GoogleSyndication.com blocked

My workplace uses WebSense.com to “protect” its employees from bad sites. It blocks YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, and other websites. It seems to block sites with the word Download or Hack in the HTML title. Naturally, I take offense to this, because I would love to spend my day watching YouTube or browsing Flickr.

I just noticed that there were no ads appearing on my websites the last time I checked them and traced it to WebSense blocking googlesyndication.com. Googlesyndication is the web site that delivers AdSense ads. I think that the county may be in trouble with this decision. They are in actuality allowing its employees to surf websites without allowing them to see the ads. In effect they are cheating the websites out of a portion of the revenue that the surfing would normally incur.

The county is probably trying to cut down on the bandwidth of its network pipes. If they can cut ads and some other traffic, their internet gateway expense may be lower in the long run. This is good for the county and good for the tax payers.

It is bad for anyone who is running a free service subsidized by Adsense ads. The county is stealing from these sites.

Many people run FireFox just so they can run AdBlock with it and avoid seeing the dancing baloney that slows down so many websites. I even recommend it. This is different than an entire county, that is supposed to serve all of the people in the county, denying web site owners the ability to make a few cents.

I wonder how much more money my websites would make if corporate, educational and governemental networks did not block advertising.