Google in shock 'we serve ads' claim

Google has re-labeled its ads. It now calls them ads. On English language Google domains, the company's search ads are no longer labeled as "sponsored links," as they have been for roughly a decade. Instead, Google has made the shocking decision to call them what they are: Google ads labeled as an ad Google ad labeled as an …

[Graham Marsden]

In other news...

... oh I really can't be bothered...

[goldcd]

Somebody with a bigger calculator and more time on their hands than me

should write some pointless piece demonstrating the energy saving of delivering 3 less characters to a screen, on every page google has an ad block on, for every click to that page.

[ilikejam]

Bandwidth

mod_pagespeed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Still blocked by my adblocker

so I'm going to go ahead and file this under "Big Whoop"

[Kar98]

It's OK...

I didn't see them anyway. OptimizeGoogle plug-in FTW.

[Mike007]

text links are bad, flash ads are great

the previous wording limits them to text links

are google going to start sticking resource hogging flash ads like some *cough* *cough* sites do to prevent people from opening multiple tabs? perhaps they can even stick some random noises in there at full volume for good measure? (thanks TPB for forcing me to install an ad blocker with those ads, it has made my web browsing experience so much better)

[Wize]

Its all those big flashy adverts...

...that made me install an advert blocker in the first place. I probably wouldn't have bothered if it wasn't for the noise, flashing graphics or their attempt to take over the whole page when moused over.

[Anonymous Coward]

The previous posters are correct

It IS all about bandwidth. They're also changing their motto to "Do Evil" which is nearer to their actual motto of "We're rich enough to do whatever we want and people will probably still love us"

[JC 2]

@ The previous posters...

The difference in bandwidth for their operation will be trivial. Merely implementing their Google Instant Search feature by default shows they have no qualms about gobbling bandwidth.

[the old rang]

A little reality check

Before you understand that 'they' can call ads ads...

keep in mind how many of the 'advert companies' are OWNED by Google...

Start with DoubleClick

[J.G.Harston]

Subtract?

Should at least say "Advert" not "Ad".

[BillG]

Shorter

"sponsored link" is 14 characters and is easy to see what it is. You can't mistake it for advertising.

"Ad" is a scant 2 characters and so is easy to miss. You might click on the, uh, Ad and not know that is is a, um, sponsored link.

"Ad" is an ironic way of hiding that it's an Ad.

[Bob 18]

El Reg?

I see that El Reg still uses "SPONSORED LINKS". Ahh, what seemed so avant garde just yesterday now seems passe.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be happy when

Instead of returning a bunch of links that look like they are what you are searching for, but are in fact some other shopping site that recognises what you are looking but have no stock of said item, they label them all "bait and switch".

[Norm DePlume]

What next?

Honesty in advertising?