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Another article on google adsense worries

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mouser:
All this also ignores the state of the 'net before Google came along. Search was infinitely worse (I was there using the 'net, I remember it well), click-through ads still existed and massive fraud still plagued adverstisers.
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i think this is a very good point and well worth remembering.

any complaints or worries about google have to be balanced against the fact that they seem to be orders of magnitude more conscientious and honorable than their competitors.

JavaJones:
Exactly. I *am* concerned about the AdSense issues being raised now and I'm waiting to see how Google responds to it, if at all. If their history tells us anything about them though they'll probably figure out a way to deal with it, either technologically or socially (or both). I hope that's the case because honestly I *want* it to be dealt with, I want this to work. I think the thing that bothers me most about articles like this is it seems the authors want Google to fail. They are looking at some bad consequences of the things a company like Google does and not seeing all the good it's also done, and as you said the fact that their corporate approach is a lot more moral than many/most other companies (in actual practice, not just theory).

If the authors of articles like this were positing solutions or were at all hopeful it would reek a lot less of bias and basic dislike IMO. But none of that really nets you big readership - people like negativity and controversy. :p Meanwhile I'm greatly enjoying reading every article/essay Paul Graham has written on his site. Fantastic stuff. :D

- Oshyan

Carol Haynes:
This may be unrealistic but I think if Google is going to use AdSense as part of their business they have a responsibility to make sure it isn't abused.

A simple way to acheive that is to limit it to domains that are actually checked by human staff at Google rather than making it a free4all. The trouble with free4alls is that even with the best of intentions there is bound to be abuse - and the bigger the system is allowed to get the more fraud you get.

Sure a 'human' system may slow down growth but they would get a better product which was less open to fraud.

Another thing they could do is to have a 'report abuse' system built into the click system so that everyone who is taken to an adsense page is asked the question "Did you personally choose to click a GoogleAd link to get to this page?"

mouser:
here is the problem some of us have been raising:

google has very strong reasons to sweep this click fraud under the rug, because they are making a fortune off it.  there have been lots of below-the-threshold rumblings that a huge proportion of ad clicks are fraudulent.  if google came out and admitted this they might in fact owe back 75% of their profits to their customers(!), and start losing 75% of their revenue.. scary thought..

as these issues start to become public, google may have a competing incentive to get it all out into the open and transparent to avoid the bad rumours, etc., so that may help combat the incentive to bury this all under the rug eventually.

speaking of which, i think i'd like to move donationcoder.com off of google ads eventually if we can find a simple way to arrange an alternative system that we have more control over. 

JavaJones:
Mouser, you remember that advertising site idea I had a while back? Well, I'm in discussions with a development partner on it. Maybe it could work well for DC.Care to be a test pilot? :D

- Oshyan

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