A new report published by the cheap jordans University of Southern California’s Annenberg Innovation Lab ranks the top ten online ad networks in terms of the number of ads placed on pirate websites, and to just about nobody’s surprise who has ever worked on an anti-piracy campaign, Google’s Double Click network and Yahoo’s Right Media chime in at numbers two and six on the list, respectively.
In comments given to the L.A. Times, an unidentified Google representative took umbrage with the report’s conclusion.
“To the extent [the study] suggests that Google ads are a major source of funds for major pirate sites, we believe it is mistaken,” the Google spokesperson said, according to the Times. “Over the past several years, we’ve taken a leadership role in this fight. The complexity of online advertising has led some to conclude, incorrectly, that the mere presence of any Google code on a site means financial support from Google.”
As I understand it, websites that display ads distributed by the Double Click network do, in fact, receive payment for displaying those ads, so it’s a little hard to understand how the “mere presence” of that particular type of Google code could represent anything other than financial support from Google.
Google can claim it doesn’t intend to support piracy sites through its ad network, or it can claim that allowing such sites to participate in Double Click does not constitute “support” for those sites, even if those sites earn money through the ad program, and perhaps have a valid point. At the end of the day, though, it’s hard to get around the fact that some of the very same websites that Google itself reports receiving the highest volume of DMCA take-down notices in relation to also carry Double Click ads on them.
Bottom line to all our friends at Google: Go ahead and call this sort of thing an unfortunate and inevitable byproduct of the Internet advertising environment, or say that you are giving such sites a healthy portion of “benefit of the doubt” with respect to claims that they willfully violate copyright and other intellectual property laws…. but don’t piss on our shoes and tell us it’s raining.http://www.stockxsale.co.uk
