Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Just now when I logged in I got a new "Google AdSenseTM Online Standard Terms and Conditions" page from AdSense
"The Google AdSense banners on this site may serve cookies and/or web beacons. Our site has no access to these or control over them."
I don't have an existing privacy policy because my site doesn't have any members, it's just a place where I publish my content.
[google.com...]
RJ
Google uses cookies and other technologies to enhance your online experience and to learn about how you use Google services in order to improve the quality of our services.
So -- they don't use the term "web beacons" in their privacy policy. How can we be required to do so?
YM
ASA: Can you clear this up? I'd really like to be able to link to Google's privacy policy for Google's ads.
There are several references to ASA in this thread. When was the last ASA sighting around these parts?
FarmBoy
Will the privacy policy page have to be linked on every page on the site?
I assume we would have to have it linked at least from every page using AdSense.
It looks like we have until May to approve the new agreement so I would think we have that much time to get the privacy policy up as well.
I'm hoping that Google will take a closer look at the privacy policy thing before that so I'm going to wait and see.
Where does the every page thing come from? Surely a link from the home page would suffice?
Not everybody enters a Web site through the home page. If the purpose of the requirement is to cover Google's keester, then it obviously makes sense to have a "Privacy Policy" link from every page.
I still think it would be smarter for Google to have a "Privacy Policy" link of its own from each ad unit, but May is a long way off, so we all have plenty of time to wait for clarification and advice from Google.
Maybe ASA was outsourced to India also?
LOL
I still think it would be smarter for Google to have a "Privacy Policy" link of its own from each ad unit
That's a good idea but I wonder if that might have a negative effect on click-throughs, or a perceived one and like with related searches there could be a publisher rebellion (of course that's kind of what there is now!).
I still think it would be smarter for Google to have a "Privacy Policy" link of its own from each ad unitThat's a good idea but I wonder if that might have a negative effect on click-throughs, or a perceived one and like with related searches there could be a publisher rebellion (of course that's kind of what there is now!).
Perhaps not a rebellion, but certainly a good deal of angst.
It is an interesting dillema. I am not using or serving persistent cookies or web beacons. I have not been asked, nor given permission for Google to serve cookies or web beacons from my pages. As I posted earlier, I don't see anything in the terms and conditions that specifies that I must give permission for Google to do this.
I am not and can not be responsible for what a site that I link to does, and our privacy policy clearly states this.
Being required to alter our privacy policy to cover what another site may, or may not do would seem to imply some responsibilty for, and exposure to, what another site chooses to do. I am very uncomfortable with that.
I like the $$$. But, adsense only provides play money. I have never relied on it for anything more serious. I am leaning towards playing a little less if these conditions stick.
We have had this in our Privacy Policy, Cookies Usage and Legal Information for at least 12-13 years and no one worries about it one jot.
We have this information specifically on our .info company site and for the whole of 2007 from millions of page views from 170+ sites only 1,963 unique visitors serving 5,679 pages bothered to read any of the information.
That's a small portion of one day's metrics.
It's a non-issue.
From what I have been told many people were viewing to copy our legal notices!
The issue of web beacons is more troubling than cookies. It is a fundamental change in the adsense model as I understand it.
We began with Google offering to share ad revenue in return for using site real estate.
Now it appears to evolved into Google offering a share of ad revenue in return for site real estate AND the ability to actively track one's visitors.
Sure, they could do a lot of tracking before, but it was more passive. Web beacons can potentially be quite invasive. If Google is going to use these, why is it our responsibility to inform visitors? We, after all, are not the ones that are placing them or benefiting from the data so collected!
So, our choice is to keep suckling at the teats of G, or to wean ourselves and find other sustenance.
