I've been pondering opening a site with the purpose of aggregating Internet drama for those who are into that kind of thing. Basically it would be something like Digg with posts about people like Nick Sitko (tagline: "We make you famous"). However, I am not a charity, and I'm wondering how to monetize it. Would Google object if I used their service to generate revenue from real-time listings of people who are getting "owned" on various forums and blogs, etc?

From the AdSense program policies...

Sites displaying Google ads may not include:

• Violent content, racial intolerance, or advocacy against any individual, group, or organization
• Pornography, adult, or mature content
• Hacking/cracking content
• Illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia
• Excessive profanity
• Gambling or casino-related content
• Content regarding programs which compensate users for clicking on ads or offers, performing searches, surfing websites, or reading emails
• Excessive, repetitive, or irrelevant keywords in the content or code of web pages
• Deceptive or manipulative content or construction to improve your site's search engine ranking, e.g., your site's PageRank
• Sales or promotion of weapons or ammunition (e.g., firearms, fighting knives, stun guns)
• Sales or promotion of beer or hard alcohol
• Sales or promotion of tobacco or tobacco-related products
• Sales or promotion of prescription drugs
• Sales or promotion of products that are replicas or imitations of designer goods
• Sales or distribution of term papers or student essays
• Any other content that is illegal, promotes illegal activity, or infringes on the legal rights of others

If you have even the slightest doubt that it may be covered by any of those definitions I wouldn't do it. Some take small risks. Some take huge risks but at the end of the day it's the risk of losing your whole account and potentially a good source of income so you have to decide whether your content is covered by those definitions.

With regard to the technical side I don't think Google object to aggregated data as content on the page but I would not explicitly copy entire articles etc. Add something of your own to it as this is probably a bit of a gray area.

Originally Posted by Dolbz

From the AdSense program policies...

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With regard to the technical side I don't think Google object to aggregated data as content on the page but I would not explicitly copy entire articles etc.

Yeah, I knew that it didn't explicitly violate those rules, but I thought it might still be a little too edgy for AdSense. And the "aggregating" bit just meant that I would gather together links and descriptions, and people can go off and read the full thread. I didn't mean that the thread would be plucked and placed on my site.

The best way to tell would be to create a few sample pages (ideally, as edgy as possible) and ask Adsense themselves. I personally don't think they'd have that big of an issue with it; they're popping up on half the scraper sites in the world now and there is far worse going on with scraper sites than there is with what you're talking about.

If they don't work, AdBrite definitely will. They don't even check the sites that people submit before allowing them to put their code on.