"* Watching this video is free, thanks to our sponsors"

is this legal?

[NewSkool]

breaks TOS or not?

[vincevincevince]

It is legal. You are breaking no law to write that.

If your question was whether it was a breach of the Adsense TOS then...

It draws attention to your ads by making people look for your sponsors. Upon realising the 'sponsor' is Adsense, those in the know will be more likely to deliberately click on the ads.

So - no.

[humblebeginnings]

Well, what is the purpose of mentioning the fact that you have sponsors? Is it relevant to your visitors?

[trillianjedi]

breaks TOS or not?

Borderline.

See "Drawing attention to ads..."

TJ

[jomaxx]

Might be borderline if you had multiple sponsors. If AdSense is your primary or your only sponsor, then there's no valid reason to put such a statement on your site. It's just a way of encouraging "thank you" clicks from people who have no particular interest in the ads. IMO these probably hurt you more than they help anyway.

[NewSkool]

not my site, i saw it on a certain videos site and it seems to be premium google adsenser too.

[Andrew Bassett]

Is it against the TOS?

It definitely gives Google justification to ban that website. So effectively it is against TOS, but Google will likely never be looking for a reason to ban that site.

Remember, Google is under more pressure to sign up publishers than they are to ban bad publishers.

[Crickey]

What about the following?

I have a sidebar on muy site that is devided in blocks.
They all have a name like 'info', 'recent articles ', 'links'.
Two days ago I added a block in the sidebar with a link unit in it.
Can I give this block a name like 'advertisements' or 'sponsors' or would I be better of not giving it a name at all?

[Andrew Bassett]

You're allowed to say "Advertisements" or "Sponsored Links" but nothing else.

[Alioc]

Try to find a related affiliate program on that particular page and remove AdSense. Then your statement would be true and meaningful.