

All Adsense are now anti-SOPA - cloudwalking

I've noticed that all of the Adsense I'm seeing are anti-SOPA, rather than ad content. For example, see TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/
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cloudwalking
Here is a screenshot: <http://reedmorse.com/tmp/sopa-adwords.png>

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aw3c2
I have no idea what I am supposed to be looking at. What in that screenshot is
the important bit?

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ytadesse
What's also intriguing about aw3c2's message is how his/her question clearly
demonstrates how our brains have trained themselves to ignore banner ads.

I read TC every day and it took me a little bit before I realized that the
_huge_ banner ad at the top and the one on the right were a) there and b)
anti-SOPA.

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aw3c2
Cheers! I am actually a non-javascript plus adblocking person. That website is
really LOUD and obnoxious with so much contrast and huge text, I have no idea
what is content, what is not, what is important, what is RANDOM BIG WORDS.

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joelrunyon
Title should be changed to Adsense since it's only properties on the Google
Display network.

Also, a very possible explanation could be that they're only showing those ads
by targeting pages that show SOPA content. The display network is HUGE and it
would be a big ticket purchase for Google to buy-out the entire network
themselves (they still have to pay the sites). Are there any examples of this
showing up on non-tech, non-sopa related sites? If so, please include them. If
not, you're probably just seeing Google buy targeted ads around a subject
(SOPA) and paying for them on their own network. Not unheard of, as they've
done similar things with Chrome, etc

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chintan100
I dont see the same ads on TechCrunch in India. My guess is Google is running
an Adwords campaign in US to make people sign the petition. I have seen them
run campaigns for chrome, gmail etc. before.

Edit: I do see the ads on www.Wired.com though.

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dholowiski
Same here - I'm in Canada. No anti-sopa ads on techrunch but they are on
wired.

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TeMPOraL
And suddenly I can't recall any site that actually uses AdWords from the top
of my head, so that I could check if it's true :(. Any links to verify?

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doobie
I'm pretty sure Google search results included ads at one point in time. It's
been so long since AdBlock Plus came out I don't know if they still do.

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handzhiev
Not true, visit any random site, preferably non-tech. Most Adsense ads are
normal.

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sbisker
Click on any article on TechCrunch, and you'll see that they're not showing
the anti-SOPA ads against actual content pages. I'm guessing that they're only
doing this at the top level pages of these sites; possibly paying the sites
for the space themselves.

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tbod
Could this be 'remarketing'
<http://www.google.com/ads/innovations/remarketing.html>?

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creativeone
This is probably the right answer.

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cloudwalking
Not actually sure if this is true. I'm trying to find more websites that use
Adwords, but I don't actually know who uses which ad platform...

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dangrossman
They bought some ad space on tech blogs, that's all. I don't see SOPA-related
ads from Google on any other sites.

