Are you concerned about ads you see on Christian sites? Every now and then, an advertisement will stick out because it’s so inappropriate in the context of the site. But what can we do?
Well, I’m learning to ask questions.
I wrote to Stevie Mac, one of the founder of Shoutlife, because some ads on the site were making me uncomfortable. Here’s what I said:
I’ve really enjoyed Shoutlife and want to say thank you. One thing I’ve noticed recently that concerns me is the ads. Tonight there was a banner of single women, some showing more skin that others. A few days ago a side ad wanted a vote for whether the girl in the picture was a “hottie or naughty.”
I understand that you need revenue to make this work, but is this going to be a usual occurrence? I’ve loved having a safe place to be on the net. I also saw it as a safe place for my children, my husband, etc… to be. I feel sorry for the men who are trying to protect their eyes on the computer, who might feel that Shoutlife is a “safe” place, and then get pulled away and toward screens that are worse by those ads.
I’m hoping to encourage you to not let those kind of ads on the site.
Thanks,
Christina Berry
He wrote back:
We depend heavily on our users to report these types of ads so that we can have our ad company filter them out. Please use the “Contact Us” link at the bottom and supply us with the URL that the ad takes you to.
Thanks in advance for your help and support of Shoutlife.
We strive to keep the site clean and family friendly.
So now I’m encouraging you–if you see an ad that seems out of place, let the site owner know.
Christina — as a website owner myself (TitleTrakk.com) we’ve dealt with these same issues. On most of our pages we feature ads by Google. Unfortunately, we can’t control what ads Google puts on our site at any given time. The only thing we can do is exactly what Shoutlife is doing—once we find a specific domain, then we are able to blacklist it. Otherwise, our hands our tied. It’s a fine line, for sure. Websites have to have revenue to survive, but I sure to wish there was a better way to control those ads.
Just wanted to chime in so you knew Shoutlife probably wasn’t picking these ads themselves.