AdSense: Google Updates terms and conditions

26 02 2008

Google have updated their AdSense terms and conditions.

They have updated 2 sections:

  • Future products and features
  • Privacy requirements

The first one is about terms used in TOS. They were updated to make them applicable “across a broader array of media and formats anticipating, that future products may be priced, paid, or managed differently than current ones“.

Google with this move confirm that new tools will be soon available for all webmasters including some tools in strictly beta stages. We can speculate that the last ones will be initially reserved for just a little group of testers as we have already seen with Google Referrals. In their announcement they explicit talk about Gadget Ads

The second one is the the most important because is related to new rules you have to respect to comply with AdSense TOS.

Publishers must notify their users of the use of cookies and/or web beacons to collect data in the ad serving process. This change relates to advertiser’s use of innovative products and features like Gadget Ads and other offerings in the future.

The new TOS must be accepted before 25 May of 2008 or you will not be able to use your account

You can read the complete announcement here and the new TOS here

Also Google after accepting the new TOS will request you to merge your current AdSense account with a Google Account. You can select during the merge if you will personally use the new account or if you will share it with others. This is a strong signal to all webmasters to create a central Google account for all their tools: AdSense, AdWords, WebMaster Tools and Analytics.

How to comply?

Google needs to specify if we have to create just one page will all the infos they request:

1) Informations about Cookies

2) How you can remove them

or if we need to post these informations on all the pages, which, in some cases, is an incredible amount of work.

For now we can just suggest you to create a page or a footer note with informations about cookies and how you can generally remove them.

In any case write a disclaimer about some “cookies” which collect “data” inside all the pages will scare a lot of visitors, that is for sure.



Ten things a Linux fanboy will not tell you…

8 02 2008

Yes, everyone has a friend who is a Linux Fanboy; he keep saying as a slogans dispenser:

“Linux is good, Linux is stable, Linux is cool”, but there is a dark side…

If you will install Linux:

10) You will lose all your athletic abilities

09) You new God will be Linus Torvalds and He request to burn [in flames] a copy of Windows every first Monday of April at Midnight

08) You will sell your High-End, Uber-Powered PC to buy an 8088 machine because “Linux don’t need a fast computer!”

07) You will stay 10 hours a day on the web writing phrases like: “Microsoft is the Devil”, “Linux is free as in beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer”

06) You will be fired because OpenOffice will not open your Boss’s presentation during an Intergalactic meeting

05) You will lose 10 days of your life to configure Wine just to play a game which under Windows requested 2 clicks and yes, it will lose frames.

04) You will try 10^10 Linux distributions and in the meantime you will use Windows to have some work done

03) You will buy again your High-End PC spending 10 times more because you have installed Gentoo and you need to recompile all-the-sources-in-the-universe

02) Your electricity bill will jump to new highs because you can’t be owned by that guy on irc on uptime!

01) After 5 years without a real-life you will understand that BSDs are better!

Just kidding… or not