Thread: Questionable AdSense Implementation on a Proxy

My latest blog reviews web proxies. Yesterday I wrote a review on a web proxy that is using a very deceiving AdSense implementation. Are we all in agreement that is a clear policy violation?

The following as been taken from my review of Lemme In.

...when testing the site I soon discovered that they are using a very deceiving method to help increase their AdSense CTR. Once you submit the URL that you want browse, you are a taken to page called surf.php. This page contains two large ad blocks and two very well blended links allowing the visitor to choose which proxy they’d prefer to use, PHP or CGI. It is clear that this page has been intentionally created in a way to fool its visitors into clicking the Google AdSense ads rather than the two links for each proxy.

At first I thought this was just a page of ads, and was about to write up that the site was clearly MFA providing no proxy functionality at all. It was only upon closer inspection that I noticed the two well hidden links.

Thoughts?

Yes definitely deceiving in its current form! However, with a minor bit of tweaking and out of the box thinking he can turn that page into a legitimate implementation.

Indeed quite deceiving.. but it is the blending that is doing the job here..