The other day I posted about Adsense and its nonsense agreement (Terms of Service) with publishers and today I am discussing the business practice of Adsense in general.
The issues I have with Adsense highlighted to me that Google controls the distribution, market, and rules of the online ad market via Adsense. This isn’t a shock to most web heads, but to traditonalists (the ’suits’) that are not part of the web surely this must sound a bit odd. There are a few examples of this in business, they are usually called Monopolies, Duopolies, verticle conglomerates, etc and no one likes dealing with these organisations.
What we really need is an ad market that connects buyers and sellers. A place where buyers and sellers are equal and subject to supply and demand. Maybe this is a market for eBay? No. Yes. All purchased ads would be based upon click and action (Google is beta testing this now) so that neither party need worry about fraud, number of impressions, or even the type of content their ads were being viewed on.
The key however is the open and transparent exchange between buyer and seller.
Does this exist for the ad industry? I don’t think it does. At least I haven’t come across it. If you know about such service I would love to hear about it, because if I decide to put ads on my site I want my cut of the revenue and I want to have it agreed in transparent and verifiable way.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Terry 07.12.06 at 8:23 pm
Yes, it appears a monolopy, but as long all parties involved are making money we won’t see any serious complaining at the top end.
Look at the company (ies) that sued Google for the click fraud mess. They asked to be repaid in Adwords credit.
The only way I see change being made to the Google TOS is when their contextual ad competitors start infringing on their market share (lions share)
-Terry
Terry 07.12.06 at 9:23 pm
Yes, it appears a monolopy, but as long all parties involved are making money we won't see any serious complaining at the top end.
Look at the company (ies) that sued Google for the click fraud mess. They asked to be repaid in Adwords credit.
The only way I see change being made to the Google TOS is when their contextual ad competitors start infringing on their market share (lions share)
-Terry
Roger Kondrat 07.12.06 at 11:50 pm
Hi Terry,
I agree 100% with what you are saying. In the end the system will change when the users demand it e.g. advertisers feel their ROI is in danger of becoming IOU.
By the way I like your site and have just put it in my feedreader and bloglines.
Roger
Roger Kondrat 07.13.06 at 12:50 am
Hi Terry,
I agree 100% with what you are saying. In the end the system will change when the users demand it e.g. advertisers feel their ROI is in danger of becoming IOU.
By the way I like your site and have just put it in my feedreader and bloglines.
Roger