Google AdSense

There's been a lot of chatter in the blogs I read about Google AdSense. Apparently some folks have made good money from it. Although it was hard to tell, I did have some Google ads at the bottom of the page of this blog. But after reading this post from PCPitStop, one of my favorite sites for checking out my computer's performance, I decided I don't want to participate in AdSense any more. Not that Google will care, of course. But I do.

Here's a quote:

Google has a squeaky clean reputation for "being nice", staying clear of the dirty doings of web hucksters that push adware, spyware, and other worthless products. But does it deserve that clean reputation? Google Adwords advertising has become a favorite of scumballs looking for their next victims. Google must surely be aware of the problem, yet it has done nothing to stop it. PC Pitstop users have been bitten by Adwords and they let us know about it in no uncertain terms. How long before Google Adwords become synonymous with scams, ruining what Google pioneered?

Ads for blogs is an interesting topic. More and more blogs have them. And more and more will have them. One thing I liked about the Google ads was that you could choose to have the text ads, instead of obnoxious, flashing, focus-destroying ads. Another blog I read, Boing Boing, has started putting ads in their RSS feed. And even though they're text ads, I can't stand them, so I took them out of my aggregator. I find it very intrusive to have an ad after every post -- especially when the post is only a few lines. I still read the blog, but I read it from the site, when I think of it, and with images turned off. Not that they care. But I do.