Online Advertising

[Teneth]

Hello,

Do you think there are any moral issues with making money off of ads on your website that you can’t completely control? One of the most popular ad networks is google adsense. You put it on your page and it automatically displays ads (based on your content I think). Now I think you can filter out clearly immoral ads (such as sex-based ads, and possibly some other categories) but you can’t completely control it. So it seems relatively safe but there is always the possibility of some morally questionable material getting through. I guess I’m always worried about things like this because I’m profiting off the ads. Anyways thanks for listening,

Thanks,
-Teneth

 

[Joe_5859]

Hello,

Do you think there are any moral issues with making money off of ads on your website that you can’t completely control? One of the most popular ad networks is google adsense. You put it on your page and it automatically displays ads (based on your content I think). Now I think you can filter out clearly immoral ads (such as sex-based ads, and possibly some other categories) but you can’t completely control it. So it seems relatively safe but there is always the possibility of some morally questionable material getting through. I guess I’m always worried about things like this because I’m profiting off the ads. Anyways thanks for listening,

Thanks,
-Teneth

No system is going to be perfect, so there’s bound to be stuff that slips by. Doesn’t Google Adsense allow you to individually report and block specific advertisers that might slip by? Perhaps I am mistaken, but that’s what I thought.

 

[Jared2914]

I think you would only be at fault if there is a better alternative which has no questionable material. In my experience, Google is pretty good about putting appropriate ads with the content. I could see some ads not consistent with Church teaching appearing though. For example, if you wrote an article about the Church’s teaching on homosexuality, ads might appear for immoral products targeted at homosexuals.

In this case you can block the specific ad from appearing on your website, but new ads are created every day. That can make it hard to keep up if there are a lot of them. However, you can put a form on your website for people to report bad ads. Usually, a short description with the ad link (copy link location) will be enough, but you can also have the user submit a screenshot of the ad. Let your community help you clean things up.

 

[Teneth]

Hm yes, thank you for your replies. I have researched other options and there could be options I have more control over but they seem hard to find. If my page ever had a ton of views then I think I can sell advertising space more selectively but if I only have small or moderate views, I think it can be hard. However, other possibilities might exist… Thanks,

-Teneth