Last week we got the following email from Microsoft:
“It has come to the attention of the Windows 8 Ads-in-Apps team that some of the content in your Farts app is not in compliance with our content guidelines for apps that choose to monetize using the Microsoft Ad SDK. We aim to provide our advertisers a brand safe environment, and your app has been deemed unsafe for the brands we work with. At this time, your ad units have been deactivated and must remain deactivated indefinitely.If you have any questions, I can be reached at the contact info below. -Parker Fox [contact info, etc, etc]
Unsafe implies that somebody or something might be harmed. One wonders if there are kids out there with no idea what a fart is. Brands? Most of the ads that showed up were for Bing – the search engine that pioneered video preview and enabled quicker browsing of pornography. Hey – remember when Gears of War 3 ads were showing up in ad units in the “kids” category? Good thing Microsoft PubCenter is all about safety! Mr. Fox should simply call a spade a spade and say Fart 101 is too disgusting for the brand(s) they work with. At least that would give us a nice quote.
Anyway sure enough, going into Microsoft PubCenter reveals the ad units are greyed out:
That’s cute, Microsoft. It’s nice to see you hired someone to care about your ad service – we stopped using it long ago anyway due to low ad revenue. #SorryBros. Incidentally, one other link that came up while searching for that article brought up a PubCenter support forum thread where Parker Fox – the same person who sent the above email – was representing Microsoft. So maybe they didn’t actually hire a new person and there is exactly one person supporting PubCenter! Poor Parker Fox. At least he has an awesome name.
