About the Advertising on GovTrack
I see ads. Is GovTrack commercial?
GovTrack is a nonpartisan, noncommercial, independent website run by an everyday citizen in his spare time. (You can read more about the site here.) Although I call the site noncommercial, the site nevertheless makes use of advertising and runs a modest net profit. The way I look at it is that I have no intention to ever manage the site with profit as a priority. I won't alter the content of the site to attract advertisers or restrict access to create a subscription model. However, if I can bring in some money all the same, then I should take advantage of that.
What paid content is on GovTrack?
The paid content consists of two parts:
Banner ads at the top or on the right: At the top or right of each page there is a banner of text or image ads. These are through Google's AdSense advertising program. Google chooses the advertisers to place on this site by an automated process. GovTrack has no particular control over who is advertising in those slots.
'VA Mortgage' link on the front page of the site: On the front page of the site, at the bottom right, there is a link to a company called the VA Mortgage Center. The link has a dual purpose: On the one hand, it may attract GovTrack visitors to their site. On the other hand, it is to get traffic from search engines. Associations with "high quality" sites like GovTrak can help websites get more search engine traffic.
GovTrack has no other source of external funding.
How is the money used?
There are certain fixed costs involved in running a website that serves as many people as GovTrack does. It's basically hardware and support, which costs about $250/month. Today the advertising generates a revenue well beyond the fixed costs.
Beyond the fixed costs of the site, the ad revenue supports travel to conferences related to government data and transparency and other small expenses related to running the site. It was also used to purchase documents from the government with the intention to use them to enhance public access to legal information. I plan to use some of the money to support the time of others involved, but at least currently I don't pay myself for the time I spend working on the site. It is also a growing warchest for future civic projects that I haven't thought up yet.
