Google murders second Anonymous AdSense account

Google has shutdown the AdSense account of another anti-Scientology site. Three months after cutting off all ads served to Enturbulation, a site dedicated to promoting activism against the Church of Scientology and all its related organizations, Google has done the same with a similar site known as Epic Anonymous. Earlier …

[Frank Thomas]

They ADVERTISE a cult?

that's a new one by me.

"Kali Ma- Just like in Indiana Jones! one free heart-removal per family! void where prohibited, some restrictions may apply. being lowered into pit of lava costs .50c/lbs body weight."

[iamzippy]

Well Whodathunkit?

Immovable force meets immovable object. Yaaaaaas...

This is gunna run awhile, methinks. Stay on it, El Reg.

[Anonymous Coward]

"advocacy against any individual, group, or organization."??????

So according to Google, any site that advocates against the Chinese governments treatment of Tibet violates Googles rules. (Big surprise given Google's complicity in censoring info within China on Tibet.) And Amnesty International's website also violates Google's rules because of it's advocacy against hate groups and abusive governments. Apparently Google adhere's to the advocacy band rule about as much as they adhere to their "Don't be Evil" rule.

[Anonymous Coward]

At least the Abrahamic faiths are plausible

if a load of horse-shit.

Scientology isn't even close and should be illegal. It isn't a religion - it's a con to take as much money as possible off of those who fall for it.

ALL HAIL XENU!!!!!!!!

[yeah, right.]

evil

So Google goes out of it's way to yet again prove that it is, in fact, evil. Evil by action, if not by policy.

[Mike Powers]

Seems more like it was PRO-Scientology clickers

Clicking repeatedly on ads will get your AdSense account blocked. Scientologists have plenty of people with nothing to do all day but sit at a computer and click. Sounds like someone put those hands together.

Google is remarkably easy to game. You can nuke anyone on Blogspot pretty easily by posting a porn-site link in the comments and then flagging the blog. Google's software will auto-lock the blog, and then flag it for a human operator, who will review the site just as soon as his guild finishes running an instance in WoW.

[Oldfogey]

Religious advertising ban is not relevant...

because Scientology is not a religion, but a system devised by a failed Science Fiction writer for extracting money from the credulous.

A religion does this as a by-product.

(Not an alien, but the great god GHU)

[AnonymousNow]

already started using other engines when google did that to enturb

Really, it's a question of arrogance on google's part. They really think we are all stuck with them no matter what level of evil they display. I've been very happy living in a googeless world.

[mike panero]

RE:Abrahamic faiths are plausible

You have got to be joking, a creator god with the attitude of a spoilt 12 year old brat?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sing it with me

Kum bi ah me lord, Kum bi ah.

Oh lord, so no ad pennys for those who poopoo others, well if you haven't anything good to say, then I suppose you won't get paid for saying anything at all.

In some ways it is right, if you want to make a stand, then make the stand, but why you should fund that stand via ad money, is a bit cynical, asks for donations.

Or how about, you offer levels in the anti organisation, and people pay for those levels.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are people apparently surprised that

Why is anybody apparently surprised that on an anti-Scientology site, presumably containing lots of Scientology-related words, paid-for Google Ads appear which are Scientology related?

GoogleAds 101: "Folks interested in xyz read this page, therefore we'll serve up (and ultimately charge for) xyz-related ads if we have them".

Any "xyzsucks" website/blog with Google Ads probably has this very same symptom, ie ads promoting the very thing it's complaining about, and probably has done for several years.

Where's the problem in this picture, where's the news in this article?

If folk would like a more appropriately personalized Internet advertising experience than this, there's always OIX/Phorm. But it's still keyword based rather than meaning based and therefore it has no easy automated way of knowing whether a site is pro or anti a particular product/service/organisation etc (unless the semantic web advocated by Amanfromarse and other timewasters is making better progress than he's been able to show round here).

[Jonathan McCulloch]

@AC

"At least the Abrahamic faiths are plausible "

Err.... no they are not. Any belief calling for unquestioning faith in a big inivisible friend in the sky and flying in the face of the observable body of evidence is implausible.

The Abrahamic faiths are just as dippy as Scientology.

-- Jon

[Zmodem]

@religion

if your weak and need some faith anything has to be better then a book about weed and sowe guy with a donkey who walked into the empire of rome and said hello im the son of some god you never heard of, next step is captain obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

@Zmodem

"if your weak"? "and sowe guy"? "empire of rome"? "said hello im the"? "some god you"? "captain obvious"? And all in one poorly constructed sentence?

How can someone as illiterate as you even feed yourself? Aside from the run-on sentence structure being incorrect, it's:

"if your weak" --> "If you are weak" or "If you're weak"

"and sowe guy" --> "and some guy"

"empire of rome" --> "Empire of Rome"

"said hello im the" --> "said, 'Hello I am the" or "said, 'Hello I'm the"

"some god you" --> "some God that you"

"captain obvious" --> "Captain Obvious"

Why is it that these days IT people are functionally illiterate, of not outright illiterate? It's no wonder I've never promoted an IT guy above their entry level.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I tried to add......

a domain name with the word "scientology" in it to a well know Parking company

that serves up ads and they refused to allow it to be parked on the basis that ..."we do not want to be sued by the Scientologists" . I would also refer to the recent case in London when a student held up a banner saying "Scientology is a Cult" and was arrested by the City of London Police in the UK on the basis that it would cause distress .What BS. It later transpired that the City of London Police in UK had accepted many presents and gifts from the Scientologists so were hardly to be seen as neutral. It stinks.

[Anonymous Coward]

@plank in your eye

> Why is it that these days IT people are functionally illiterate, of not outright illiterate? It's no wonder I've never promoted an IT guy above their entry level.

I don't know, perhaps because you don't know the difference between; of, or, 'or just about'.

And it is not Aside in that context, it is Beside.

Yeah, I am sure road sweepers don't need the services of IT professionals too often, oh you missed a bit :)

[Anonymous Coward]

@Anonymous Coward

"of not outright illiterate?" --> "if not outright illiterate?"

[Andy Hards]

@ the anon coward

So, being bad at spelling and grammar means you'll likely be unable to feed yourself? Get over yourself. Some people can't be arsed to capitalize or punctuate. When I'm using my mobile to post on some sites I can't be arsed to capitalize as after a full stop it doesn't do it automatically. Some are just bad at spelling. It does not really matter. I, and nearly everyone else knew what was meant, which is the only thing that matters. Get a life!

[Zmodem]

@dave

im a binman, i dont even know what a zmodem is

[W]

@ AC @ Zmodem

How can you be sure that Zmodem isn't dyslexic?

I'm a strong spelling/grammar advocate, but I'm not a fully signed up to the grammar police.

[Zmodem]

meh

most comments are done using my phone. and most people skip words and grammer. its worse in code comments

[Anonymous Coward]

All religion is bullshit

Ban religion, legalize drugs.

[Anonymous Coward]

@religion is bullshit

"Ban religion, legalize drugs".

but religion is the opiate of the people!

[gonnet]

The cult is a commercial enterprise, what else?

So, if the cult is unsatisfied that its lies ("called ads by google) lead people to click on its adwords, it should cease to buy tons of adwords without the least relationship with its fraudulous scam.

Do you imagine Google swelling adwords to drug dealers or maffiosi? I don't. But scientology is very dangerous too, so...

[Lukin Brewer]

Depends what country they're in.

IIRC, the Church of Scientology obtained court judgements in the US and other countries, giving them the status of a bona fide religion, with all the perks associated with it. Therefore, a US corporation (like Google) should treat their message as religious content, which is banned from AdWords under Google's own rules.

"Religion is the opiate of the people." - Lenin

"Crap. I went to church once, no buzz at all." - Neil (Young Ones)

"Well, he should have gone to high mass." - John Salmon (DEC VAX System Manager)

[Anonymous Coward]

@people commenting on "At least the Abrahamic faiths are plausible"

I read the whole post, the follow up line is "if a load of horse shit".

I think the plausible thing is a reasonable observation. My little thought experiment - take someone (even an alien) who hasn't really been exposed to either. Assume that they are sentient (and have an IQ above 50ish), moderately sane, open-minded and willing to listen. Explain the basic root premises of the Abrahamic faiths and Scientology, giving each an equal level of eloquence and time.

Finally, ask them which is more plausible. I'm willing to bet it won't be Scientology.

However, I must take issue with the horse-shit comparison. The Abrahamic faiths are a lot less useful (ask my roses), and make a lot less sense (ask the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Yoda or the Pink Unicorn)

[William]

@AC

"It's no wonder I've never promoted an IT guy above their entry level."

I wasn't aware the unemployed had this power!

[Lupus]

@ AC 19:04

"but religion is the opiate of the people!"

No, opium is the opiate of the people.

[elderlybloke]

Lazy

It seems that some of the IT mob think that poor communication skills are unimportant .

An employer would also almost certainly consider that such a lazy , can't be bothered worker is not suitable for promotion.

[aludal]

stale story: Non olet!

My blog (www-dot-goolocalizations-dot-blogspot-dot-com) was inundated with male enhancement, cheap Viagra, Scientology, get-rich-quick, and other garbage ads served by Google as a response to my observations of Google's linguistic incompetence. That was in October-November 2005.

After I complained about the practice, my account was blocked, then deleted, and my AdCents earnings (ca. $140 in all) were taken back to Google vaults.

However, my dead blog is hanging out there still, so everyone can check what usage can get one spanked hard by Google

[Anonymous Coward]

What's not clear?

"It's worth noting that Google's new AdSense policies say that partner sites may not include "advocacy against any individual, group, or organization." But it's unclear how often Google actually enforces this."

It seems very clear: Every time the group or organization being advocated against pays Google more money than the group doing the advocating.

If you have a problem with a site advocating against you and they have an AdSense account sign up and an advertiser, pay the system to plaster their site with your point of view then as soon as you make more money for Google than they do get Google to cut them off at the knees, probably voiding any payments from you to them in the bargain.

[David Reynolds]

AdWords / Google are hypocrits

So their own rules prohibit advertising religion, and rightly so, that would make them hypocrits.

Most companies have some kind of ethical basis of doing business, it may not be up to the standard of most people's idea of ethics but generally they have rules that govern how they run.

It is obvious that Adwords are so unethical that they ignore their own rules for the sake of a profit; they must have received a lot of blood money from the cult to do this.

[Gordon Pryra]

@AC

"Why is it that these days IT people are functionally illiterate"

F7

[Dr Patrick J R Harkin]

Fantastic!

In less than 50 postings we've completely lost the trivial Google/Scientology censorship debate and we're back on the vitally important "my speling and grammers gooder than youre's" debate again.

[Paul]

@Dr Patrick J R Harkin

And the "all religons sux anyways coz I read a book once that says im realy realy clever." debate.

[Anonymous Coward]

@W

>How can you be sure that Zmodem isn't dyslexic?

Do dyslexics have problems with rules like capitalising the first letter of sentences?

How do they cope with programming languages? Compilers are even more pedantic than the Nazi IT boss above.

@AC

>It's no wonder I've never promoted an IT guy above their entry level.

Presumably the good ones go work elsewhere. Have you considered that you may be failing to hire and retain the better staff? If that is the case then the problem is likely to be with the person who hires and manages the staff. They appear to have hired poor staff, produced an environment where no-one can be arsed with the job, and where the good ones leave because they have no hope of promotion. In short, sack the manager.

[Paul Donnelly]

Street Sweepers eh?

Right, well. I'm particularly unimpressed with the AC who wrote the following quotation above.

"Yeah, I am sure road sweepers don't need the services of IT professionals too often, oh you missed a bit :)"

I am an IT professional for one of the largest waste management companies in the world, and I am perfectly capable of writing a gramatically correct, well spelled sentence, one of the few here who can it seems. I resent the implication that the road sweepers would have any less requirement for a competent manager of systems that someone who, say, ran computers for the "Church of Scientology". I am also quite aware that the gents who collect the rubbish and sweep the streets have a far better sense of humour than the average office worker, and can wax lyrical quite eloquently on a number of subjects.

As mentioned just above, this is the crux of the matter. We've degenerated to the point of petty bickering, when we should be standing shoulder to shoulder carrying pitchforks, flaming torches, and pickaxes, seeking out the Scientologists, and banishing them to some remote island where their idiocy cannot spread further. I wonder if Travolta and Cruise are having a bidding war to see who can become Pope of the Nutters.. oh sorry, Scientologists.

Mine's the hi-vis.

[Anonymous Coward]

But all religions

are the last refuge of the feeble minded

[Anonymous Coward]

@Paul Donnelly : Pitchforks.

This is the worst thing you can do while attempting to stop a religion, persecution is their very lifeblood.

[Cube-Dwelling Mouse Jockey]

I hereby invoke Godwin's Law

Scientology is just like Nazi Germany, just slower and more stupid....

[Peyton]

wootz for comment thread derailment

But if I may be so bold as to comment on the AdWords issue... this seems like a trivial and obvious way to harm *any* rival businesses - not just some nutter cult and its antagonists. It seems like Google would have to have some sort of appeals process in place for this... or will have to in the future as competitors resort to these tactics. Hmph, and I used to think Google was so proactively smart too.

Now to throw some fuel on the religious fire, for those that can't distinguish Scientology from the more mainstream... in at least one Abramahic religion you have a man saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change... really not all that unfathomable (well at least in the States, can't speak for the UK). And then for the other you have alien spirits trapped on Earth millions of years ago by Xenu (which really doesn't even make for good science fiction if you ask me). Well, glad to clear that up ;)

[Anonymous Coward]

@Peyton

So for a religion to be valid it has to follow the Abrahamic model?

I suspect such vague descriptions of Hinduism(?) religion would sound like dodgy sci-fi and no-one is saying Hinduism is invalid as a religion.

There are many religions where the followers believe in spirits in all sorts of objects, they're still religions. Animism (which wikipedia bizarrely tries to claim isn't a religion) and ancestor worship don't follow the Judaic model either. You can't decry someone's beliefs as invalid simply because they're culturally distinct from you. You can say it's a load of bollocks, but to deny their belief in it and by extension their right to practice it, is just rude.

That's put Peyton in his place.

[Daniel]

It reminds me of a quote I found a while back...

"Going to war over religion is like fighting over who has the best imaginary friend"

Oh and as for grammar in the work place... This isn't a job application form, it's a comments section. Aslong as it is legible then I don't see why so many people have a problem.

... I once knew a guy called Xenu... He had a funny shaped head.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not surprised

It's not unusual for Google to display inappropriate ads... I once was showing my daughter pictures from a Anorexia support website, and the google ads where all for weight loss programs. It doesn't really get much more inappropriate than that.

As far as I'm concerned, Google has no moral compass. Doing no evil appears easy if your conscience doesn't class anything as evil

[rhill]

I google "anonymous"...

... and was served a Scientology ad:

Truth About Scientology

Learn about beliefs, humanitarian

efforts & more. Watch online videos

Scientology.org

Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pay attention at the back

Stop fucking around, you lot. This is a top class opportunity to concoct a chillingly plausible conspiracy theory:

The Church of Scientology has bought keywords like "for teh lulz", "epic win", "Anonymous", "Chanology", and "rickroll" in the knowledge that their advertisements will turn up on Anonymous websites.

Plan A: complain to Google that their customers are breaching T&Cs with "advocacy against [an] individual, group, or organization", viz: themselves. If this doesn't work, switch to Plan B: Get the Sea Org cadets to spend eighteen-hour days bumping these links up across the Click Fraud threshold.

If the only way Anonymous websites can pay for bandwidth is through advertising, this becomes an effective way to take them offline without bothering to sue the sites' owners. After all, they are Fair Game.

Proceed.