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Posted on 05/04/2005 6:40:43 PM PDT by My Favorite Headache
Google Refuses Conservative Ad, Similar to Liberal Ad By Jeff Johnson CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer May 4, 2005
(CNSNews.com) -- The world's best known Internet search engine, Google.com, stands accused of liberal political bias after allegedly refusing a conservative group's ad, which had text nearly identical to an advertisement the company previously accepted from a liberal group. Google denied the charge Tuesday and said it treats all of its users and customers fairly.
Google provides links at no cost to the searcher or the listed websites in the main section of its search results pages. But it also allows website owners and promoters to purchase advertising in a "sponsored links" section on the right side of each results page. Michael Mayzel, spokesman for Google, Inc., explained the company's philosophy regarding political advertising.
"We welcome political ads and apply our policies equally, regardless of the views of the advertiser," Mayzel told Cybercast News Service.
But William Greene, president of RightMarch.com, accused Google of censoring conservative ads that accompany search results.
"We were using Google, typed in 'Tom DeLay,' and saw all the Google AdWords on the right-hand side that came up there and they were all anti-DeLay ads," Greene said.
Greene decided to buy an advertisement supporting DeLay and to try to spend enough money to get his ad to come up on the top of the list.
"So we did that, and then we decided that - as part of this campaign to expose the hypocrisy of the Democrats who are attacking DeLay - we decided to do a specific ad against Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader," Greene explained.
He noticed an anti-DeLay ad for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that stated, "The Truth About Tom DeLay - Learn about DeLay's many scandals and help us clean up the House! dccc.org." Greene attempted to purchase a similar ad that stated, "Truth About Nancy Pelosi - Learn about Pelosi's many scandals and help us clean up the House! RightMarch.com"
"That's all we did," Greene told Cybercast News Service. "We took the liberal ad and changed the words to make it a conservative ad."
But Google refused the ad.
"At this time, Google policy does not permit ad text that advocates against an individual, group or organization," Google wrote Greene on the administration page of his ad account. "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."
"Well, that's great! They're a private organization, they can certainly make that decision" Greene said. "But then we looked, and all the anti-DeLay ads were still up, including the one we had copied word-for-word except that we changed the name."
Asked about the nearly identical ads, Mayzel said, "Both ads were taken down. Any assertion to the contrary is false."
Other anti-DeLay advertisements that were accepted by Google including, "Help Us Defeat DeLay," "Don't delay, Oust DeLay," "Tom DeLay's Rear End" and "tom delay [sic] a republican [sic] showing his true colors," among several others. Only two ads that could be construed as not negative toward DeLay were displayed: One for a "Great Conservative Book - Eyes Wide Open: What Liberals Don't Want You to Know About America!" and another exhorting viewers to, "Pray for Tom DeLay."
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Tuesday morning, if visitors searched Google under Pelosi's name, anti-DeLay ads were also returned under the "sponsored links."
"We saw that there's some obvious bias going on here," Greene added, "obvious discrimination."
That had apparently been changed by the afternoon, when searches under Pelosi's name returned no ads.
Google officials referred Cybercast News Service to their online policies.
"Stating disagreement with or campaigning against a candidate for public office, a political party or public administration is generally permissible," the policy on "Anti and Violence" advertising states. "This standard applies to everyone who wants to advertise on Google, whether we agree with their viewpoint or not."
"If you've got a written policy, all we're asking is that you apply it even-handedly or don't have the policy," Greene concluded.
This is not the first time that Google has been accused of bias. In October 2003, a federally licensed firearms dealer in Connecticut complained that Google was accepting ads for pornographic websites - which illegally made materials available to underaged children - but would not accept ads from licensed gun dealers selling a legal product to adults. At the time, a spokesman for Google said the policy was "part of our terms and conditions."
You have to live with the world as you find it. Google can be pressured into being honest because they value their reputation. There are plenty of other outfits that don't care if people know they are biased--including all the major TV organizations.
I wasn't excusing their bias, I was just saying that, with a little effort, it can be counteracted.
I know google doesn't, if you uncheck the boxes, I just wondered if the other did.
Thanks though, for the response!
"Google is a Communist org. I try my very darnedest to avoid it like the plague."
Which is why I changed my default search engine in Firefox to Metacrawler (although it does pull hits from Goog-gag).
it's politics, man, not honesty (odds on). The difference between google and the msm is that the msm has grown complacent and stupid in its arrogance. google is still a young turk, not stupid. Yet.
It used to be said that hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue. Increasingly they no longer bother.
"Is the new Mozilla Ffx debugged now? 1.3 I think."
I'm running 1.0.3 which is the latest version. I have it set for auto-notification for updates. As it becomes more popular, I'm sure it will become a greater target for the hacker community.
"So, do you recommend downloading and using it?"
I surely do! When I use IE for a day, I find spyware always added. When I use Firefox, spyware is decreaed by a factor of 10 at least. I have grown so accustomed to the tabbed browsing, I couldn't go back to IE (although I understand that it can be updated to provide the tabbed funtion). It does take longer to initially load, but that is the only drawback for me. My default tabbed settings are: Drudge, FR, DU, Zap2it (a TV Guide like site) and Merriam-Webster.
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Nature abhors a vacuum.
Does someone have a link to the Google shill to point out their continued hypocrisy?
There is another one called allthe web.com.
'It has been reported here and other places that Google gave 100 per cent of its political campaign funds to democrats.'
Well, that was money well spent.
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