KissaBoo

Google Ad's - No Sense

This afternoon KissaBoo applied to join Google's Ad Sense program. Knowing our current hit rate, the goal was not as much to raise funds but out of curiosity of what ad's Google would associate with KissaBoo. Well, a few minute's ago (much faster than the suggested 2 days) Google declined the application citing the generic reason of "Inappropriate Language".
While Google is free to do whatever it wants, I for one find this reason insane.

Under further details: "We don't allow
websites with excessive profanity or potentially offensive content to
participate in Google AdSense."

In 150 articles plus comments, I can only find two instances of profanity, so the problem must be "potentially offensive content".

So what content does Google find "potentially offensive"? From their policy page:

Site may not include:

• Excessive profanity


• Hate, violence, racial intolerance, or advocate against
  any individual, group, or organization


• Hacking/cracking content


• Illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia


• Pornography, adult, or mature content


• Gambling or casino-related content


• Excessive advertising


• Pop-ups, pop-unders or exit windows that interfere with site navigation, obscure AdWords ads, change user preferences, or are for downloads. Other types of pop-ups, pop-unders, or exit windows may be allowed, provided that they do not exceed a combined total of 5 per user session


• Deceptive or manipulative content or construction to improve your site's search engine ranking, e.g., your site's PageRank

Reasons 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 any reasonable person can agree just do not apply to KissaBoo.
Now as for reason 2, while the members of KissaBoo do not advocate violence or intolerance, there are probably articles that could be considered "against" an individual or organization. KissaBoo is about opinions and sometimes those can be against things / individuals. At first glance I couldn't find any great example of an opinionated site using Google's ads, but doesn't this ongoing article on Microsoft come close? At the minimum, I do not believe KissaBoo contains any serious attacks against a person, group, or individual. Tell me if I'm wrong.
As for reason 5, this site is written by adults for adult discussion about adult things. Now of course this isn't the adult they are referencing. Of the top of my head, there are probably 3 or 4 entries that link to "adult" sites or information for the purpose of discussion, but can anyone really claim that KissaBoo is pornographic or "adult"?
Google really dropped the ball on this one, but I'm not going to do anything further than mention this episode here. Since it is in google's interest to get as many ad's out there as possible, really they are just spiting themselves and their Ad-word clients.

Posted by boo at April 9, 2004 11:30 PM | TrackBack