@ALEX777 182059 wrote:
Again, google support and think only about big companies, they don’t think about small businesses. That is sad.
I think there’s an inherant problem for affiliates here. Google clearly only wants “good” casinos on PPC and they opted to use the UK Gambling Commission guidelines to establish what is good and what isn’t. Which is fair. I can understand that as a lot of users see Google “Sponsored Sites” as safe by association (I even read someone saying that today after getting ripped off by a fraudulent ticket agency via a PPC link).
The problem comes with affiliates. The UK Gambling Commission probably can’t/won’t give us a licence because affiliates might just add un-regulated casinos as soon as they got the licence tied up. Likewise, if Google “certify” our sites as fit for PPC, they aren’t going to be able to check every day that we are still only promoting regulated casinos. And let’s face it, a lot of affiliates would do that, either intentionally or accidentally.
So there is no clear way for them to be assured affiliate sites only show Whitelist casinos consistently.
With operators it’s different, because a licence is awarded to a single, registered, branded entity and is a valuable asset to them – a UKGC licence means far more than PPC to the operators. So they are a) hardly likely to abuse it and b) with only one brand, they will remain constant.
The best we can hope for is that Google relax the rules like MSN at some stage, but then they are back in the “safe by association” trap so I wonder if they ever will. I don’t like it, but I can fully understand their decision. It’s not about favouring the “big guy” and ignoring the “little guy”, it’s about protecting players, acting responsibly, minimising their risk, protecting their reputation and protecting their shareholders ( not necessarily in that order
). Effectively they are shifting responsibility and I suspect PPC is only open to UKGC licencees because of that.