Since 1997, I've run a music review website called Satan Stole My Teddybear. It covers heavy metal, punk, industrial and other niche music and has a small following of readers, at one time topping out at 100,000 unique visitors a month. A few years ago, I finally put Google Ads onto my site to generate a little income and for awhile, it was nice to have a few hundred bucks a year. However, ad revenue has decreased substantially in the few months and many advertisers had nothing to do with the content of my site. But Google Ads crossed the line the other day as seen in this screen shot a friend sent me:
I immediately added the ad's website to my blocked advertiser list, but the mere fact that Google Ad's system placed this hateful, bigoted website's ad on MY site has enraged me. Although my site is about silly Norwegian metal bands who like to wear panda bear facepaint and sing about Cthulu, I absolutely do not want anyone associating my site with hateful legislation such as Prop 8.
As of this morning, I will be going through the trouble of canceling my Google Ads account and replacing that adspace with a message:
"Google Ads placed Pro Proposition 8 ad on my site without my consent. I have subsequently cancelled my account with them as my site does not condone hatred and bigotry."
I may modify my statement a bit, but I will let all my readers know that I will not tolerate my site being used to advertise hatred. I will be letting Google's Adsense team know that this one advertisement is why I will not be allowing their company to generate revenue through my website.
For anyone who has Google Adsense, please be on the lookout for political ads that may go against your website content. Google's supposed targeted ad campaigns that are tailored to your specific website content is failing. It was nice to have the extra money from the ads, but I'd rather chop wood for minimum wage than allow my website to host such garbage.