Stirring up shit… Are BlogRush Users In Violation of Adsense?

Based on a couple of emails and some research, it has become apparent that if you use BlogRush you may be in violation of Google’s Adsense TOS. In particular the part that refers to driving traffic to your site through artificial means.

Notice I said ‘may’ Why? Because in true Google fashion, they have been lame-assed vague in their response.

Exhibit One Your Honor:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=480439

This site has posted a Google response to a question about BloghRush and conflicts with Google’s Adsense TOS.

Originally Posted by Adsense Support

Thanks for checking in with us. We don’t encourage or endorse the use of a program like this Thus, we’re unable to give specific advice regarding BlogRush.

I appreciate your understanding regarding this matter.

For additional questions, I’d encourage you to visit the AdSense Help Center ( http://www.google.com/adsense_help ) or the official AdSense blog ( http://adsense.blogspot.com ). Alternatively, feel free to post your question on the AdSense Help Forum (http://groups.google.com/group/adsense-help?utm_source=txft)

Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team

Google is a behemoth whose very success has created an unhealthy influence on the Internet. They control the bulk of advertising and advertising revenue.

My grampy had a saying “Too big for your britches!” I think it applies to Google. We are all after the almighty dollar and they are the biggest dollar dealers out there. Because of this they can dictate policy on the fly. Vague responses are done on purpose and you can bet lawyers are behind this.

They are coy. They do not want to make categorical statements. Even when they threaten to shut your Adsense program down, as they did with me recently, their responses are vague.

It has come to our attention that invalid clicks or impressions have been generated on your Google ads, posing a financial risk to our AdWords advertisers. We’ve found that users of third-party programs have been paid or provided with other incentives to visit your site. Such programs include, but are not limited to, auto-surf, pay-to-surf, pay-to-read, or pay-to-click sites. Please note that any method that artificially generates click or impressions on Google ads is strictly prohibited by our program policies, as such activity may artificially inflate an advertiser’s costs or a publisher’s earnings.

We understand that you may want more information about the activity we detected. However, because we have a need to protect our proprietary detection systems, we’re unable to provide our publishers with any details about their account activity, including any web pages, users, or third-party services that may have been involved. Thank you for your understanding.

What a load of BS. They can tell me without revealing information about their proprietary systems. This was just another example of their Institutionalized Vagueness.

We recommend reviewing these references to learn more about invalid click activity and other activities that could endanger your account standing:

https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US
https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms?hl=en_US
http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=8426&hl=en_US

If you need help logging the traffic on your site to determine the source of your visitors, we recommend trying these Google search terms:

Webmaster resources
Website tracking and logging
Site traffic analysis

In addition, because we credit advertisers for any invalid activity we detect, we may adjust your account earnings for any days during which such activity occurred.

Lastly, please note that if we continue to detect invalid activity from these services on your Google ads, we may take further action on your account in order to protect our advertisers’ interests, and payment may be withheld. Thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

In this case I do not think they were nailing me for BlogRush…but how do I know for sure? I asked for a clarification and an autoresponder replied basically saying PFO.

Reluctantly, I removed the Adsense ads from here because I have another site that earns 100% of its income from Adsense. I did not want to jeopardize that.

Mark me down as just another token web site guy trying to make a buck, having been Googled up the ass.

Technorati Tags: Google, Adsense, Google Adsense, BlogRush, Google versus BlogRush, Google is vague, ads, advertising, revenue from Adsense

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