Google Bans Techwankers
As regular readers know, here at Techwankers we write how we feel. And add a touch of our crazy humor (yeah – its humor). We’ve written many post criticizing and making fun of the tech industry. Most notably Techcrunch and Google. Today we did a post on the YouTube rickroll issue (which hinted on the ex-Google executive’s legal issues in Italy). And soon after that (3 hours – coincidence?), we received an email from Google that we can no longer serve adsense on the site. This is the reason:
Publishers are not permitted to place Google ads on sites with content
advocating against any individual, group, or organization.
Google have always pushed the ‘No Evil’ image. Especially with the recent Google vs China censorship issues.
Any intelligent readers of this site can tell that Techwankers is about social commentary and humor. What makes Google the judge and jury on this? If we have the readership size of Techcrunch or Valleywag – will the matter be treated differently. Love us or hate us – this is clearly Google being evil.
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February 24th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
Though I am completely game for humor, some things are meant to be dealt with more sensitivity… 3 innocent employees have been convicted for something really disturbing… funny?
I don’t know whether it is right or wrong to suspend adsense ont the site but it is definitely not evil… On the other hand being so insensitive to the convicted employees… that is more close to evil I guess….
Anyways, you have a lot of options… I am sure yahoo would be more than happy to serve ads on such pages
February 25th, 2010 at 9:03 am
If you look at our post, we actually never wrote about the convicted employees. We simply linked to a post on techcrunch.
The reality is – we are making commentary in a twisted/off-beat way. Some get it, some don’t – but its just another style. We have experience of Google’s non public side, that most users are not aware of. Google have a very good PR machine – so to most folks, they can do no wrong. But in reality, they are no different to any big company.
For example, awhile back, google fired an employee for blogging about the company (http://news.cnet.com/Google-blogger-I-was-terminated/2100-1038_3-5572936.html).
February 26th, 2010 at 12:16 am
I think ye dost protest too much.
You insult them (even though in jest) and expect them to allow you to publish their ads on your site so they can pay you?
The more you have to explain your humour, the less humerous it is.
February 26th, 2010 at 9:05 am
The ads are paid for by advertisers – not Google. Google has algorithm that displays the appropriate ads for the contents. The fact is, we were getting click through for the ads – so obviously, there are relevant ads that matched our readerships.
So is Google really serving their advertisers or only when it makes sense for them? Advertisers already have the freedom to filter, why would Google impose a site wide ban?
“…and expect them to allow you to publish their ads on your site so they can pay you?”. Is this not censorship?
March 1st, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Haha that is pretty funny, on the one hand I can see Googles point of view, if I was paying someone to host my adverts I would not be happy if they started badmouthing me. On the other hand, news is news, it does seem a little bit overkill!
March 4th, 2010 at 4:59 am
I believe that “satire” is the most proper word for this site, that’s why I love it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire
No one should criticize or ban satire.. world gonna be a very boring place without it..
March 5th, 2010 at 11:18 am
Thank you. Unlike most of our moron critics, you actually have a functional brain.