Almost a year after Perrspectives' run-in with Google, it seems that the Internet giant is continuing to arbitrarily trample on the opinion speech of its advertisers. Apparently, the company whose corporate mantra is "do no evil" is persists in doing just that.

The San Jose Mercury News reports that Google has gotten embroiled in the Tom Delay ethic wars. While Google was running an anti-Delay and from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), they refused a virtually identical anti-Nancy Pelosi ad from the paleo-conservative Rightmarch. The Google Adwords team cited its editorial standard barring ads from sites using "language that advocates against an individual, group or organization." Google then decided to drop both ads.

Perrspectives' saga in 2004 is detailed in "Google's Gag Order", as well as in The Nation and in Slate...

After three months, Perrspectives was dropped as an advertiser due to content (referring to the Bush administration as "secretive, paranoid and vengeance-filled") that violated its "advocates standard." While Google ultimately reversed its decision, Perrspectives refused to resume its advertising as Google had not revised its dangerously vague "advocates against" policy.

Since August 2004, it appears that Google has changed its advertiser content policy. While clearly improved, the new standards sadly resemble college hate speech guidelines:

"Advertisements and associated websites may not promote violence or advocate against a protected group. A protected group is distinguished by their: Race or ethnic origin, Color, National origin, Religion, Disability, Sex, Age, Veteran status, Sexual orientation/Gender identity. Ad text advocating against any organization or person (public, private, or protected) is not permitted. Stating disagreement with or campaigning against a candidate for public office, a political party or public administration is generally permissible.

This standard applies to everyone who wants to advertise on Google, whether we agree with their viewpoint or not."

Despite Google's missteps, Perrspectives generally remains an advocate of the company and its technology. Late last year, we proposed a "Freedom of Information Act" to Google aimed at helping the company address its readers' sensitivities while protecting all advertisers' opinion speech.

Sadly, Google is still getting it wrong and, to use its term, doing evil. The result: Google may have created the only issue (protecting speech on the Internet) on which red state conservatives and blue state liberals can agree.

—Perrspective 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) |