People have certainly pointed it out before. But once again, Google finds that its adwords program's idealistic constraints match poorly against reality.
One site recieves a letter:
At this time, Google policy does not permit the advertisement of websites that contain "language that advocates against an individual, group, or organization". As noted in our advertising terms and conditions, we reserve the right to exercise editorial discretion when it comes to the advertising we accept on our site. I have reviewed your site and it contains language such as 'secretive, paranoid and vengeance-filled' which we will not allow to run on our site at this time.
It's an interesting issue. I have to admit I don't have a definite answer on this: I can see that Google doesn't want to sell adwords to hate groups, but it's hard to figure out where the right line is. A few years ago, a friend put together a website expressing a strong opinion about the Nike corporation, and bought adwords on "Nike Sweatshop." Would that have been against Google rules? It's hard to figure out -- but it's pretty clear from a search for adwords google censorship that this is not the only time this issue has been encountered.
June 23, 2004 05:20 PM | TrackBack | in Design