The world is not a just fair place. I’m an adult. I get this. I am fully versed that when deciding to heavily modify yourself, you have to take the challenges and obstacles that come with it. Take Modblog for example. It’s usually not a hard task finding photos to post, after we try and hide some watermarks in there so the sites that steal photos that are submitted to BME can actually be caught but it’s a gentle reminder or a swift kick in the pants how fucked up the world is. I see all of these sites that steal our content and then get linked from other sites and receive hundreds of thousands of hits from stumble upon or Digg. Even though you can’t link to BMEzine.com from those sites. So the BME is blocked but not the sites that steal BME’s submissions and post them on their own all the while displaying advertising, which is generally google ads.

Some of you may have noticed that I no longer have Google ads displayed in any of the galleries on BME. Here is an email that I received the other day:

Hello,

While reviewing your account, we noticed that you are currently displaying
Google ads in a manner that is not compliant with our policies. For
instance, we found violations of AdSense policies on pages such as
http://www.bme.com/ritual/supsus001.html. Please note that this URL is an
example and that the same violations may exist on other pages of your
website.

As stated in our program policies, AdSense publishers are not permitted to
place Google ads on pages with violent content. This includes sites with
content related to breaking bones, getting hit by trains or cars, or
people receiving serious injuries.

Please make any necessary changes to your webpages in the next 72 hours.
We also suggest that you take the time to review our program policies
(https://www.google.com/adsense/policies) to ensure that all of your other
pages are in compliance.

Once you update your site, we will automatically detect the changes and ad
serving will not be affected. If you choose not to make the changes to
your account within the next three days, your account will remain active
but you will no longer be able to display ads on the site. Please note,
however, that we may disable your account if further violations are found
in the future.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Uhm, excuse me?? Did google just send me an email comparing the act of suspension to the same content as breaking bones, getting hit by trains or cars, or people receiving serious injuries?? Yeah, they did. When I wrote them back.. oh wait, you can’t write them back because all contact and demands are sent from no-reply email addresses so you can’t even have a rational discussion with a human being. I had a contact email address for a google ad rep so I forwarded them this message asking how they can compare something like suspension, which is a right of passage in ancient cultures and a very personal and spiritual (and I don’t mean in a God kind of way) experience for an individual. I tried to explain to them it’s not the same as some “gross out” type site that films people getting into car accidents or being hit by a train but their only reply was that they also found ads being displayed next to “pornography” which was actually the image I’m posting below.

Oh no! Seriously! If this is the type of thing that’s considered pornography, then I’m in a heap of trouble. Please remember if you see sites stealing photos from BME, please use this url to create a ticket so that we can get the images off of their sites. I’ll be following this post in a second with a ton of suspension photos as a hearty dose of F-U-Google!