Adsense earnings will be donated to south-east Asia

Is this ok to write?

[Bonusbana]

Is it against the TOS to write a phrase like

"All adsense earnings will be donated to charity groups to support the asian earthquake and tsunami appeal."

Ive seen it all over the place, but in my opinion they are breaking the TOS by encouraging people to click the ads.

Some advertisers might think its a good thing to support the organizations with some advertising budget, but Im sure most of them would like choose for themselves.

How does google handle situations like theese?

[edited by: Bonusbana at 1:43 pm (utc) on Jan. 5, 2005]

[jouwpagina]

It SHOULD be against the TOS.

It's a nice trick ;) If you sell things, then it's ok imo. For example if you sell ringtones
"Alle ringtone-earnings (0,50$ / ringtone) will be donated to charity groups"

[diamondgrl]

Google has not said as far as I know but it is certainly against the spirit of the rules and people who do this are fools.

[gethan]

They should try writing something that refers to "website profits" rather than specifically mentioning adsense. Not sure how google would deal with it though.

[buckworks]

As an Adwords advertiser I would consider such clicks to be absolutely fraudulent.

[Macro]

I always treat sites like these with enormous suspicion. If they cared so much about charity victims there are other things they can do. We've given some charity ads prime space on our sites (with thanks to a WW member Jon_King for kindly creating all the banners I needed). If they cared so much about the victims why didn't they replace their Adsense ads with charity ads?

>> they are fools
I agree, but possibly also "crooks".

[diamondgrl]

I did a Google search and found that this ridiculous idea has really taken hold in the blog community. It appears hundreds or thousands of people think it is perfectly appropriate to steal money from advertisers to give to charity.

[richlowe]

I believe this violates the adsense terms and conditions. Hopefully, google will treat them harshly. There should not be any incentive to click an ad.

[europeforvisitors]

[Sigh] It looks like we'll be seeing another flurry of "Google disabled my account, and I didn't do anything wrong" threads.

Still, that's a good thing if it will improve the AdSense gene pool. :-)

[Macro]

>>It appears hundreds or thousands of people think it is perfectly appropriate to steal money from advertisers to give to charity.

... or keep themselves. Call me cynical but it's possible they are not all acting from the purest of motives.

>>we'll be seeing another flurry of "Google disabled my account, and I didn't do anything wrong" threads.

Hopefully, we will. In reality Google probably won't close their accounts as this is a hand monitoring job and they are unlikely to devote the resources.

[ve3cnu]

I'm with you diamondgrl.

Why do people even have to ask this type of question. Are they that stupid? This is clearly against TOS, in spirit and in technicality.

[gethan]

> Why do people even have to ask this type of question. Are they that stupid?

Hey don't attack the OP (Bonusbana) here. To remind you:

> Ive seen it all over the place, but in my opinion they are breaking the TOS by encouraging people to click the ads.

The question is: is it against the TOS? Nearly everyone here says yes.

Macro brings up: are they crooks?

Some will be like everything in life, but I think most - especially in the blogging community - are ignorant of the full implications of the TOS and statements like this. Most will have the best intentions.

I think google will not do anything very bad publicity if someone got barred for this - though a gentle reminder on the login screen would be what I would do.

[Teshka]

Why don't you just donate the money without saying anything on your website? I know it's great to be recognized for being a good guy, but in the end it only matters that you know ;)

[Macro]

Why don't you just donate the money without saying anything on your website?

I did. But putting relevent charity ads on my site may have the effect of persuading others to contribute.

But, if you meant that as an option to stating that the Adsense contributions would go to charity then I'm with you. It's a shame that some with honourable intentions sometimes lack common sense. And that those who are exploiters are willing to take advantage of even a disaster like this.