“Automated Ads Serve Up Nonsense” from today’s Wall Street Journal. If you type SEWAGE into Google, an EBay keyword ad will offer you ‘great deals on sewage.” That power-seller of sewage pumps is going to get a lot of click-throughs today so he’ll probably remove the ad before you read this. I’m not quite sure this proves much about contextual advertising. A better oddity occurred when a news site ran a story about a body found in a suitcase and Google served up ad for luggage. Hat tip Kevin.
Update: Boing Boing found missing weapons of mass destruction on eBay.