My site is critical of something, but I have ads about that something!

[serengeti]

One of my sites is critical of a surgery I had. However, some of the adsense ads I get are from surgeons who do that particular surgery!

Is there any way that these surgeons can remove their ads from my site if they find out that I am criticising what they adverise? If so, do they ask google to remove their ads from my site?

I don't personally mind their ads apearing on my site, as people who visit my site are told that the surgery has some benefits and some negatives that are underreported -- so the visitors are educated enough to not fall for the surgery ads.

[Publisher1]

You may wish to pull the Adsense off that page.
Last year I contributed to a scam-busting site that for a time had Adsense; it was full of ads for the scammers the site was trying to expose! As I understand it, the scammers complained to Google and the site lost its Adsense account. I'll stay clear of the broader ethics here, but from the point of advertisers getting value for their money, clearly your site is not the place for them to be.

[simey]

I agree,
Some topics ...95% of the ads you will get will be scams.

Best to pull ads from those pages.

[andrea99]

Some topics ...95% of the ads you will get will be scams.

What would those topics be?

[malachite]

serengeti, you could look at this from a different angle and take an alternative point of view.

I wouldn't necessarily take ads for a product or service off a critical review of said product or service. Your review is a matter of opinion, and people will want to seek second opinions, more information etc on the topic.

Just because you have had a bad experience with blue widgets, doesn't mean all blue widgets are c*&p. If you have the opportunity to make some money from the article, I'd be inclined to let people make up their own minds by reading your article then clicking through to an alternative viewpoint given by the ad.

[Rodney]

I have a few pages similar to that and Adsense just doesn't work on those pages.

Not all websites and pages are a fit for adsense. Especially those that are "anti" something or other.

[jhood]

My site has thousands of pages of consumer product reviews, safety recall notices and consumer news articles , nearly all of them negative.

Many of the AdSense ads are, indeed, for the products excoriated on our pages. So what? There are also ads for competing products and even from lawyers trying to drum up plaintiffs for lawsuits against those products. Again, so what?

The ads give the criticized products what might be called "equal time."

By the logic expressed in some of the earlier comments, a TV news show that includes news about a damaging Vioxx verdict wouldn't run ads for Merck.

The whole idea of the First Amendment and the Web is that it is a "free marketplace of ideas" where the truth emerges for those willing to search for it. We've been doing it that way for a few hundred years in the U.S. Why stop now?

[danny]

The First Amendment only constrains the (United States) government; it says nothing about what private citizens can do on their own web sites.

[Publisher1]

The anti-scam site I was referencing specifically dug into (by name) certain so called "high yield investment programs" that are heavily promoted on the web through multi-level marketing deals. The price per keyword can be quite high. No one of reasonable intelligence attracted to the particular anti-scam site would buy from these advertisers, but they may well know that clicking a lot on the ads will increase the advertisers' costs. So, from the advertisers' perspective, this is the last site they would want to be on -- especially since invalid or 'fraudulent click' complaints would likely be high.
The point here is that if one's site goes against the flow of the advertisers -- it is not simply a review point -- bad things can happen to the Adsense account.
There are risks worth taking, and others, not. If the site owner's intent is to act against the interests of its advertisers, the final battle could well be won by the advertisers who, upon complaining to Google, succeed in having the Adsense account yanked.

[Rodney]

The whole idea of the First Amendment and the Web is that it is a "free marketplace of ideas"

The first amendment has nothing to do with the web or advertising or adsense.

It doesn't give you much credibility as a publisher if you write a scathing review of how bad widgets are and how someone should never buy a widget and/or how you are morally against widget company and everything they represent, and then you show ads for that same company.

Taking money from the devil (or whatever you rail against), doesn't give you that much distance from the thing you hate.

A TV news show or newspaper (or news site) is different because (ideally), the news is supposed to be impartial. One day they could do a story against widgets. A few months later they could do a story on how a widget a day can enhance your life. News sites/shows/papers/review sites don't have a "belief" system one way or another.

My point is that if you do have a site that is strongly against some "thing" or some "company" then it doesn't make sense to run contextual ads about that thing or company. Doesn't make sense to the visitor or the advertiser.

[jhood]

"The first amendment has nothing to do with the web or advertising or adsense."

Of course it does. The principle (and the law, for that matter) is the same whether it's print, broadcast, plastered on billboards or posted on the Web.

The site I'm involved with is a news and product review site and it is more or less impartial, although it has a pro-consumer tilt. The First Amendment, by the way, says nothing about impartiality and the authors of the Bill of Rights were trying to protect vigorous expressions of opinion, not wire-service-style impartiality.

The separation of editorial content from advertising is a primary principle of good journalism. If we write only good things about our advertisers, we are in a business other than journalism.

[Rodney]

Of course it does. The principle (and the law, for that matter) is the same whether it's print, broadcast, plastered on billboards or posted on the Web.

Sorry, the web isn't governed by US laws. There is no guarantee of free speech in this forum or anywhere else on the web.

The separation of editorial content from advertising is a primary principle of good journalism. If we write only good things about our advertisers, we are in a business other than journalism.

Remember that not all Adsense publishers are journalists.

[andrea99]

Sorry, the web isn't governed by US laws.

But jhood is speaking of the principle of free speech which is a universal value among free people and mentions the law only parenthetically. Anything that infringes on free speech is an endorsement of ignorance. Ignorance is not always an evil, the right to privacy is an endorsement of ignorance.

There is no guarantee of free speech in this forum or anywhere else on the web.

There is no guarantee of anything, anywhere. Guarantees are only promises, occasionally kept.

The first amendment to the US Constitution guarantees nothing; it only forbids certain actions to Congress:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."