On Friday, news leaked that Google has discontinued its AdSense partnership with IncrediMail, a publicly-traded Internet content and media company that has over 10 million members.

This is baffling and quite sad. We can imagine that Google AdSense was a good chunk of the company's revenue, and now that option cannot be pursued.

So why did this happen? And why wasn't IncrediMail given adequate warning about any abuse (if that is the case?)

Numerous forum members believe that the traffic quality could have been poor. Additionally, while some forum members applaud the excellent quality of service that they get from IncrediMail, not all members feel that way:

My guess though is Google got sick of being associated with incredimail's rather tacky advertsing/marketing gimmicks and just gave up trying to work with them.

But why IncrediMail and not other MFA sites? Obviously, this is irksome to many:

Great negotiating posture. Nuke one good company's revenue stream while leaving millions of MFA pages untouched. So if anyone thinks it's about "do no evil" or fairness, they now know Google will negotiate Microsoft-Style.

Any company who depends on Adsense for business and negotiating a deal w/ Google now has to worry that Google will pull the rug out from under them if they don't cave to Google's demands.

I guess it all comes down to just not putting all your eggs in one basket. If Google AdSense drops you, you need to have a backup plan. Still, with a 45% tank in its stock price from the event, it's incredibly unfortunate and hopefully these issues will be resolved with a statement from both companies.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

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