When I announced the release of Problogger Clean, a WordPress theme with some exciting features regarding Adsense, a reader commented that one of these features would probably constitute a violation of Adsense Terms of Use.
Indeed, "Adsense Click Safety" is a toggable option that modifies Adsense code on the fly when you are viewing your own blog, so that a test account is used to display ads. Therefore, any accidental click on your own ads is not recorded and not counted as fraudulent. I consider this a safety bonus that could even help in some extent reduce click fraud. On the other hand, Adsense TOS clearly mention that any modification of the javascript code they provide is prohibited.
So, I simply asked Google for an official statement over my Adsense Click Safety. Here is their answer. Or lack thereof :)
Hello Ozh,
Thanks for your email. While Google encourages third party software development, it is our policy not to endorse any specific product at this time. We're therefore not able to comment specifically on the software you've noted.
However, we recommend that you read through the AdSense Terms and Conditions (https://www.google.com/adsense/terms ) to ensure that your software is not in violation of any of our policies. You may also wish to review Google's Software Principles, found here: http://www.google.com/corporate/software_principles.html
Basically, you understand this answer does not change a lot the way I see things.
Let me make things clear : this feature is a TOS violation. However, I have the strong feeling that breaking TOS with no side effect, but reducing click fraud you might generate, is not very questionable, while accidentally click on one of your own ads is probably much more likely to get you in trouble. I can easily imagine Google banning someone from their Adsense program because of the latter problem, not because of the first one.
In other words : use at your own risk :)
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[…] This WordPress theme has afeature called the Adsense Click Safety (so you don't click your own ads while working on your blog). Some have had concerns that this may violate Google Adsense TOS. Click here to read Googles reply to the creators question. […]
Alright, well somehow I've stumbled onto a slightly open topic search result. While you have me here though, has this software been updated? The linked site is unavailable.
Robert » The "Problogger Clean" theme you mean? Unfortunately, no. I've talked about it some time ago with Tim Yang (the guy who did the CSS & styling) and he said he would be back up online sometime, but he might be dead as well. I think I will republish the theme here some day.
[…] AdSense Click Safety. The idea is to prevent you from click on your own ads. The plugin replaces your publisher id to something else (which is not yours) and thus should you accidentally click on the ads, it will not be counted as yours. This is not good for you as AdSense said that you can’t modify your ad code. […]
[…] This WordPress themehas a feature called the Adsense Click Safety (so you don’t click your own ads while working on your blog). Some have had concerns that this may violate Google Adsense TOS. Click here to read Googles reply to the developers question. […]
[…] This WordPress themehas a feature called the Adsense Click Safety (so you don’t click your own ads while working on your blog). Some have had concerns that this may violate Google Adsense TOS. Click here to read Googles reply to the developers question. […]
[…] This WordPress themehas a feature called the Adsense Click Safety (so you don’t click your own ads while working on your blog). Some have had concerns that this may violate Google Adsense TOS. Click here to read Googles reply to the developers question. […]