Forum Moderators: martinibuster
engage in any action or practice that reflects poorly on Google or otherwise disparages or devalues Googles reputation or goodwill.
In my email I asked google:
Do you intend this term to apply to public statements about AdSense made by AdSense customers in web forums, newspapers, blogs, and other publications? Or do you intend it only to apply to materials displayed along side AdSense advertising?
And in particular, I cited a specific example, asking whether if I posted the following to WebMasterWorld, would they consider that to be a violation of the TOS. My example of a potential violation was this:
Google really goofed with this new Terms of Service. I suspect their legal team was nodding off and wrote something that is a lot broader than they intended it to be, and very possibly illegal to boot. Really poor showing.
After a LONG time (AdSense is usually much faster getting back to me) I got back a reply. The reply stated that Google refused to further clarify the TOS and that I should seek my own legal council.Every other time I have contacted AdSense and given an example of something I wanted to do, and asked whether they would view it as a violation I have received a clear yes/no answer from them. In this case I got no such answer, just contact your attorney.
The only conclusion I can draw from this non-response is that Google does reserve the right to terminate your AdSense account if you post anything that reflects poorly on Google in an online web forum such as this one.
Be warned.
I would have to switch of the Google toolbar,
if I would like to hide me.
engage in any action or practice that reflects poorly on Google or otherwise disparages or devalues Googles reputation or goodwill
I read this to mean "don't do anything with your website wherein people who see your website and our ads will think that we condone whatever it is you're doing that we think is bad".
I do wonder, however, why they added this (surely there's a reason based on past experiences with publishers).
I love Google!
ant
"In the event that a hypothetical PPC Advertising Provider made a change to their Terms of Service along such-and-such lines, would a theoretical PPC Advertising Publisher be right to expect so-and-so?"
Google who?
Note: I have taken over dvduval's computer, and posted this message without his knowledge. Moohahaha! :)
Try putting the shoe on the other foot: If Google made a habit of slandering or libeling you, wouldn't you want to terminate the relationship?
I read this to mean "don't do anything with your website wherein people who see your website and our ads will think that we condone whatever it is you're doing that we think is bad".
That's what I thought too, and so I specifically e-mailed them and asked them to clarify that the policy applied only to content that appeared alongside an AdSense ad.
I was expecting a respone, "Yeah, that's what it means" but instead I got back "contact your attorney", which I take to mean they do reserve the right to cancel your account for "unrelated" activities, such as criticizing them in this forum.
[edited by: EliteWeb at 9:07 pm (utc) on Mar. 23, 2005]
Rather than saying, "Yes, it's okay to attack Google in that manner", or "No, that would violate the terms of service justifying the termination of your account", Google unsurprisingly declined to answer. Their suggestion that you have your questions answered by your own attorney is not unreasonable, in the event that you intend to make such postings about them. (Why should they green light any attacks on their company or services?)
Instead, if you dominate by suppression you attract docile dim bulbs, which is why I'm hopeful that I'll qualify for membership in AdSense under the new, more restrictive, anti-free speech standards. ;)
Ahem, . . . Google . . . Webwork here. I just want to say that I didn't say it, and if I did then I didn't mean it, and if I did then I didn't understand what I was saying when I said it, and if I did it was because when I was a child I was an orphan raised by wolves, and if I wasn't . . .
In reality I suspect there's a lot more required than dissent or objection or critique to fall within the rule. More likely things like "Google is a pack of thieves, they took my AdSense earnings that I rightfully generated by having my family click on the ads on my site."
[edited by: Webwork at 11:36 pm (utc) on Mar. 23, 2005]
Imagine your major newspapers who run Adsense on their site. Does this mean that they can't right an editorial on the Google toolbar and the spyware involved? Does this mean that any negative stock analysis from a finance site could ban your Adsense?
It's an extremely tacky thing to put in the TOS, and to me, a sign of the type of people you are dealing with. Putting something like that in your TOS shows me that your company is not confident in your services.
Google's mother wears army boots.
Yes. While some scholars consider the more specific 'combat boots,' to be proper, I find 'army boots' to be funnier and more to my liking.
If you do a Google search for: mother wears army boots (without quotes) you get a really interesting derivation for this phrase.
Note to mods -- if including the search phrase: mother wears army boots is consider to be inapproprite in this forum, please revise to: mother wears widgets
engage in any action or practice that reflects poorly on Google or otherwise disparages or devalues Googles reputation or goodwill.
Watch out made-for-adsense scraper sites!
They surely reflect poorly on google as they sponsor them.
I was expecting a respone, "Yeah, that's what it means" but instead I got back "contact your attorney", which I take to mean they do reserve the right to cancel your account for "unrelated" activities, such as criticizing them in this forum.You should also consider, however, that given your example, they would have to expect you would post their response on webmasterworld. Giving you an answer would, IMO, weaken their TOS if their original intention was to keep it vague.
Virtually every contract has some clause of this kind and it is there to cover those instances that aren't covered by any other clause. Legislative lethargy aside, spitting on the sidewalk is still illegal in most cities not because it's a problem but because it gives the cops an excuse to roust somebody when they can't find any other good reason, pending further investigation.
In other words, it's not worth worrying about and it certainly does not prohibit -- or even discourage -- reasonable discussions in forums of this kind. My god, man, get a grip.
Have I mentioned lately how much I love Google?
Hehe!
The more I read all these adsense threads ... the happier I am that I never got involved. Jeeesh!
30 years ago, I had an employer who would issue this type of blanket threa ... um statement in office wide memos. All it ever accomplished was to ensure that employees had more to gripe about at lunch hour! I thought Google was above this sort of thing.
Look at all the Lawsuist they are losing for you!
Time for fresh batch of Company lawyers..Come on G ; show the lawyers who's hanging brass in your company ;)
This is NOT what they did.
We can relax.
However, this does lead to another issue, the one raised by sailorjwd. By saying that they might police AdSense sites, are they putting themselves in a situation where they MUST police AdSense sites?
Interesting.
