Just a little note from the Overmaster

I signed up for the Google ad crap a while ago. I've already talked about how little I've made in that time, mostly due to that fact I have a readership I can count on one simpsonian hand. But apparently I'm breaking some kind of rule. Observe this email that just bounced into my inbox:

Hello,

While reviewing your account, we noticed that you are currently displaying Google ads in a manner that is not compliant with our policies. For instance, we found violations of AdSense policies on pages such as http://onlyzuul.blogspot.com/2005/10/selling-out.html

Publishers are not permitted to encourage users to click on Google ads or bring excessive attention to ad units. For example, your site cannot contain phrases such as “click the ads,” “support our sponsors,” “visit these recommended links,” or other similar language that could apply to the Google ads on your site. Publishers may not use arrows or other symbols to direct attention to the ads on their sites, and publishers may not label the Google ads with text other than “sponsored links” or “advertisements.”

Please make any necessary changes to your web pages in the next 72 hours. We also suggest that you take the time to review our program policies (https://www.google.com/adsense/policies) to ensure that all of your other pages are in compliance.

Once you update your site, we will automatically detect the changes and ad serving will not be affected. If you choose not to make the changes to your account within the next three days, your account will remain active but you will no longer be able to display ads on the site. Please note, however, that we may disable your account if further violations are found in the future.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

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To avoid the risk of having your account disabled for violation of AdSense policies, we recommend that publishers also review the important guidelines found here: https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=23921&ctx=en

So let me get this straight, we, the advertisers, are NOT supposed to encourage people to click the ads. I guess it's better that we merely ignore them and hope random site visitors come to my site and want to click on a link to buying red sox tickets.

I understand what Google is trying to do. They want to create a service that is devoid of fraud, where sites are paid by how much they actually contribute to an advertisers revenue. But come on, how does my little post violate anything? I'm not encouraging people to commit fraud, I just said if you're going to search, try to search from here.

Whatever, it's not like I'm really making any money with this program. I'm not going to change the post. I want to see how long it takes before they kick me out. Consider it a test of Google's merit. I'm performing due diligence as an educated consumer and you're all witnesses to it.

How does it feel to be a part of history?