Although this is my main blog (imported into Facebook and other social networking sites via an RSS feed) I set up one on Blogger too. It was for the usual reasons, to figure out how things work.
So there was the picture I took of a green katydid in a background of different leaf textures from my front flower bed and my statement of enjoyment listening to the variety of insect songs in August. What you do to get free web sites is to agree to allow advertising to appear on your posts. The ads that appear on the main page aren’t very offensive, but to my horror, what came up on the single post page http://kathy-graff.blogspot.com/2010/08/where-did-summer-go.html was ads for insecticides and exterminators!
I have to say that the title for today’s post was going to include brainwashing and crass commercialism and lack of empathy.
After I saw the ads, I posted a comment urging readers to not solve their “problems” by spreading poison. That insects should be considered a problem is bad in itself, a real insult to the bumble bees that are out there right now pollinating the red raspberry blossoms in my side yard.
I wonder if Google might come up with an empathy component for AdWords? For instance, if a parent posts about their grief at the loss of a child, putting up ads for children’s clothing and toys might actually be counterproductive for the advertiser.
I had also thought that perhaps there might be a way to classify a site as personal rather than commercial. I have seen some free sites that post disclaimers about the nature of the ads that might appear. Unfortunately this probably won’t work because commercialism is so deeply ingrained in our culture. There is some hope, maybe after a long enough wait for consumer spending to get us out of this recession, there might be some incentive to make changes.
I have to admit that I tried running Google Adwords on this site for a while. Back in the days before the internet was totally overrun by commercial interests, you could get a fair income that way, often from book sales. Now I am thinking the situation fits in with the warnings your parents probably gave you when you were growing up to not take “free” candy from strangers. It is not just child abuse here, those ads I am seeing on my Blogger post amount to rape of mother earth.
