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Thursday, April 8, 2010

GoogleAds Strikes Again

There are a lot of stories about GoogleAds (which throws up ads based on context of the web page, but which has done things like put ads for Muslim matchmaking services on Islamophobic sites and the like). It may vary from page load to page load, so linking doesn't work, but a screen capture does.

Today's BBC reporting on Kyrgyzstan has included headlines about "chaos," uncertainty, confusion, looting, and the like, and on several occasions has also displayed this ad:
I wonder if they're getting a lot of clicks. It is well timed for students looking for something different to do on spring break.
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5 comments:

  1. JillianTuesday, April 13, 2010 at 2:30:00 PM EDT

    Ad won't display...

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  2. Michael Collins DunnTuesday, April 13, 2010 at 2:34:00 PM EDT

    I've had one other complaint of the ad not displaying, via e-mail. I can see it in Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Chrome, all on PCs. Since I can't replicate the problem, I can't guess how to fix it.

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  3. JillianTuesday, April 13, 2010 at 2:37:00 PM EDT

    Very strange! I'm working on FF 3.6 on a PC, for what it's worth.

    ReplyDelete
  4. JillianTuesday, April 13, 2010 at 2:46:00 PM EDT

    Got it on the iPhone anyway. Certainly seems like odd timing on Google Ads' part.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Michael Collins DunnTuesday, April 13, 2010 at 7:21:00 PM EDT

    A colleague suggests a theory on why some people can't see it. I named the .jpg "googlead" and it's possible some adblockers are reading it as an ad, though that's just a guess. If a blocker is that sensitive I'd think it would block any word with the letter's "ad" together in it.

    ReplyDelete