Google has recently announced the addition of Third Party Ad networks to their AdSense Programme. If you are an Adsense publisher, this is the mail you may have g0t: These new capabilities will automatically be enabled for your account, and you'll see a new section in your Ad Review Center where you can allow or block specific ad networks or all networks except AdWords. Please note that we'll gradually be adding new ad networks to AdSense accounts over the next few months, so you won't see any immediate impact on your ads or your earnings. To ensure the quality of the ads that appear on AdSense publisher websites, Google will certify all participating ad networks for adherence to our standards for user privacy, ad quality, and speed. Some participating ad networks use targeting methods similar to Google's interest-based advertising to show more relevant ads to users on the sites they visit. These ad networks won't be permitted to collect data from your site for the purpose of subsequent interest-based advertising, but we'll allow networks that comply with user privacy guidelines to show ads using these tools. Publishers can opt out of user interest targeting from these ad networks, and Google has changed our requirements for third-party ad serving to reflect this. We are currently only accepting ads from Google-certified ad networks in North America and Europe, but we will make this feature available to ad networks in additional parts of the world in the future. To learn more and manage the ad networks appearing on your pages, visit the AdSense Help Center at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=13522 and visit our blog post at http://adsense.blogspot.com/2010/03/google-certified-ad-networks-now.html.[/quote] I looked into my Adsense Setup --> Ad Review Center, and the following list of AD Networks show up as Google Certified AD Networks Adchemy Invite Media Specific Media Turn [X+1] OwnerIQ, Inc. Adconion Media Group Adtegrity.com AudienceScience Inc. Dapper Inc. Dedicated Media FetchBack LucidMedia NetSeer Inc. NextAction QuinStreet, Inc. ReTargeter RichRelevance, Inc. Teracent Corporation ValueClick, Inc. Aggregate Knowledge Atrinsic Brand.net BrightRoll Chitika Collective Media CPM Advisors, Inc DataXu Datran Media Dotomi Efficient Frontier, Inc. InterCLICK Media6Degrees MediaMath OpinMind Quantcast Corporation Rocket Fuel Inc. Semantic Sugar, Inc. Sooth Software Corporation (dba AdBuyer.com) TellApart Traffic Marketplace Triggit Acxiom Corporation Advertise.com Ad Pepper AdReady AOL Inc Xtend Global Media LTD Goodway Group Innovation Interactive Cyberplex, Inc Didit Announce Media Media Innovation Group VivaKi AppNexus Epic Advertising AccountNow, Inc. People Media, Inc Bizo EchoSearch MaxPoint Interactive Mpire Pinnacle Dream Media Pulse 360 Radius Marketing Inc. Reply! Inc. Criteo Europe Criteo UK Infectious Media The Exchange Lab Mixpo Mexad Adpepper Germany ClickDistrict NL DSNR Hurra Germany Criteo US Cossette Communications Pennyweb, Inc. (DBA Ybrant Digital) Spongecell OpenX Technologies Red Aril, Inc. Redux Media Inc. ShareThis, Inc. HTTPool DQ Mediaplex Forbes.com Veremedia ValueClick International Ltd Struq Limited As you can see the list includes several big names like Chitika, Advertising.com, Valueclick etc. and several smaller players. I am of the opinion that this move should be potentially beneficial to both Google and Small Publishers because, smaller publishers may get access to larger Advertiser database and obviously Google is going to keep it's cut. However, I don't think this would have any impact on the earnings of smaller publishers in spite of their getting access to new advertisers because what matters is the amount of Clickthrough a publiser can generate, so irrespective of new advertisers that is beyond the control of Google. However this, in my opinion is a positive move and we will see as the months go ahead what is the potential impact.
