Google Stung By Criticism

Reacting to the latest in a series of articles on World Net Daily highly critical of Google's editorial policies (helpfully forwarded to their attention by Ms. G. Goldwater of Geneva Switzerland, self-described Internet Correspondent and Commentator), Google's AdWords Support team has sent an email with a long cc list, including Michael Savage, Sean Hannity and the White House, in response ( I was evidently included because of posts here and here).

Google believes strongly in freedom of expression and therefore offers broad access to content across the web without censoring results. At the same time, we reserve the right to exercise editorial discretion when it comes to the advertising we accept on our site, as noted in our advertising terms and conditions. As such, we do not accept ad text advocating against any organization or person (public, private, or protected).

We apply our policies equally, regardless of the political views represented by the ads submitted to Google. We welcome political ads and run many. We allow ads that urge voting against a particular politician, for example, but are likely to reject ads that allege someone is unethical. We routinely accept and reject ads for materials that are for and against a wide variety of political views.

Per our policies, Google accepted some ads for this book and rejected others.

Now this all sounds very nice and even-handed. Unfortunately, it's not really true. For example, "Google believes strongly in freedom of expression and therefore offers broad access to content across the web without censoring results." But they do censor results. Why else would superblogs like little green footballs and The Jawa Report be banned from GoogleNews while terrorist sympathizer sites like jihadunspun and uruknet are featured in GoogleNews search results?

And what about this statement: "As such, we do not accept ad text advocating against any organization or person (public, private, or protected)." I'd characterize these ads as advocating against a person (click on image for larger view):

George Bush fart doll ad.

George Bush punching bag ad.

Can a public company remain profitable while actively seeking to enrage over one half of the American electorate? Unlikely. It seems to be time for Google's shareholders to take charge and demand that Google management meet their fiduciary responsibilities by ceasing to indulge their personal political biases.

Other World Net Daily stories critical of Google's biased editorial policies:

Google still runs anti-DeLay ads
Google money engine for Democrats only
Google censoring conservative ads?
Google: Big Media has higher quality
Google censoring search results in China
Google bars 'hate' sites' ads, but runs porn ads
Google bans Christian ad