Louis Gray

Holy priapism, Batman! - Phil Glockner For Hire

That site pops right up for me ! B O I N G - Mattb4rd

If the site stays up for more than 4 hours, consult your web admin immediately. - Tad Goes to 11

OMG that's funny. there's some mighty fine blogger revenue generation for ya! - Susan Beebe

What's that one medication? You know, the...geez, what's it called? Oh yeah, there it is! - Christopher Harley

Oh wait. Is this behaviorally targeted advertising based on my cookies? - Louis Gray

+LG lol - Tad Goes to 11

no comment at this time - Allen Stern

Maybe Allen just likes those pills!! ha, ha!! Hey, and look Louis does too!! - Susan Beebe

Allen, you should have kept Matthew on staff just to keep Louis from pointing out things like this ;) - Jason Carreira

Everytime i hear you say 'CN' i think of Cartooon Network, rofl - Gordon Swaby via Alert Thingy

The Matrix would have been quite a different kind of a movie, if Neo had taken the blue pill, too.. - Jemm

Liked just for the comments. - Cyndy

This is spam/scam territory. I definitely will not be visiting that site anymore. Is this even legal? - Brian Sullivan

Brian, they're auto generated ads, I can assure you that Allen isn't purposely placing those ads and you have nothing to fear on CN - Duncan Riley

Doesn't matter whether they are auto generated or not -- that sounds like a cop out. Obviously whoever they are doing business with is somewhat shady - Brian Sullivan

Thanks Duncan! I should wish i had those ads, they probably pay a ton :) - this is a joke by Louis - trust me, i don't have any viagra or male enhancement ads on cn! - Allen Stern

Cruel joke if it is indeed a joke. Louis? - Brian Sullivan

Timeout. This is not a joke. I promise. When I was entering the comment in the screenshot, this is what I saw. I made the screenshots, but I assumed it was just ad fill. - Louis Gray

hmm, ok louis - checking my ad networks now and will report back in moments - what the F! the only network that would even have the remote option of serving all four slots simultaneously is tribalfusion - no other ad network sits in all of those slots at once. - Allen Stern

either way, Brian, sometimes contextual advertising throws up stuff like this, doesn't mean you have to shoot the person who is running the ads...and BTW, at least one of those spots is an Adsense unit! So blame google - Duncan Riley

Ok, I just checked tribalfusion and don't see anything related to this - they are the ONLY one serving ads on the right so this has to be related to them somehow - I have submitted a ticket pointing to this discussion and once I hear back (probably on Monday) I will update everyone. I promise you that I spend a TON of time every day (for the last 12 years) verifying the ads that run on my sites - I take great pride in it. I am sorry Louis for this but thanks for letting me know so I can investigate. - Allen Stern

Allen, do you know any other blog that uses Tribal Fusion? I'd love to check those out as well. - Louis Gray

Ducan -- if you have ads on your site you are responisble for the content as far as I am concerned. Ad brokers have mechanisms for controlling the ads displayed. If obectionable or ads for illegal products are shown the site owner is responsible (and that includes Google ads). No free lunch. If you take the money you take on the responsibility. - Brian Sullivan

proves blog monitation is "hard" - sean percival

Brian, I think you're overthinking this here. Allen is a classy guy who works hard to keep up the reputation of his site. This is clearly an exception, not the rule. I found it amusing and shared it. This isn't "dump on Allen day" and I am sure he's working to get this resolved. - Louis Gray

Louis - try my other site - http://htmlcenter.com/ - Allen Stern

sometimes it's just easier to hit block than argue with blind fanatics - Duncan Riley

agree with Duncan's last comment. - Zee.

Allen, sent you updates via e-mail. The real question is, are any of you seeing the ads also, or am I the only one? Because that would signal something else... - Louis Gray

Louis: I am not dumping on Allen. I don't know Allen -- I am contenting on the site and its apparently scam/illegal based advertising. Allen may have to work harder to maintain the reputation of his site. - Brian Sullivan

At the risk of inciting the CPM gods' wrath, I clicked around to a bunch of pages, and never got the Viagra ad set. - Mark Trapp

Whoever is serving ads is serving based on the geographical location of IP. I get ads for WestJet (a Canadian domestic airline) so tracking down the ads may difficult. - Brian Sullivan

I must live in Viagra-land then. :-) My wife sees ads on cleaning Windows XP and AT&T. - Louis Gray

There is also some sort of ad rotation going on as well. I suggest Allen take the screen snaps to his ad provider and demand an explanation, an apology and a guarantee that such ads will not appear again. - Brian Sullivan

I think its interesting to know that the ads are contextually based. Im not at all accusing Allen of wrongdoing, however, if a journalist is using contextual based advertising, it seems like they might be more inclined to use certain words in their article based on what they believe the outcome of the ads might be. Here, while Allen probably didn't use a trigger word for Viagra on purpose, having that in the back of his head and wearing both hats (the journalist&sales) is somewhat of a conflict of interest. - Andrew Baron

louis - i will email you off ff so we can try some things to verify where it is - either way i will report back - Allen Stern

I was going to try this out, but then realized that this might be a sly plot to make me disable Adblock Plus. :) - possible248

I am not objecting to Viagra ads -- if Pfizer wants to advertise on Allen's site and Allen is ok with it. But the ads are for illegal prescription drugs (aren't all those available by prescription only)or are a scam. - Brian Sullivan

Brian, Andrew and all: Allen is 100% in the clear on this and it is 100% my fault. The funky ads were no doubt due to the first Mac OS X virus I've ever had. More on that soon. Apologies to Allen for having this issue, although humorous, drag him through the mud. He's never run Viagra ads, and won't ever. (I think I'll post on this tonight) - Louis Gray

I apologize for being so tenacious here and to Allen for indirectly impugning his integrity but I thought it was important to pursue - Brian Sullivan

Louis and Allen, I am still not making any accusations and as you can see above, Im not attacking Allen in particular though my original comments still stands. There is the common practice use of contextual key word advertising on journalistic blogs like Center Networks. When you wear both hats, and your job is to sustain (as you saw it with your headline) and maximize profits (a self-fufilling business intent), while also wearing the hat of being journalist (integrity), it leaves the audience wondering: "Could it be possible that the writer tweaked the words of an article knowing that it would generate more ad click-through dollars?" This method has been around for a very long time so I assume there is a happy resolve as to why Allen uses this method, but I just dont see it so I'm asking. - Andrew Baron

Louis- thanks for the update, I am glad you were able to get it fixed! Brian, no worries at all, as you said you don't know my site or me - hopefully now you will visit and stuff :) Andrew, I have no desire to continue any conversation with you going forward. You've played this game since I wrote about your girlfriend's flixwagon deal (which btw was after Pat wrote). You can continue but you will be dancing alone. As for the ads that I run and while I don't have to share any information on the ads I run, I will. In all of the default slots that are in the screenshots that Louis posted, Google AdSense or YPN is the last item in the chain. You will only see AdSense/YPN in any of those slots if one of the other ad networks I work with have nothing to show. As long as the ad networks are selling ads, it should be rare to ever see AdSense/YPN. I take great pride in the advertising networks and sponsors I work with. - Allen Stern

Allen, Im sorry you are ending the conversation and have no desire to move forward. I just want to say again that I went out of my way to make sure I didn't attack you so my apologies if that came off that way. Im concerned about an issue that is not at an attack on you. Its about a common method that people use which is accepted in the blogosphere and Im just saying, I dont understand it. If you are not willing to address this, Ill look elsewhere for an answer because I don't currently know the answer. - Andrew Baron

p.s. I would also like to say that your comment about me playing games with you or being out to get you is completely off base. We have disagreed on 2 things: #1 Yes, I think you were both hypocritical and wrong about Sarah & I've been very upfront and have expressed my views with your formally about that. On #2, I am not arguing with YOU! Im arguing about a process that you do. Allen, an expert on thinking about this problem of a potential conflict of interest, what do others need to do so that they dont find themselves making a mistake with the ways these things mix? Or is it all no big deal and wearing both hats will never pose any problems? - Andrew Baron