A great big AdSense slap for foreign webmasters

I've just read about a huge change in AdSense terms and conditions which is going to greatly affect the earnings of many AdSense publishers. These changes affect everyone who publishes referral ads for Google's AdSense program, and promises to be an even bigger slap in the face for those of us who live outside North America, Latin America and Japan.

There are two main changes to the AdSense program for ad publishers:

Changes to payments through the referral system

About a year ago, experimental changes were introcuded to allow AdSense referrers to earn good money through recommending Google's advertisement service:

• If you referred someone to AdSense who made $5 within 180 days you would get a payment of $5.
• If you referred someone who made $100 within 180 days you would get $250
• If you referred 25 people who made $100 within a 180 day period you would get a bonus payment of $2000

But this is about to change back to the way things were before. SO from now on, if you refer someone who makes $100, you will only receive $100. This will make little incentive for publishers to refer small websites to the program.

But the changes get worse for publishers outside North America, Latin America and Japan...

AdSense referrals are retired for publishers outside North America, Latin America and Japan

WHAT IS THIS GOOGLE!

When I first read about this on ProBlogger, I could barely believe it was true, and had to see with my own eyes. Here is what the AdSense blog has to say about the changes:

- If you're outside of North America, Latin America, and Japan, AdSense referrals will be retired.

For publishers not located in any of the three regions detailed above, we'll soon be retiring referrals promoting AdSense. We've found that this referral product has not performed as well as we had hoped in these regions. (Read the full entry)

I'm truly shocked.

No doubt, AdSense will lose a great deal of its own income from restricting its referrals to these three areas. I myself will be greatly affected by this loss since I live in the UK, as I'm sure many more of you will be too.

Lately Google seem to be upsetting a lot of people with their restrictions on content. Now that their popular advertising program is being affected too, many more of us are losing all faith in Google.

I wonder what the next big Google slap will be?

Please do leave your comments and opinions below. If I hear any more about the changes to the AdSense program, I will be sure to post it here to advise you of the situation.