I was surprised to see an advert for Central Ticketing appearing in the ads at the bottom of the page today on this site.
From their website it is clear that they are involved in private ticket scams (there is even a photo of a yellow 'parking charge notice' on their site!), And the site's plethora of misplaced punctuation doesn't exactly inspire confidence in their professionalism.

Also advertising are National Parking Management, whose website carries some blatent lies, including :
Once a ticket is issued, it is the responsibility of the driver/keeper to forward payment within the time specified.
and :
Vehicles therefore parked in contravention of these conditions will accordingly, be issued with a PCN (Penalty Charge Notice).

Can we expect enquiries about scam tickets from this company to be censored?

Am I the only one concerned about PepiPoo accepting advertising from these people?

The ads are served by google. These a***holes aren't directly sponsoring us.

No your not.

I have stopped subscribing for the very same reason

Does Google have a complaints procedure for false advertising/illegal services (in particular the latter, claiming to be able to issue PCNs)?

I would like to know more of this. It would be a total insult to the many who give of their free time to fight these scammers if this site was in some way accepting or facilitating this type of advertising. What I would like to know is how the ads get there - does Google just select them randmly or has the site any say in subscribing for a service which enables ads to be placed (and receives payment for them). If the latter, then it is very poor form to say the least.

The google ads appear are random but they have relevance to the content of the site.

Fair enough but who agreed to put the Google Ads box there? If this was pepipoo then I have concerns. Naturally some of the ads would be for scammers. It wouldn't take Albert Einstein to work that one out.

Pepipoo get revenue from google based on the numbers of clicks the ads get. I have them on my sites and I am thinking of getting rid of them as they advertise my competitors sites.

From https://adwords.google.com/select/contentpolicy.html


How about Fake PCN's?

Rather surprised to see no mention of barring advertisements for illegal/fraudulent activities though... may still be worth a few complaints however....

A quick summary of how Adsense (the name Google uses for its programme that serves these ads) works, as some people here seem to be unclear about this:

Advertisers sign up with Google and select keywords they think are relevant to their advertising. Essentially they'll try to pick the words that you would type into a Google search box if you were interested in their services/products. For each keyword the advertiser decides the maximum they're willing to pay for clicks on their ad.

Publishers (websites like us) decide where on their pages they're willing to display ads, and their format (size/shape/colours), and put the bit of code there that fetches the ads from Google.

Google sends its spider to pages that display their ads, and decides what they think the content of the page is about. This is similar to their normal search engine spidering, but is specifically looking at pages that will carry their ads.

Google then decides which ads to display when a page is visited. It does this taking into account how relevant it thinks the advertiser's keywords are compared with the page content, how much the advertiser is willing to pay, and where in the world the reader's ISP is. Google then displays the ads it's selected in the box(es) the publisher's provided.

As you can see, we don't decide which ads are displayed or who the advertiser is. In fact we may never even see the same ad as you have, depending on which pages we each view and where in the world our ISPs are located.

This has some incidental advantages, for those concerned about potential conflicts of interest: it's very difficult for us to be conflicted when we don't even know what one of those interests is! The other point is that the Adsense programme is essentially based on "pay per click". With PPC the publisher doesn't get paid just because the ad's been displayed, only if the reader is interested enough in the advertiser's product/service to click on it and go to their website - and if you're reading the Parking Tickets forum here and see an ad for Central Ticketing (say) then you're hardly likely to be interested in their services and click their ad, are you?

What we can do (and Glacier2 may not be aware of this) is block ads based on their website address, and in fact we block a large number of sites along the lines of www.caughtspeeding-guaranteed2getyouoff.com. If you see an ad for a site that you think is inappropriate or a scam then let us know - if it is then we'll block it.

If you think that an ad is for a scam, for an illegal product or service, or in some other way violates Google's policies then you can also complain to Google. This is potentially more effective, as it could get the advertiser banned completely from Googles' ad programme. Their contact form is at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/request.py

Hi Fredd,

It's the same issue that I PM'd you about, really.

Nobody who cares about freedom of choice, human rights etc, should be using "google.con" in the first place. Only IMHO, of course.

Take a look at www.scroogle.org if you didn't bother last time I pointed it out, and think about it for a nanosecond.

Regards,

Wolfie

You're entitled to your opinion about Google, of course. It's not one that (in general) I share.

With regard to ads specifically I don't see the relevance at all; the same issues would arise with any ad server, such as Yahoo! or Casale surely?

WAIT A MINUTE!!!!

If I click an "ad" that appears here do Pepipoo get money?????? Please say yes and I will click until my finger goes numb!!

We certainly do not condone that.

To do so would specifically be a violation of Google's policy, and would likely get us banned from their network. The reason is obvious enough - you're indicating that you have a genuine interest in the advertiser's products/services, and as a result costing them money, when in fact you don't. That's why this is termed "click fraud".

Wolfie's post on "Why Google may not be good for you" has been split off and can be found here: http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=23955

If you want to discuss the specifics of ads we carry you can continue to use this topic. If you want to discuss Google and its ways in general then please use Wolfie's topic.

Does this mean the ad doesn't appear, or just that the link doesn't work?

Have you now blocked the sites of the parking scammers mentioned in my initial post?

I just checked again and this time all 4 ads at the bottom of the a parking forum thread were from scammers, so maybe you should also add these to the block list :

www.parkforce.com
www.national-clamps.com
www.nationalparkingcontrol.co.uk
www.creativecarpark.co.uk

I'm assuming that as effecient and clever as Fredd is, even he would need the URL to be able to block an innapropriate advert, rather than just the name of the offending advertiser.

Indeed. I've added those to the list - they should vanish within the next few hours.

Another one for the list : http://www.cpsenforcement.com

That's now blocked.

And another bunch for you :
www.londonparkingcontrol.co.uk
www.libertyservices.co.uk
www.totalparking.co.uk
www.combinedparkingsolutions.com/

OH GIVE IT A REST! Do you really think a guy like Mika and the crew who has been on TV along with Paul Smith are in anyway supportive of scams that take the "P" out of motorist???

Fred lock the thread for gods sake....

TB

I don't, but the appearence of ads for scammers on this site could easily cause a new/casual reader to question its integrity or credibility, or give a false impression that certain scam companies were being approved of or supported by this site, not knowing the mechanism by which the ads appeared.

I was just browsing the forums today when i came across the the "targetted" google ads below, I would have laughed
if it wasn't so pitiful. check out the circled red area where the ads are