[ AdSense ]

Google AdSense not good for Advocacy Sites?

Abe Olandres Editor-in-chief May 15, 2008 · 2 min read

Listen to article

Instagram now lets users reorder their posts on their profile iOS 27 Adds Native Baybayin Keyboard to iPhone: Here is How to Enable It AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE announced GPD MicroPC 2 with Intel Core 3 N350 announced Nintendo Direct to unveil Switch 2 games for second half of 2026

Here’s an interesting story from The Register, something I didn’t know before — put simply, if you’re running an advocacy website against any individual, group, or organization, it could get your AdSense account canceled.

In the exclusive story by The Register:

Exclusive: Google has murdered the AdSense account run by one of the web’s most influential anti-Scientology sites.

Yesterday, the search giant cut off all ads served to Enturbulation, a fledgling site dedicated to promoting activism against the Church of Scientology and all its related organizations. This could have something do with the nature of the ads Google was serving. Many of the Google-driven ads funding the anti-Scientology site were paid for by the Church of Scientology.

“While going through our records recently, we found that your AdSense account has posed a significant risk to our AdWords advertisers,” read Google’s letter to Enturbulation, a kind of home base for the now famous Anonymous movement. “Since keeping your account in our publisher network may financially damage our advertisers in the future, we’ve decided to disable your account.“

And according to the updated terms and policies of Google AdSense, publishers can be banned for “any action or practice that reflects poorly on Google or otherwise disparages or devalues Google’s reputation or goodwill.” Though we haven’t heard of any sites critical of Google getting banned from their ad network, technically, they can legitimately do that if they want to.

Say for example, you put up a blog against your ISP or a certain company and put AdSense ads on the site. All the ISP or the company needs to do is run an AdWords campaign and they can legitimately request Google to ban your account. Is this the end of those &^%$#Sucks.com blog? Not likely.

In essence, if Google is to choose between a feuding AdSense Publisher and an AdWords Advertiser, Google will almost always side on the latter. Show me the money!

React to this article:

google adsense google adwords

Abe Olandres

Editor-in-chief

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and is considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines.

8,007 Articles

View all posts by Abe Olandres →

40 Comments

Ð Ð¾ÑÑ‚Ð¸ÑÐ»Ð°Ð² · 17 years ago

How can I Stop Foreclosure · 17 years ago

Great information about the economy, I enjoy your blog and look forward to more information.

Wedding Planning · 17 years ago

My wife and I started a wedding site as a hobby after our daughter got married. We just now started to search the internet to review other wedding sites and holy cow we had no idea there were so many blogs and web sites about weddings. Looking to create a list of the best we can find.

myWORLDisUNKNOWN · 18 years ago

oh, now i see!

too lazy to write my name · 18 years ago

your site doesnt have much anything abut disabled accounts by google adsense huh..?

anyway, google has just disabled ads on my site, although my adsense account is still very much active.. much to my surprise, i can still show google ads on the very same site despite of their email notification..

ill experiment if i can put back adsense back to the other two sites they disabled.. prolly after i get my earnings for ast month and this month..

hoooy, pinoy ako..

Alfie · 18 years ago

yuga_fanatic, if google banned your account, your website was also banned. So it’s useless to create new account. Just focus on re-instating your account. It really takes time for Google to reply.

SELaplana · 18 years ago

it might be against the freedom of speech of any bloggers or webmasters, but Google has freedom to that too. in other words, don’t run Adsense on sites being talked…

simple lang naman e…. like, don’t use adsense on your porn sites…. madali lang sundin… kung gusto nating sumunod.

Lyle, RN · 18 years ago

This has nothing to do with freedom of speech.

Any blog or website can still freely publish their advocacies, it’s just that Google won’t pay them for it.

If they put up the site to promote the issues they believe in, then not getting paid for it should not deter them at all.

Unless of course, they put up the site just to generate huge traffic and earn from it via Google Adsense.

Mindanao Bob · 18 years ago

I don’t look at this as a freedom of speech issue. You are still free to say anything you want to say. Google is also free to decide if they wish to be associated with what you say.

yuga_fanatic · 18 years ago

I’m hoping that google adsense will re-instate my account because I know a friend that was able to re-instate his account. We have the same reasons to explain the invalid clicks that generated in our site. His account was re-instated. I’m waiting for their reply.

yuga_fanatic · 18 years ago

If my account was disabled by google adsense and I filled up the appeal form in their help center and submitted it, should I get a response from google if they will re-instate my account or deny my appeal? This is my first appeal. I submitted my appeal on May 13, 2008 and until now (May 16, 2008) I haven’t receive any response or email from google adsense. How long does it usually take for them to review my appeal and give a response? Can I sign-up for Google Adsense with different Mailing Address, different IP Address and different email address with the same payee name and Account Name. Because it’s possible to have two or more different persons with the same name and surname. If I delete my google account completely, will I also delete my google adsense information?

Jhoanna · 18 years ago

Pahabol… what if Malu Fernandez starts using Adwords? Ayayay! :p

Jhoanna · 18 years ago

What’s stopping us from having more than one web site, right? That’s why I feel there’s no curtailment of speech.

What I don’t understand is that in Adsense, you can block URLs. If Enturbulation puts the Church of Scientology sites in its “block” list, then the CoS wouldn’t end up paying for ads shown in the Enturbulation site, right?

Wouldn’t that be simpler than totally disabling the Enturbulation account?

Alfie · 18 years ago

Sorry, smart is one of their advertisers, rather.

Alfie · 18 years ago

What if I post an review article about smart bro and I mentioned in that post that “I`m not satisfied on smart bro’s performance”. Would google terminate my acount since smart is their publisher? This is clearly a direct cover-up for the exposing the truth. Just like what GMA did on ZTE scandal. hehehehe

orgl · 18 years ago

hmmm, “show me the money” reminds me of a cheat code.

jhay · 18 years ago

First PR penalties, now indirect curtailment of the freedom of speech?

What’s happening to Google? tsk tsk tsk

Fitz · 18 years ago

Oh well… Google is still a business if you think about it, so yes, in these instance, they will (and should) side with the advertisers.

I sympathize with the website for losing a good revenue instrument such as Adsense. But optimistically speaking, they should realize that there are still other income opportunities for them – like Bidvertiser perhaps?