Say Goodbye to MyBlogLog
There’s been some debate for a little while over whether running MyBlogLog on your blogs will get you banned from Adsense. Considering MyBlogLog/Yahoo! are far from transparent (and you know how I love transparency), and Google is pussy-footing around the issue with a lovely little form response to anyone that asks (see the response below), I’ve decided to scrap MyBlogLog. I’m not all that keen on “spying” on my visitors, or having them do it to me either, and I have too many sites on Adsense to risk being banned over it. So even though it’s a bit out of character, I’m taking the “better safe than sorry” route on this one, until the Google Gods have officially spoken (shall we all hold our breaths?).
For those interested, here’s the response I received when I questioned an Adsense rep:
“Thank you for your question regarding MyBlogLog.
We do not endorse or encourage the use of any particular click tracking
tools. We recommend that you exercise caution when using third-party
software to ensure that you do not violate the AdSense Terms and
Conditions nor inadvertently disclose sensitive information about yourself
or your site through the use of such software.In addition, it is solely your responsibility to verify that any tools or
software used in conjunction with AdSense do not violate the AdSense Terms
and Conditions and program policies.For your reference, you can find tips and guidelines for keeping your
account in good standing by visiting our Help Center at
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=23921.For additional questions, I’d encourage you to visit the AdSense Help
Center (http://www.google.com/adsense_help), our complete resource center
for all AdSense topics. Alternatively, feel free to post your question on
the forum just for AdSense publishers: the AdSense Help Group
(http://groups.google.com/group/adsense-help).Sincerely,
Becky
The Google AdSense Team”
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Comments
I don’t see why you couldn’t have an account with MyBlogLog, so that others can see you’ve been on their blogs if you want. But until Google says otherwise, or it’s confirmed in some other way, I’m not going to be putting any mybloglog code into my blogs. The questionable part is in how that code quietly tracks what your visitors click on (which means they track ad clicks, which is against adsense TOS).
Wow! This is scarey news! MyBlogLog has been bringing me new visitors and networking opportunities. I was just about to add it to a few more blogs :(