Google fights scam ads, Clark talks his Google ad policy

Google continues its fight against scam ads in what’s shaping up to be a never-ending game of Whack A Mole.

The search giant’s latest figures show they disapproved 134 million ads last year, a figure that’s up from 25 million in 2008. But the real problem is that as soon as they remove one bad ad from the system, the same scam artists behind the bogus ads quickly come up with others.

“We find that there are relatively few malicious players, who make multiple attempts to bypass our defenses to defraud users,” Google’s David W. Baker, Director of Engineering, Advertising, wrote in a recent blog post. “As we get better and faster at catching these advertisers, they redouble their efforts and create more accounts at an even faster rate.”

I continue to hear from clark.com users who think that when they see a Google ad fed to the pages on my website, it somehow equates to an endorsement from me. That’s not the case — I don’t do paid endorsements, ever. You will see those same Google ads anywhere you surf, so I want you to know how it works.

Google automatically feeds rotating ads to pages based on the actual content of the page you’re looking at, and/or any terms you may be searching.

Do not assume any Google ad you see on my site (or any site, for that matter) has been vetted, approved or recommended in any way. It has not been.

Even though the Google ads are disclaimed as “Advertisements”, not everyone reads carefully or notices this disclaimer. Most ads are on the up-and-up, and may even be useful links to products and services that would interest you — but there will always be some bad eggs out there.

As you would anywhere on the web, surf with caution!

Editor’s note: This segment originally aired June 6.