Placing code on non-owned sites

[Denis at eVR]

This is just an idle thought (must have too much spare time on my hands), but it could be an interesting one.

Assume that I have an up-and-running AdSense account, and that I have the code on a number of sites that I own. Suppose I were to approach the owner of another site, and agree to pay him $x a month to place my code onto his site. Would that raise any TOS questions?

It would obviously be hit and miss for me, as I would have no stats from AdSense (at least, not currently) to measure whether my $x a month was money well spent.

Any thoughts?

[Sense_able]

The problem would be if he broke the TOS and google picked it up on one of their random visits...

The buck would stop with you in more than one way...

[Denis at eVR]

OK, so this wouldn't be web-wide, it would have to be just between friends - maybe friends with small sites that wouldn't qualify to join AdSense in their own right. Let's assume that I have a lot of these!

[BlueSky]

If you make any real money, you'll have to worry about taxes not just for your locale but theirs as well. Doing business with friends can actually ruin friendships. You may assume everyone will abide by the TOS, but if just one strays intentionally or unintentionally he could ruin it for everyone.

I've seen a number of people go into loose business relationships with friends and ended up becoming bitter enemies. Things people would put in place with strangers like written contracts are totally ignored with friends which down the road often leads to misunderstandings.

If you do decide to do this, put all the terms in writing and make sure everyone understands his/her responsibility, compensation to be received, as well as how things like taxes will be handled.

[trillianjedi]

If you trust each other, just ask these friends for their FTP info and tell them that you'll do it - keeps you in control.

I wouldn't do it any other way.

TJ

[zoltan]

What if I run a network of sites (for example 20), they all use a shared content but only 2-3 sites are mine. But I offer content for the other sites and the banner sections are splitted. They get a 468x60 banner on their pages (they can edit their header and put anything there: banners, logos, etc., what they earn from there is 100% their's) but I can put any other banners on other sections and this is 100% mine.
Do you think this is OK?

[Blue_Fin]

4. Can I show ads on more than one site?
Yes, and you don't even have to let us know because we'll automatically detect new sites that contain the AdSense ad code. The HTML code we provide you with is valid for any page in any site on which you want to display AdWords ads. However, you may only display AdWords ads on sites that you own or on sites that you are legally authorized to act on behalf of for the purposes of Google AdSense. We also monitor all sites in AdSense to ensure that all pages displaying AdWords ads comply with our program policies.

Is it worth the risk of being terminated?

[dillonstars]

Google TOS:

"You are the owner of each Site or that You are legally authorized to act on behalf of the owner of such Site(s) for the purposes of this Agreement and the Program."

I mailed google about this very issue and they wrote back to me and said that they would need written permission from the domain owner that they give permission for your code to appear on their site.

They have some fairly specific info that you should fax to them if you want to do this, and they will send you everything they need if you mail them and ask.

[dillonstars]

incidentally, the reason i wanted to do this was I had the idea of offering people the opportunity to have their ads on pages if they write content for me....