Is Adwords Really Dropping Prescription Drug Ads?

What about Adsense?

[Lokutus]

I came across this in another thread but do not have access to the subscriber section.

"I just visited 5 or 6 pharma sites running AdSense, and they all show very targeted ads.
As a side note, Adwords will stop showing most prescription drug ads in mid-May sometime. For supporters, there is more on it here:
[webmasterworld.com...] "

Does anyone know more about this? Is it true?

What about Adsense? Will it stop too? Prolly?

[jomaxx]

From the Google AdWords site:
"As of mid-May 2004, all online pharmacy-related ads and keywords for U.S.-targeted campaigns must be associated with a valid SquareTrade ID."

From a very quick investigation, it looks like:
(a) U.S. pharmacies will be able to advertise as long as they confirm a valid doctor's prescription before sending any drugs
(b) international pharmacies will be able to advertise but their ads will not be geotargeted to US surfers

[sandor]

wonder where those 'herbal' products fall in the mix. lots of people pushing herbal products bid for pharma-related keywords .. as an alternative to whatever drug. wonder if they'll still be able to bid on pharma keywords.

[Jenstar]

If the ads are no longer being advertised via Adwords, then there would be no pharma ads to show via AdSense, except for the advertisers that meet the new requirements. And then it would be up to those advertisers to decide whether to display content targeted ads or not.

[Christopher C]

Is it appropriate to ask in this forum what some of the alternate PPC engines are out there for when this happens? I'm guessing this is going to result in a substantial drop in adsense revenues as much of bid competition will be cut out of the picture.

[Jenstar]

There are plenty of threads on alternatives to AdSense in the Advertising & Affiliate forum [webmasterworld.com]. You'll run across a handful just by going through the first few pages of threads.

[Christopher C]

Thanks, :)

I've started a link here, if any are interested.

[webmasterworld.com...]