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Let Freedom Ring,
Posted on 07/07/2012 10:05:41 AM PDT by pabianice
Larry Keane, general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, lambasted Google for its recent no-gun-results shopping policy:
Google, a company that should know better than to censor the flow of online information, has chosen to ban search results related to firearms and other products it deems not “family safe” in its Google Shopping function. Until recently, gun-related products appeared just like other products in search results, giving shoppers a powerful price-comparison tool. But not anymore.
Google’s new, anti-gun policy, announced May 31, assigns a family status to all products. Products in the “non-family safe” or adult categories are blocked from Google Shopping and include guns, ammunition and knives, vehicles, tobacco and traffic devices such as radar scramblers.
As one blogger said, “Shame on Google,” for blocking information related to firearms—a constitutionally-protected product and, we might add, a product that millions of Americans rely on to protect their families.
NSSF is attempting to reach Google to urge the company to reconsider this discriminatory policy that is hostile to the Second Amendment. We also plan to remind the company and emphasize that firearms cannot be purchased online and be transferred directly to the purchaser. A firearm that is purchased online must be physically sent from one federal firearms licensee to another, with the latter conducting the mandatory FBI background check on the purchaser (represented in person) and then transferring the firearm only after the purchaser has passed background check.
The company’s new, anti-gun policy has rightly caused firearms owners to reconsider having Google be their search engine of choice. According to reports, the search engine www.Bing.com, for example, currently does not block firearms from appearing in shopping results.
Though Google Shopping works to aid commerce by making it easy to research products and pricing, Google’s new policy raises barriers to one of the country’s strongest economic trends—the robust sales of firearms and ammunition, one of the true bright spots in the U.S. economy. Firearms and ammunition sales are at all-time highs, accounting for a 30.6 percent increase in jobs from 2008 through 2011 and an overall economic impact of nearly $32 billion to the nation.
Google’s restrictive policy comes at a time when retailers and other online information resources have increased their content about firearms because of consumer demand. Fortunately, consumers have other online services to turn to instead of Google for their firearms information.
We all know the censorship challenges Google has faced in China and other countries hostile toward freedom of speech, just as we know of the company’s admirable efforts to overcome those challenges. The question arises: How can a company that supports the First Amendment with such zeal be so hostile to the Second Amendment?
What's a google ?
I remember now ...
It's a German airplane ...
a Messo'shit.
Tools / Options Change your home page to http://bing.com or http://ixquick.com
Google kills small businesses that rely on its traffic too much. Just switch to something else and get others to do the same. We have to actually do what is right now...not just what is convenient.
Go to google.
type in “bing”
go there in the current window, cutting off google.
HA! Log THAT g-boys...
I chose Bing.
I think the BATFE should be restricted to the elimination of ATF&E in all TV shows and movies. The Hollyweird folks are nothing if not hypocrites.
and other products it deems not “family safe” ...
oh, ya,...no links to any porn...../sarc
Family hey? Guns blocked, but porn and promotion of rump ranging is encouraged.
Google "Shopping", unlike Google Search, is a private commercial enterprise. It can display, or not display, shopping results for anything it decides to:
"First, we are starting to transition Google Product Search in the U.S. to a purely commercial model built on Product Listing Ads. This new product discovery experience will be called Google Shopping and the transition will be complete this fall. We believe that having a commercial relationship with merchants will encourage them to keep their product information fresh and up to date."A ban on any given product category is annoying as h3ll, given that Google Shopping is widely used. But I don't think that exercising their rights as a private commercial service to not carry firearm info is "censorship" per se, any more than a vegetarian shopping site that doesn't carry information about where to buy meat.
-- http://googlecommerce.blogspot.com/2012/05/building-better-shopping-experience.html
The Google Search results still carry the full range of info on firearms.
So, NSSF should encourage people to use another shopping service -- there are tons of them. Hit Google where it hurts -- their user base.
"Products in the “non-family safe” or adult categories are blocked from Google Shopping and include guns, ammunition and knives, vehicles, tobacco and traffic devices such as radar scramblers."Seems to me that excluding vehicles and tobacco is just as annoying as excluding firearms.
If by "radar scramblers" they mean illegal devices, as opposed to legal "radar detectors", that's one thing. But radar detectors are legal in most states (or were the last time I checked).
Seems to me that it's already well-established that "Google Shopping" is not in any regard the open non-commercial thing that "Google Search" is, and thus they are entitled to restrict the products any way they please.
I don't like it any more than the NSSF does, but it's entirely within their rights to do so.
Michelle says the greasy burgers her husband likes are not family safe. Are they blocked by google?
Any time a firearms-related thread is created on FreeRepublic, please be sure to add the "banglist" keyword to it so that interested FReepers don't miss it. Just a suggestion.
Let Freedom Ring,
Any time a firearms-related thread is created on FreeRepublic, please be sure to add the "banglist" keyword to it so that interested FReepers don't miss it. Just a suggestion.
Let Freedom Ring,
Someday the government is going to say to Google, “Block this candidate’s messages because they are a danger to the government”. Google will not have a Constitutional leg to stand on to refuse because they already block stuff.
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