Aged Cat pimped out by WordPress, Google & Co.

Forgive me, my poor unsuspecting Aged Cat! I did not mean for this to happen to you.

In setting up this blog, your assistant didn’t realize she was inadvertently turning you into a shill for GoogleAds and WordPress, and most distressingly, the evil anti-flea products that shall not be named.

It was bound to happen, I suppose. They’ve been pimping out Marilyn for years. Even John Lennon’s music isn’t safe. But you’d think a wee blog about an unknown Aged Cat (may he rest in peace) could find a safe little cybercorner, well away from the dog-eat-dog machinations of commerce.

My friends, if you are blogging with WordPress, be sure you understand two things which The Aged’s assistant did not:

• The space for your blog is not really free. You are paying for it by providing free content to Adsense through WordPress.
• Your blog is not strictly social or self-expressive. Not so long as the host reserves the right to use it to do a little business, whether you will or no.

The Aged Cat’s assistant would appear to biting the hands of the developers that are hosting The Aged’s website. Now that would indeed be rude! It is not her intention. After all, they’ve provided such a lovely service to so many folks. How could she begrudge them a bit of monetary support?

She does not begrudge them their monetary support. She’s only terribly vexed and dismayed at the means by which they’ve chosen to procure it. In applying their chosen method, they have unwittingly made a liar of her and a hypocrite of The Aged Cat (saints preserve him). Now that is indeed rude!

Read the not-so-fine print, pets. Then read it again. Then read all the FAQs and forum posts and anything else in which you can find the words “ad” “adsense” “advertising” in relation to WordPress. Only in this manner will you be able to cobble together an understanding of the advertising policy at WordPress and how it is applied. Don’t bother reading the WordPress “Terms of Service” because as of the writing of this post, there’s no mention of advertising there. Nor is there any in the Automattic “Privacy Policy.”

The TOS does warn WordPress bloggers against including commercial content in their posts, sic: “By making Content available, you represent and warrant that: … the Content is not spam, and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites.”

That was just fine by me and The Aged (may he roll forever in catnip). We never wanted commercial content, anyway. We were just there to meet and visit with other petowners. But guess what? Now we have “unwanted commercial content” (sometimes — we don’t know how often) and guess who puts it there? The very folks who told us not to. And they won’t allow us to not allow them to put the unwanted commercial content on our blog. . . .

This is makin’ me dizzy.

All I can say is thank goodness The Aged Cat (may his soul purr on and on) isn’t alive to see this! He’d be rollin’ over in his eternal catbed.

Sure, and I fear himself’s blog may not long outlive him if this keeps up.