AdSenseAdvisor - 9:56 pm on Mar 5, 2009 (gmt 0)

ProBlogger posted a great response [www.] from a friend of mine on the AdSense team that addresses your two main concerns (CPC expandable ads and filtering).

Publishers generate earnings from a CPC-priced expandable ad when a user visits the advertiser’s landing page, rather than when a user clicks to expand the ad. Advertisers have different goals, and we encourage them to achieve them on the Content Network with options to bid via a CPC or CPM model for all rich media formats. Publishers benefit from our auction technology that optimises their yield from our wide range of ads. CPC expandable ads still compete with other ads to automatically maximise your return from AdSense. We’re also constantly working to improve publisher controls, and between the Competitive Filter and the Ad Review Center, publishers have two comprehensive ways of blocking expandable ads. Google has designed this ad format to enhance the user experience with ads. Users are given complete control over ad expansion - expandable ads are initiated with a click rather than a mouseover, and users can easily close the ad at any time. Expandable ads do not interfere with the page’s layout, and if publishers have opted into accepting all ad formats, it takes no extra effort to accept them. It’s an exciting ad product that will bring mutual benefit to publishers, users, and advertisers.

The reason I quoted directly is that her response is exactly what I would have said.

ASA