Eric_Lander - 1:08 pm on Jan 18, 2007 (gmt 0)

The updated terms of service include a number of changes, but one large item that I'm absolutely outraged by.

First, the smaller items, summarized from a blog focused on contextual advertising.

Referral Products
You could have four products before, with one button or call to action for each. With the changes yesterday, you can now have buttons each, and there's no longer a limit to four.

Also, Google is no longer allowing publishers to require referrals to be used as a requirement for anything that your site offers. (Ex: Download Picasa through us to receive 10 free stock images from our archives.)

More on Images and AdSense
As a result of the last changes, they've also clarified on some of the gray areas like the use of images next to ads. You cannot use anything to force viewer's eyeballs towards the ads like arrows or graphics indicating motion.

An example of this is something I've already had to change for a client. They run a pet supplies site and had AdSense displayed in a colored table with a background graphic to match. While it had borders, etc. to separate it from the page, it had an image of a young puppy glancing up towards the ad unit. It worked great... but is no longer allowed.

AdSense for Search: SERPS
You can now have one and only one ad unit on your AdSense for search result pages. Previously, you could not use any.

There were a few others, like not using AdSense on sites that have student papers available, etc. -- but those are all pretty clear now.

The most disturbing change though is again, one that has me all worked up. It's regarding the competitive ads and services, and has a number of issues associated with it.

First, we're not allowed to have AdSense units designed in such a way that it mimics anything else on our site.

Second, we're no longer allowed to use other programs (like YPN) on the same domains as AdSense. Let me make that clear -- they're not saying we can't use them on the same page... They're saying that we cannot use them on the same SITE. It's rediculous -- and kills any oportunity that we as publishers have for testing our content for maximum monetization.

Finally, Google is really just expecting publishers to accept this and move on -- and I think it's ludicrious. The simple fact that they're no longer allowing any part of our sites (table colors, sizes, etc.) match any Google ad units is horrible.

I understand that the immediate counter to this is -- hey, they're still paying you -- you should do what they want to keep the check coming in. I get that part, but as site owners we should be able to design our sites and monetize our content as we would like to. We own our domains, Google doesn't.