Without any prior notice a filter mechanism for ringtone keywords was introduced in Google AdWords. Ringtone ads now need to be authoized.
A while back Google changed their editorial guidelines and introduced special rules for the promotion of mobile content such as ringtones, mobile games and mobile applications. Prime targets of the new rules are promoters of subscription services. Under the new guidelines Google requires them to display the price and the billing interval prominently on the page where the user enters personal information (such as a phone number or an email address). In addition to that, the page needs to be equipped with a checkbox that the user has to activate.
After the introduction of these new guidelines some advertisers and affiliates got slapped. However, I think many of the bad apples haven’t been found yet. That’s why Google simply switched the burden of proof. It’s not the Google employees that need to scan their AdWords system for active phony offers. Now any Google ads and keywords promoting mobile content need to be reviewed and confirmed by Google to be running.
That’s sort of how they handle ads for pharmaceuticals. The difference is that pharmacies can submit an ID and they’re exempt. For mobile content advertisers every single keyword, ad and landing page has to be approved individually. I’m sure Google are working on an algorithm to automate this. But for now I would say it’s a manual process.
Google’s main concern is the user experience. Trust translates into traffic and yields AdWords revenue. It seems they prefer not to accept money from advertisers that run rip-off campaigns in order to secure the core of their business: trust.
Google is following a long-term strategy and can live without the ringtone industry very well. On the other hand, most mobile content advertisers are after short-term profit and depend highly on AdWords for instant traffic. I think we’re starting to see how Google is using its power to take down a whole industry.
