Google Clamps Down On Scam Advertisers

In a positive movement for the health of the internet and the wallets of the general public, Google has announced that it will ban from adsense advertisers who propagate adverts linked to scams like the infamous teeth whitening scam and acai berry scams.

In recent months the internet has become clogged up with ads perhaps even more distasteful than the average Evony ‘cleavage ad.’ These ads cover a range of topics from the aforementioned teeth whitening to scam stretch mark removal products, work from home scams and dodgy fitness supplements.

All of these ‘products’ work in the same way. They present themselves through fake blogs which give fake reviews and they offer a free trial that turns out to be anything but. If you are unwise to sign up for these ‘free’ trials you automatically sign yourself up for anywhere between $80 to $90 per month of charges for products you don’t want.

Want to cancel your order? Or course you do, but the scam companies then make it as hard as they possibly can to do this, resorting to providing you with fake or no contact details, putting you on hold when you call or just flat-out ignoring you. The really smart scams make you sign up for two scam products at once, doubling the amount they can steal from you!

These ads have been so successful in part because of the recession and their ability to get extensive ad space on large websites, including our own beloved hubpages. Recently it seems to me like every page on hubpages is advertising the same scam products, regardless of the content of the actual hub!

Now Google have said that they will ban from adsense advertisers who promote these scam products. Previously, Google would only ban individual ads that violated its adsense content standards. A quick tweak and a newly-cloned website, and these scam adverts would be back in circulation to scam the next bunch of unwary consumers. By having multiple ads and pages at once it was possible to keep the whole sordid machine going even if Google did get around to policing the ads.

Now, however, Google has put its ‘Do No Evil’ boot down on the advertisers themselves. This should make it more difficult for the scammers as they won’t be able to change-up so quickly between ads, if at all.

While this is great news for consumers, don’t expect these ads to disappear anytime soon. Google is a big company with enough financial clout to take a stand against the scammers but smaller ad networks and websites can’t afford to (or don’t want to) make such a sacrifice. Moreover, through its adsense network, Google delivers primarily text-based ads, whilst other networks can be more reliant on the picture ads which appeal to your average scammer.

The upshot is a small victory for the ordinary web user but there is still a need to be vigilant. As always, if it looks to good to be true, it definitely is.