Google cut off a website's revenue because of something in an article's comments from six years ago
Google had stopped serving ads to his site, Fark.com, for weeks because it had accused the site of hosting pedophile content.
Fark is an 18-year-old website where people share and chat about oddball news stories after writing funny, alternative headlines for them. It's like a sarcastic Reddit.
Curtis said that the snafu with Google caused him "a huge financial hit" last fall.
The source of the shut-down was a picture of a young woman in a low-cut shirt smiling in an arguably come-hither way that a reader posted in the comments sections six years ago. That photo has some history. It was once, apparently, used as evidence for a man arrested on pedophile charges but later the actress who posed for it testified she was 19-years-old at the time, Curtis says.
The problem, however, wasn't the photo itself, Curtis told Business Insider. After many back-and-forths with Google, "I got clarification on it. The photo had the 'pedobear' logo. Turns out, that's a definite no-no," he says. "I understand moderating for content. But we didn't even know to look for it."
Ain't no joke
The infamous "pedobear" logo is an internet joke of sorts that some internet users will attach to images, videos and content they deem overly suggestive of child pornography.
Although the pedobear started as a joke, child abuse law enforcement projects now view it like an emblem, a secret Internet handshake, that calls attention to illegal pedophile content.
Google would not comment on the Fark incident, except to generally say that if a publisher is found in violation of its policies, yes it could suspend ads, not just on that page, but the whole site. A spokesperson told us (emphasis ours):
"We have an existing set of publisher policies that govern where Google ads may be placed in order to protect users from harmful, misleading or inappropriate content. We enforce these policies vigorously, and taking action may include suspending ads on their site. Publishers can appeal these actions."
In general, Google won't serve ads on porn, or on pages that show or promote illegal activity. Google has a page where it offers some pretty explicit explanations on what it considers to be porn and, naturally, child porn is expressly forbidden.
That includes any obvious depictions involving the horrific crime. But what tripped Fark up was this part:
"Pedophilia is any content or behavior (images, texts, videos, etc.) that depicts, encourages, or promotes sexual attraction by adults toward minors (i.e., under 18)."
Turns out, even if a website has never heard of the pedobear logo, if Google finds it in the comments, it can shut off ads to the site. That's because Google holds publishers responsible for comments, too, its policies say.
Google's double effect
Curtis tells us he has no issue with Google's policies, although he was frustrated by how hard it was to reach Google's policy violations people after ads were turned off.
Although it's not the only network he uses to automatically serve ads to his website, Google is so huge, that when it stopped serving ads, the prices his website got from the other advertising auction networks bottomed out.
"We lost double revenue. Although, we have other revenue networks that continued to run, Google brings in most that revenue. So we lost that. And when you have such a huge bidder drop out of system, than all the others bids are lower," he says.
And, there's nothing he can do about it.
"Taking [Google ads] out is statistically impossible," he says. "If I could do that I would."
He can't even just move to Facebook, he says, because no one he knows has successfully dropped Google for Facebook. "I would do Facebook instead [of Google]. No one says it sucks, but no one says you've got to go get this right now."
And it has led him back to the future. Fark began as a strictly subscription-based service. As his site grew, he turned to ads to help grow revenue. The experience of losing Google ads temporarily (Google eventually restored ads to the site) has led Curtis to become a big advocate for subscriptions.
Out of his 1 million readers, he needs 1% more of them, 10,000, to subscribe just to get him out of financial hole created when Google blocked him, he says. In the weeks since made his pleas, about 2,000 people have signed up.
He is hopeful that subscriptions will become more popular with readers. Thanks to the political situation, subscriptions to newspapers like the New York Times are up. He's asking everyone to pony up, if not to Fark, then elsewhere.
"If you've got $20 a month to spare, go subscribe to your favorite four sites, that money means a lot to the publishers," he advocates.