Google Hypocrisy: Blogger Affiliate Ads With Adsense

Okay this story got on my nerves a bit. I opened my blogger account today to see that Google has announced that blogger blogs can now run affiliate ads through Google Adsense. Why does this bother me? Well, awhile back I tried to promote one of my other blogspot blogs with Adwords. However, I was told that my site had low quality links (commission junction and amazon affiliate links) and so I would have to get rid of those before advertising with Google AdWords. This despite the fact that many of the advertisers are the very same ones that the AdSense program chooses for my blog. After about five emails back and forth with Google I realized that there was no way I'd ever get back on AdWords as long as I was doing affiliate blogging.

Now though that it is integrated with Google AdSense and Google gets a slice of the revenue (they don't reveal their percentage or who the advertisers are) they are fine with affiliate blogging. I have the feeling as well that since it basically a part of AdSense that AdWords will accept these affiliate ads without any problems whatsoever. Google would probably argue that their affiliate ads are a better "user experience" but that argument falls flat. This is Google hypocrisy at it's worst. Using a competitor's advertising program should not affect your ability to use AdWords that is unfair and creates a monopoly for Google.