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When concerns over data collection and behavioral advertising arise, it seems that the glass half empty people are the loudest. But in a recent response to the FTC’s Self-Regulatory Principles, Google has pointed out the impact that online advertising has had on the economy.

Google highlighted that in 2007, they paid out $4.5 billion to publishers utilizing the Adsense network. These monies either supplements or provides full-time income to many site owners including bloggers. They pointed out that many people have opportunities that just weren’t available 10 years ago.

Additionally, the revenue that Google generates enables them to provide services for free to the general public.

Google wrote that these innovations only occur within a self-regulatory framework:

“To be effective and credible, however, self-regulation must have as its foundation agreed-upon fair information practices and must be informed by ongoing dialog with and input from consumer advocates, the Commission, and other stakeholders. The FTC staff’s draft self-regulatory principles for online behavioral advertising provides an excellent foundation for developing the most effective consumer protection, while maintaining an online environment in which innovation and competition can thrive.”

But Google is careful to distinguish its advertising from being labeled “behavioral advertising.”

“As currently drafted, the proposed principles would apply to contextual advertising, which we define as advertising that is provided in response to the current activities of a user. For example, our AdWords program allows us to provide ads on Google.com in response to search queries entered by our users. In addition, our AdSense product allows us to provide ads to visitors to the web sites of third-party publisher partners based on the content of pages visited. In essence, then, our contextual advertising allows for the delivery of advertisements based on search queries or our analysis of the content of a web page being viewed. We believe that this type of advertising should not be considered behavioral advertising, even if such analysis takes into consideration previous search queries.”

These comments also come in the wake of news from Europe of a policy adopted by the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, which would reduce data collection by search engines to just 6 months. Such a regulation could greatly impact the ability of search engines to provide relevant ads, which could have a ripple effect on the greater revenue streams generated by their ad networks.

Ready to step out of your contextual advertising comfort zone? The world of graphic and video advertising may seem scary at first, but the rewards can be huge. In today’s Content Advertising column, “Contextual Advertising Best Practices: Banners and Video Ads,” David Szetela outlines some of the non-text ad options for contextual advertising.

If you read only one blog post this weekend, let me micropersuade you to read Steve Rubel’s SEO Shenanigans Pose a Clear and Present Danger to Social Media.

Before engaging in the debate, I’d like to invite Steve to expand on his Micropersuasion post in Search Engine Watch, home of Sergey Brin’s Internet Doomsday Scenario.

Hey, we don’t hate debate. We like controversy. We love search engine optimization, SEOs, social search, SMM and search engine marketing.

Steve: help our readers around the world understand what specific search engine strategies are “SEO shenanigans.” You listed this Search Engine Watch blog post first: Boost Organic Results. Link Build with Social Media.

I think it’s a brilliant guide: How to earn more money, improve online reputation and build brand equity online — goals, Steve, you share for your clients?

Even so our blogger received death threats. Marty’s blazing new SEO and SMO trails and that takes courage.

Wikipedia (Slate’s new BFF) defines a shenanigan as a “deceitful confidence trick, or mischief causing discomfort or annoyance.”

I don’t think your brilliant linkbait blog post is a con game. It’s a great SEO shenanigan!

Anonymous Wikepedian(s) go on to say, “However, in some regions, shenanigans can merely refer to harmless mischievous play, especially by children. It should be noted that the word itself is considered humorous, because of its unique sound.”

So Steve were you - a PR maven - just joking around? Let me know. I think I may agree with you to a certain extent but I’m not sure.

So let’s dynamically insert “search engine optimization” and “social media” keywords into Dictionary.com’s definitions from the Random House Unabridged Dictionary:

1. SEO mischief; prankishness by SEOs: Halloween shenanigans.
social media marketing deceit; SEO trickery.
2. mischievous or deceitful SEO trick (Googlebombing?) practice, etc.

Here’s the revised American Heritage Dictionary version of SEO shenanigan:

1. A deceitful SEO trick; an underhanded SMM act.
2. Online social media remarks intended to deceive; SEO PR deceit.
3. A playful or mischievous search engine optimization act; an SMM prank.
4. SEO mischief; SMO prankishness.

None of the above seems to pose a clear and present danger.

Graywolf points out in your post’s comments that everyone’s playing by Google’s rules. Here’s what The Google says:

Google’s number two SERP (search engine results page) suggests shenanigans engaged in by couples present a clear and different danger.

Shenanigans - Indiana - Midwest’s Premier “Couples Only” Club for …
The Midwest’s Premier “Couples Only” Club ! Shenanigans “Where Adults Come for Fun”. Couples Only!

For inquiring minds, that’s shenanigans.net. Since the keyword’s in the title, it’s not SEO shenanigans at work (or in play).

Google’s paid search algorithm matches “shenanigans” with the “biggest losers” crowd: diet, fat and weight loss tips and tricks:

Sponsored Links
10 Rules to Cut Belly Fat
Lose 9 lbs every 11 Days with these 10 Idiot Proof Rules of Fat Loss.
www.FatLoss4Idiots.com

Steve, did your database of intentions intend SEO shenanigans to encompass a Google broad match/Thesaurus.com semantic search? For example, did you mean:

SEO antics, SEM capers, SEO dirty trick, fooling around with SEO, social media optimization frolicsomeness, search engine optimization funny business, SEO gag, search engine optimization hanky-panky, SEO high jinks, SEO PR horseplay, SEO PR horsing around, social media misbehavior, social media marketing mischievousness, monkey business*, SM naughtiness, SEO nonsense, search marketing prank, SEO trouble, social media marketing vandalism

If so, Google contextual advertising (content advertising) seems to think shenanigans are just a joke: Super Trooper-style (see YouTube result for keyword “shenanigans”) or in a Superbad Knocked Up kind of way.

Here’s another AdSense ad matched to “shenanigans” on Thesaurus.com:

Click to read the rest of this post…

Want a snapshot of the day’s search marketing news? Here we’ve collected today’s top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

Click to read the rest of this post…

Once the ugly stepchild of online ads, contextual advertising has shed its “remnant inventory” reputation. In today’s Content Advertising column, “Inside AdWords and Contextual Advertising: The Tipping Point,” David Szetela looks at the evolution of online content advertising, to help you understand where the category has been, and where it’s going.

Dynamic keyword insertion for contextual advertising has its drawbacks, like making one’s ad look like the advertiser engages in human trafficking.
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Recently I wrote that Google Mobile was starting to run AdWords ads. This initiative has been expanded to now include Google Adsense(TM) for mobile. This program contextually targets ads to mobile website content.
The program is targeted at people who have created websites targeted at mobile browsers, allowing them to make money on contextual advertising [...]

Contextual advertising can be a nice little revenue stream for the site publisher who puts in the work, and has some advice from the SES San Jose session presenters on the topic.(Our on-scene WebProNews staff has passed along this latest news from SES San Jose 2007. If you can’t be there, you need to be [...]

Digg has ditched Google as an ad provider and gone with Microsoft.Digg and Microsoft have entered into an agreement in which they will work together to bring advertising to the Digg Web site.

The Microsoft and Digg deal is a three-year agreement where Microsoft will be the exclusive provider of display and contextual advertising on Digg. [...]

PodZinger, a major multimedia search and advertising platform, has just changed its name to EveryZing , signaling the extension of their market offering beyond podcasts. Employing the capability of their speech-to-text technology in extracting full text output from audio and video files across the Web, EveryZing offers full-text indexing of multimedia content. In the [...]