Gold farming adds for WoW/Warhammer

[Mr. Wilson]

I've noticed that you have adds running for a site entitled, forsaken-farmers, which advertise gold selling/levelling in the WoW/Warhammer along the "Visit Our Sponsors" side adds.

I wish I wasn't at work so I could take screen shots, but is this kosher with EnWorld or did it slip in amongst other add packages?

edit note: Since posting this I'll add Epic-MMO along the top and Speebie in the side adds.

 

[Merkuri]

Yeah, I was gonna say something about those, too. I was under the impression (though couldn't find anything to back me up) that Blizzard does not condone selling WoW accounts or WoW gold, and I feel like EN World probably shouldn't sell advertising to these people.

Here's one of the ads that I saw.

 

[Blackrat]

The thing is, they seem to come through the Google Ads, which mostly puts out ads that seem to be relevant to the site. Since WoW gold farming sites are gaming related, they tend to pop out in sites like ENWorld. I don't know if there's really anything that could even be done to this, except for company owners to buy more ad impressions so that ENW doesn't need to rely on Google Ads...

 

[Morrus]

They're Google ads - we don't have any control over them.

 

[Merkuri]

Hrm... I don't suppose Google Ads has any policies regarding this sort of thing, do they?

Edit: Or does anybody know if there's somebody at Blizzard we could report these sites to? Ultimately they're the ones most concerned with pulling them down.

 

[Blackrat]

Hrm... I don't suppose Google Ads has any policies regarding this sort of thing, do they?

No not really. I believe they have a "no porn" policy but that's about it.

 

[frankthedm]

No not really. I believe they have a "no porn" policy but that's about it.

Are those trashy FLYFF ads still making the rounds? This one http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/5417/whorishte3.png and the similarly attired ninja girl [with younger looking face] were not something I wanted on screen while at work...

 

[PaulofCthulhu]

Having run Google Ads previously, it is possible to configure your account to block ads from specific sites or using keywords. The issue can be that some advertisers can try to circumvent those with alternate descriptions or re-configured ads.

It's not easy. When running Google Ads we had complaints because extreme right-wing ads were managing to get through and the only sure way to stop them was to remove the Adsense ads completely.

It's unfortunately the case that in times of recession, advertising is one of the first areas to be hit when it's time to make cuts.

 

[Mr. Wilson]

I figured as much.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[CapnZapp]

Just because Blizzard doesn't like gold sellers doesn't make them illegal.

I support Google's (and ENWorld's) decision to not impose any special moral regulations on their advertisements.

Of course I've configured my browser to not display any ads at all, so take that opinion for what it's worth.