Monday, August 10, 2009

Inappropiate ads have been blocked

World of Solitaire uses Google ads for it's advertising and what ads are displayed on the site are entirely controlled by Google. The ad displayed can be different per user, depending on what Google feels would be best for that visitor.

A World of Solitaire player e-mailed me to inform me that they were seeing an ad of a sexual/suggestive nature and were upset by this.

I completely understand that families play World of Solitaire and the site shouldn't be showing suggestive ads of this nature.

After doing some investigation it looks like the ad is for a game called 'Evony'.
The ads feature girls showing significant bosom.

It appears that a large number of people on the internet have the same problem I do. Google showing these inappropriate ads on their sites as well.

It turns out there is a way I can instruct Google to block specific ads.

I have researched these 'Evony' ones and have updated my Google ad settings so that these ads will be blocked and will no longer show up on the site.
I just applied these changes and Google says it may take a few hours to take affect.

Since what ads Google shows is different per visitor, other inappropriate ads might show up that I never see myself.
Also since I have to specifically block ads, new ones might come into the rotation and I'll need to update my block settings to include them.
So if anyone sees any inappropriate ads being displayed on World of Solitaire, please e-mail me the name of the ad you saw to: robert@cosmicrealms.com

I will then do my best to make sure they are blocked from appearing.

I apologize if anyone has been offended by the ads. I never imagined that Google would display such things. I hope that the block I applied squashes all the inappropriate ones that were being displayed.

I hope you all continue to enjoy playing :)

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

thank you so much for your sensitivity to the issue of vulgerism online. as a women, i am offended that our gender needs to be portrayed in this way. i was not one of the folks who complained, but it bothered me, so ithank you

Unknown said...

Excellent site- thank you for providing it!

If it's possible, and improvement I would like to see is a 'No More Moves' message. At this point, the player has already lost, so taking pity on him or her and sparing them the desperate search for something else to do is just a polite time-saver. Especially on boards with a lot of -possible- places to move from or too.

Robert said...

@Cat:

It's on my to-do list. I'm not sure when I'll ever have time to work on it, but rest assured it's on my list :)

numbers said...

Hi Robert
I've always used the block ads button, but appreciate you taking the time to block silly advertising - if the product is good enough it doesn't need childish and vulgar use of images of women and hopefully the fact you've told google you don't want to show those images will send them a message.
I also appreciate your 'donate' button. I use your site a lot and it's nice to be able to say THANK YOU.

Colin Howell said...

Good, another strike against the Evony silliness. Every time I hear about or see an ad for that game, I end up laughing. Its main claim to fame seems to be the way its advertising campaign grew increasingly racy and misleading to the point of ridiculousness. Their latest ads seem designed mainly to get suckers to click on them thinking that they'll end up at a porn site rather than an unremarkable online strategy game.

For amusement, I suggest reading a couple of articles about this farce, or check out the Wikipedia article for more on their shenanigans.

Then there's the webcomic episode which might have given them the idea...

Robert said...

@numbers: I received a bunch of e-mails asking me to put a donate button up. Several people just like you wanted to show their appreciation. I really appreciate it. I hope you continue to enjoy the games :)

@Colin: Aye, Evony is notorious for having misleading and borderline erotic ads. Thanks for the links, I had seen some of them in my research, but that comic I had not seen before and found very funny! :)

Anonymous said...

With the new upgrade, there is no longer an option to make the cards larger. Some of us "older" players really appreciate having larger format cards. I hope you can put this option back. Thanks

Robert said...

@Anonymous:

I'll be making a blog post in a day or two talking about the updates I did, including the removal of the 'Largest Size' option.

Basically the cards already size themselves to be as big as they can be, while still looking nice. The 'Largest Size' option didn't really make them much larger, a tiny tiny amount.

Robert said...

@Anonymous:

The 'Largest Size' card option is back now :)

Anonymous said...

You are a great programmer / coder and have created the best site for solitaire. But, it is not working anymore! Bug problem perhaps?

Anonymous said...

Happy Anniversary!
Four years old today!

I really enjoy your site and hope it's around for a long long time,
I'll need a long time to get on the Leaderboard!!

Ambassador Spock

Peter said...

I agree with Cat. I "No more moves" message would enhance an already excellent game

Anonymous said...

Very cool site! Thank you for your time and effort!

Patricia said...

Is there a way to control the fact that the cards do not stay in the oulined frame and move up at least 1/2 inch. Also when a column has more than 5 cards the whole playing area moves up making it had hard to see the dealing deck and the top row of A's

Robert said...

@Patricia:

Regarding seeing the cards not lining up correctly, this can some time happens if your zoom setting isn't set normally.

Make sure your 'Zoom' setting is correct:
In Internet Explorer 6, 7 or 8 choose 'View->Text Size->Medium'
In Internet Explorer 9 click the gear icon at the top right and select 'Zoom' and choose '100%'
In Firefox choose 'View->Zoom->Reset'
In Safari choose 'View->Make Text Normal Size'
In Chrome click on the 'Wrench' icon at the top right and click '+' or '-' next to Zoom until it says 100%

That should fix it :)

Anonymous said...

Thank you very much for World of Solitaire!! I love it and look forward to it every day!! LL

kate said...

What a great way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon,or any afternoon for that matter.
Great site, thanks.