countries and at different times of day and this makes it impossible to police the advertisers. Consequently, I don’t ban any advertisers myself, but rely on Google’s enforcement of these imperfect guidelines. Ads served by Google are clearly labelled and if you wish to take issue with any of them you should offer your comments to Google by clicking their logo.
