Are ads from Commision Junctin considered 'competing ads'

From the program policies: "We do not permit Google ads or search boxes accessing Google search services to be published on web pages that also contain what could be considered competing ads or services."

Is commision junction a competing service? Some have called it an ad broker and their ads don't mimic googles. I have also seen many sites that have google ads along with other non google ads and I thought this was a violation of the TOS.
I'm trying to be good and still make as much money as possible.

 

I would say no, Google defines competing ads as:

But don't take my word for it ask Google about it.

I am always suprised when people ask these types of questions here. Why would you trust someone in a forum to answer a question like this? What if the answers are wrong and you get busted by Google. You should always ask Google directly when it comes to ToS questions.

 

Do CJ ads change based on the content of the page? What ever answer you have there is probably the answer in the eyes of Google.

 

CJ ads are not contextual. So they should not be against the ToS.

 

I just received an e-mail from Google saying CJ and Adsense are competing ads!

I have no idea why they are thinking like that, so I have e-mailed them for some clarification.

Maybe they misunderstood the random selection of banners as contextual ads?

 

Hunh, that's weird. Yeah, something probably got crossed somewhere, because one is affiliate links and the other is contextual ads. Definitely not the same in the slightest.

 

Yeah this is odd since people have already e-mailed and gotten confirmation that groups like CJ and linkshare are perfectly ok to use.

I'm wondering if there is some new employees at adsense who are just learning because there have been a lot of recent conflicting data on many different fronts "from linking to a website being considered promotion" to what "constitutes adult/offensive." How can we know what to do if Google doesn't even know?

 

If CJ and their affiliate links are "competing ads", then I, and 90% of all publishers out there have been violating the TOS for years!

 

There is hope! I complained about the CJ/Adsense decision and received an answer a few minutes ago. The supporter have changed her mind and now allows me to use CJ on pages with Adsense ads

 

Definitely sounds like a noob working the lines over there.

 

better hope that noob doesn't have the power to cancel accounts

 

LOL true!