Janni is surprised by 'our' ads
Just wanted to say I'm surprised to see the SmileyCentral ad (MyFunCards) on this page this morning. Seems a bit odd. I also want you to know, I love reading your rants. Thank you for all your informative content in your newsletters and web pages! I'd be lost without you guys! (JANNI)

Our answer
Thanks for sending your question and for your nice comments too!

Your favorite TV show that might have an advertisement running on it that you find offensive - or for a product which may not be of good quality. You probably wouldn't consider that advertisement to be part of the TV show you were watching, nor would you think that the TV show or network was actually endorsing or recommending the product or service being advertised.

Like a TV network, magazine, or newspaper, we run paid advertising that helps to support our Web sites. Most third-part ads on our sites are provided through Google's Adsense network.

All advertisements provided by Google are clearly labeled "Ads by Google" both above and below the advertisement. The advertisement for MyFunCards was not placed on our site by us. None of the  advertisements which appear in the space labeled "Ads by Google" were chosen by us and are not necessarily endorsed or recommended by us. This would be the same as your favorite TV show not being responsible for the content of the ads which appear during the show. We're all so used to TV ads that we know an advertisement when we see it.

Advertising is widely understood with television and other media advertising but for some reason people still, to some degree, assume that ads which run on a particular site are chosen, placed, recommended and/or endorsed by the site on which they appear. This is not true. There is no difference between us selling advertising space to Google than your favorite TV show or network selling space. Neither we nor TV shows, networks, magazines, newspapers, etc. are necessarily endorsing or recommending the products or services which are advertised. A company pays for an advertisement and it gets placed.

We have a site privacy policy which covers this in detail. There are links to our privacy policy on our main page and on other pages throughout the site. We hope everyone will take the time to read it. Just because Google (or another network agency) places advertisements on our site does not mean we recommend, use, or endorse the products or services advertised. Many times we don't know what is going to be advertised.

We do control the content to some extent. We have banned all ads from any network other than general audience ads. So you won't see any "adult" advertising or "R" rated ads on our site. Google does provide us tools and options to block certain advertisers. The problem with this is that the creators of SmileyCentral, MyFunCards, etc., FunWebProducts, has millions of dollars to spend on advertising and domain names.

They have spent a lot of that money to buy hundreds and hundreds of domain names. We tried to block 20 or 30 of their domain names, but they kept buying more and more domains to circumvent efforts of Web site owners like us, who want to keep FunWebProducts' ads off their sites. But, we were far too much time to keep up with all their domain names and all the new domains they kept buying. Finally we realized we were fighting a losing battle. With hundreds, perhaps thousands, of domain names, there is no way we could ever block them all.

The only other choice we would have to ensure that no FunWebProducts ads ever appear on our site would be to remove all Google ads. If we did this, we wouldn't be able to afford to operate our Web sites.

So, try to remember that as the Web matures it becomes another medium like all the others. The web started out as a curiosity but it grew up. Today 75% of all Americans have Internet access in their homes - and many of us cannot imagine a world without it. The more ubiquitous and mature the Web becomes the more it becomes like Television, radio, newspapers, and magazines. They're all supported by advertising - some of them are supported entirely by advertising. It's time we all started to look at the Web more like the medium it has become rather than the curiosity it used to be.