Google forced removal of content

Mike

Windows Forum Admin
Staff member
Premium Supporter
Joined
Jul 22, 2005
Location
New York, NY, United States
Hello,
This is a warning message to alert you that there is action required to bring your AdSense account into compliance with our AdSense program policies. We’ve provided additional details below, along with the actions to be taken on your part.

Affected website: windowsforum.com

Example page where violation occurred: http://windowsforum.com/threads/bikini-girl-is-very-rude.71165/

Action required: Please make changes to your site within 3 business days.

Current account status: Active


Violation explanation




Google ads may not be placed on pages with adult or mature content. This includes, but is not limited to, pages with images or videos containing:

  • Strategically covered nudity
  • Sheer or see-through clothing
  • Lewd or provocative poses
  • Close-ups of breasts, buttocks, or crotches
For more information about keeping your content family-safe, please review our program guidelines and these tips from the policy team.

Additionally, you can watch our short animated video & policy refreshers on this topic.



How to resolve:
If you received a notification in regard to page content, please either remove the content from your site or remove ads from the violating pages. If you received a notification in regards to the way ads are implemented on your site, please make the necessary changes to your implementation. You do not need to contact us if you make changes. Please be aware that if changes are not made within the required time frame, ad serving may be disabled to the affected website listed above.

Additionally, please be aware that the URL above is just an example and that the same violations may exist on other pages of this website or other sites that you own. To reduce the likelihood of future warnings from us, we suggest that you review all your sites for compliance. For more information regarding our policy warning notifications, visit our Help Center: https://support.google.com/adsense/...gn=notificationhl=en&answer=1378153&ctx=topic.

We thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team
 
Just curious--I've never seen a Google ad on this web site. Was the advertizing on the YouTube site the link referred to? If so, the warning seems misplaced. Does this forum even have an AdSense account?
 
It was a link to a YouTube video. :worship:
Must be that YouTube is a hotbed of vice and stuff.
Best make sure my grandkids are kept well away from YouTube that den of iniquity :razz:
Whoever owns it should be ashamed of the content they allow :teeth:
 
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This is an issue that should be addressed with a bit of common sense. We use advertising as a revenue stream to keep the website in operation. To address an answer to this question, yes the website uses Google AdSense. And when we began using AdSense, and subsequent updates to its policies, we have entered into an agreement of compliance with Google, not to display advertisements, on certain pages, which may violate their community guidelines. However, some perspective needs to be placed into what this content is and what it is not. On our Water Cooler forum, there is plenty of material, although in the grand scheme of things, very small, that we have been forced to remove, due to these notifications. This is because:


1. We (the site administrators) have concluded that we do not have the legal manpower, sway, or contacts at Google, to address their decision making process. In the past, we have fought these takedowns under a claim and written concern of censorship, and this has resulted in a full audit of the site, which resulted in even more objectionable content being “found”, in a manner that appears to be reprisal for even filing the objection. We postulate that a computer algorithm may flag certain pages, and then a human “reviews them” in some manner. However, when an objection is placed, this creates more work for the human, who then resents the website making the objection.

2. By 2012-2013, we concluded that Google has near total domination and monopoly power over the search engine market, and that any resistance to their policies is now futile.


3. The takedown of content in the manner listed in the original post has not happened often. But it has happened sporadically over the years. And it seems to take place when someone at the Googleplex wakes up on the wrong side of the bed.


4. Our administrative discussions about his issue, in the past, have resulted us in concluding that Google could simply crush us like small ants, so there is nothing we can do.


5. I concluded, after this ridiculous notice, that these, and future notices, should be made public (and hopefully searchable on Google!)


6. Nearly every time this has happened, it has involved an embedded YouTube video, or in one case, a link to a PC Magazine article, which also had Google ads. In the case of the PC magazine article, some of the ad placement clearly violated their content, including the alleged violation of “most violent video games” images, with no text content whatsoever, with ads everywhere on the PC Magazine website. Instead of PC Magazine’s ads being removed in 3 days, we received a warning to take down a hyperlink to a PC Magazine article.


7. Of course, YouTube is owned by Google. It is fine to show women in bikinis on YouTube, but not on a website not owned by Google, apparently. This has happened with news articles about film stars, a link to a news article about a porn star’s grave being art or pornography, and other ridiculous claims. We must still abide by the Victorian-era policy being established by “the guy who is angry at Google on any given day of the year”.


8. We have not established the programming or coding infrastructure to block ads from individual thread pages without causing a major diversion in our priorities and a lot of time coding something that is used, mostly for entertainment articles that are years old.


9. The goal of our website is to preserve content and not delete it, so if this gets out of hand, which it probably will, as I have watched the Internet become more and more censored over the years by large corporations, we will need to re-evaluate our funding options.
 
That will never happen. But at least one Microsoft employee has come here looking for printer drivers. The world is a strange place. I hope to discuss these conundrums at our meeting tomorrow. Take care!

Sent from my SM-G900T using WindowsForum mobile app
 
Seems like nobody saw this coming. OH Yeah, that's right.... I did. And mentioned a parallel to SkyNet, at which point I was pretty much just laughed at.

At some point in the not to distant future, Google is going to do whatever they want, whenever they want and there will be very little anyone can do about it.

Here's just another little taste of what the folks at Google (big "G" if you know what I mean) have up their sleeve. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/22/indie-labels-youtube-subscription-music
YouTube is approaching labels directly with a "template contract" and threatening that if they do not sign it, all their music videos will be blocked on YouTube.

Tsk, tsk, tsk .... http://www.businessinsider.com/google-most-valuable-brand-2014-5
BingItOn
 
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