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Google's Ban of an Anti-MoveOn.org Ad
Whip-hero writes in with an Examiner.com story about Google's rejection of an ad critical of MoveOn.org. The story rehashes the controversy over MoveOn.org's ad that ran in the NYTimes on the first day of testimony of Gen. Petraeus's Senate testimony. The rejected ad was submitted on behalf of Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins — its text is reproduced in the article. The implication, which has been picked up by many blogs on the other side of the spectrum from MoveOn.org, is that Google acted out of political favoritism. Not so, says Google's policy counsel: Google's trademark policy allows any trademark holder to request that its marks not be used in ads; and MoveOn.org had made such a request.
Basically, a ad had a trademark on it, and the trademark owner asked for the ad to be removed? Not really big news...
It'll be news if they submitted an ad WITHOUT infringing on a trademark, and that was rejected.
This was on Fark the other day, and between the usual conservative and liberal bashing and flaming, it became quite obvious that this was a non-story:
An organization saw their trademark being used without their permission in an advertisement, and asked that it be taken down.
If this was Microsoft running an ad that said "Ubuntu Linux promotes terrorism," and Ubuntu asked Google to remove it, would you get all angry about how evil Ubuntu and Google are?
Their ad backfired spectacularly, and now anyone who even references that ad gets a take-down notice...
And Google bends over backwards for them.
From the article: "Google routinely permits the unauthorized use of company names such as Exxon, Wal-Mart, Cargill and Microsoft in advocacy ads. An anti-war ad currently running on Google asks Keep Blackwater in Iraq? and links to an article titled Bastards at Blackwater Should Blackwater Security be held accountable for the deaths of its employees?"
Does this mean the only reason we see "Wal-mart sucks" ads are because none of those companies PR/legal departments have asked Google to stop using their trademarks?
Oh yes, and the current system of extraordinary rendition appeared under Clinton. And don't forget that pesky DMCA.
It's not that I like the GOP either - I just think the donkeys, elephants and Googles of this world are all in it for three things: the money, the power, and the women.
If you're tired of the war of Iraq, log onto MoVaughn.org and make a generous donation.
It boggles the mind that some in government would piss and moan about the moveon.org political advertising while ignoring a perpetual war, the suspension of habeas corpus, secret prisons, torture, troop deaths, an occupation, over-stretched military, etc.
Wait until those morons discover the political cartoons they've been depicted in.
No matter what the causes of the ban are , it's frightening what the power of an (almost) full monopoly on internet seaching services can do. Google is today the number one searching enginw on the internet. It's SO used that "to google" has replaced the verb "to search"... so if Google bans something or have favoritisms for something, this, no matter waht, will have SERIOUS implications for the involved parts. Funny how the powers than be concentrate on the infamious "MS monopoly (whatever that is) and close their eyes on the more serious Google issue.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
summary >Google's trademark policy allows any trademark holder to request that its marks not be used in ads; and MoveOn.org had made such a request.
I'll venture to guess that things we never imagined needing trademarking will now be. And it boils down to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, since so many issues that matter languish while the fabric of our nation frays ever faster.
Can't we stop the food-fight long enough to make issues like this moot?
If that was true, it might be worth noting. But it's not:
http://investor.google.com/board.html
Both Gore and Schmidt are on Apple's board of directors however: http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/bod.html
Just because you're accusing the search tool of partisan hackery doesn't mean it should stop you before making your own partisan hacked up assaults. Not to mention that Al Gore isn't even involved in this case.
So the Times accidentally undercharged them, then gets to call up several weeks later and demand the rest of the money? MoveOn.org should have done what I do in cases like this: Send them a bill for additional handling and paperwork for the sum that they're requesting.
Since when do you get to charge someone one amount, deliver the product, and AFTER the fact say, "By the way, we messed up, and you owe us twice as much?" Is this just a case of liberals not being able to stand their ground again? What the hell is wrong with these people that they can't just say that the transaction has taken place, and there's no remedy? I mean, I understand the NY Times going after the money to protect their journalistic credibility, but MoveOn should've thumbed their nose at them, based solely upon the fact that that's not how business works.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
you forgot the cool 767s and your own private runway for said aircrafts.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
So much for free speech from the left wing. The fault here really isn't Google, although they could arguably using a weak legal argument to be sympathetic to a particular group, it's MoveOn, whose basically taken a page from the book of scientology to try and avoid criticism of itself. What a bunch of thugs!
This is my sig.
You might reconsider the women part of it for the GOP (excluding Condi of course ;-)
Work bio at MMWD
It's a judgment call since Google can do whatever the hell it wants, but there was no trademark violation.
Showing the actions of Moveon in order to criticize them is fair use. There is no question that this ad was not illegal.
Google is liberal. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's obvious. They filter information in a biased way, too. If you look at the fringe sites they allow onto google news, its matches their political views. No right wing nuts, plenty of left wing nuts.
Again, I don't have a problem with google choosing to be biased, but they do.
And maybe they give all trademark complaints instant credit, but I seriously doubt it. This was an invalid complaint and there was no legal reason to pull the ad.
If it wasn't Google whom blocked an Ad, and it was let's say one of those sites : msn.com, yahoo.com, altavista.com, ... . No one would even care. But because it's Google, THE FREEDOM FIGHTER, whom blocked an ad, that's purely a discretion of democracy.
We shouldn't over-react to moves like that, Like we wouldn't over react to same moves by yahoo or msn. Google has its rights to choose whom to publish or not. That's it!
Read and Comment at my BLOG
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Global Warming
Iraq War
Tax Increase
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etc etc etc.
This will be fun.
so I cannot be critical of any corporation or organization? If I don't like the methods of the RIAA, advertising companies can refuse me service? It is certainly within their legal right, because they are private organizations. But is it ethical to refuse customers who wish to push a political message, especially to counter one that already is freely using the advertising service?
Making ads with other people's trademarks should be protected, like if I'm some crappy beige box PC maker I can't really use trademarks for Windows or Intel freely. And if the owners of those trademarks complain the advertiser should take down those ads, to maintain the quality of the advertising.
Google really has only two possible scenarios I see. They are either politically motivated (the company + employees constitutes the largest Democratic campaign contributer in the district for the past few years). Or they are inflexible to the point of being blindly stupid.
Take your pick google, evil or stupid.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Microsoft's position in the OS market is so strong that it manages to be the third most used search engine on the internet, even though its product is vastly inferior to other competitors, since it defaults to searching on that site from many different places in their OS.
As opposed to Google, where I have a nifty search box in my browser that's set to it by default, and comes already loaded with an alternative option should I choose not to use the best engine out there, or to see if I can find elsewhere what Google fails to mention, or if Google is down for some strange reason, or etc.
You can't take the sky from me...
The Bush all evil all the time site is this way ----> http://reddit.com/
So by simply discussing this article we are in violation of the MOVEON.ORG trademark.
Why has this not been removed?
Moveon.org can dish it out but they sure cant take it.
A solid 1/3 of the US is "conservative" / Republican (not the same 1/3s, BTW, especially as of late :-).
It says something about Google's perception of their position in the marketplace that they feel they can be so brazen. Pissing off that large a fraction of your customer base is not something you should do lightly ... it's not written in stone that they will always provide the best search results (even if we can't foresee them getting a competitor that's at least as good, but perhaps ... less evil...?).
Whatever, Bush isn't a real Republican. He's some guy who was never presidential material that fell into the job TWICE because of the general failures of our two party system. You can accuse Bush of cronyism, but Clinton replaced much staff when he entered office as well. Which is the tradition of the presidency, and should not worry anyone except people who actually are on the staff.
Why don't you blame the Democrats for not putting forward a candidate that could have had a clear cut victory instead of Gore and Kerry who can only win by margins so small they can be swallowed up by simple statistical errors. Why can't they run another LBJ, FDR, etc. Maybe some of us swing voters would actually start voting for Democrats again.
besides, with all the griping about Bush. I wonder why we can't focus ourselves on the problems of industry, congress , the Fed and other institutions that are either corrupt or incompetent. Bush is in office, he's leaving soon, so move on.
We can't undo our mistakes, lets at least try to learn from them. If there is a candidate running and you think they are the worse possible thing. Democrat or Republican, the solution is not to vote the "opposite". Write a letter to your favorite party, vote for an alternate party, start participating in a parties Primaries (by registering for that party instead of being an independent). And try to put the right people in the House and the Senate to moderate the President, this also works the other way, you can moderate the House and Senate with a good President.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I seem to recall MoveOn coming into existence to oppose a certain political red herring involving a blue dress.
WTF are they still around?
World Population: 6 billion, give or take
US Population: 300 million, give or take
100 million / 6 billion = 1.6%
Hardly a large fraction (And yes, I know it doesn't account for the ~5 billion people without internet access, but neither did your figures).
And no, I don't care about the moderator "guidelines."
Moveon can criticize, but god forbid if anyone criticize them!
Goose meet the gander.
Until you care to estimate how large a fraction of Google's audience, now and in the medium term, has significant disposable income as well as access, I don't think your statistics are very interesting.
And any way you look at it, 1/3 of the population of the wealthiest country in the world is not a group you should go out of your way to scorn.
He's not on the BoD, but he IS a "Senior Advisor" to Google's management team.
The other side of the spectrum from MoveOn are fascists. They are a bunch of right wing nutjobs who hate MLK, science, free software and Google. Their hypocrisy is matched only by their ignorance. The sins that Google has committed are all done much larger by the companies they are made familiar with and are told to like by mainstream news. The only thing that's consistent in their arguments is that anything is justified if it's done by a big company to make a buck.
Freedom is a good principle to advocate. Opposing trade with Communists is fine, but ire should also be aimed at M$, Cisco, Yahoo and others who co-operate as much or more than Google. All should be forbidden from trade with China by law and advocates of freedom should also be angry at WalMart for pushing for "normalized" trade. The nut jobs are not. Opposing political censorship is good, but the nut jobs defend big ISPs who have filtered email for political reasons. The "neoconservatives" are not conservative, they are fascists and they believe in greed not freedom.
The dumbest of them will put the interests of government and industry above themselves, their family and friends. They advocate government control when it helps make someone rich. It's sad to talk to them.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Not to mention that Al Gore isn't even involved in this case.
But, but... He made the internet!
-- Linux user #369862
Yes, but what percentage of the US conservative population is so brazenly partisan that they'd be upset at a company for complying with a request to take down an ad from an organization who owns a copyright used in said ad?
And is the ephemeral wrath of partisans who will inevitably find someone else to be more ticked off at in a month or two worth more than a potential lawsuit from MoveOn?
People like to self-inflate their own group's importance, but how much do you think Disney is really suffering from having Gay Days at Disneyworld after over a decade since the initial furor started? For that matter, how's anyone in "the liberal media" faring in spite of near-religious conservative belief in their bias? The current flap is nothing but a tempest in a teacup.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
This is a troubling policy. Frequently trademarked expressions are the only short common way to reference a particular organization. If that organization can block the use of that trademark in advertisements it can control a great deal of what is said about it. Sure individual blogs can do what they want as long as it is legal but even with the internet if you want your message to reach the people who aren't already believers you need a way to reach out to large numbers that don't regularly visit any site who will express your view for free and that means advertising.
One is tempted to blame google in this situation but I'm not really sure what else they could do. When they have sold keywords that were close to a trademark even when the ad itself contained no trademark they came in for a lot of criticism and even lawsuits. Moreover, I would guess (but can't be sure) that they would be at risk of being sued for trademark infringement if they allowed ads to keep running that were engaging in genuinely misleading usage.
Now you might think that google should just let ads like this one run but not ads that use the trademark for competitive advantage. However, not only would this be difficult and expensive it seems likely that google would be forced to rule on tough close choices not to mention keeping having experts in trademark law from all the countries the ad is going to run in examine the use. It would probably be better at this point for them to make an exception for political speech but this still doesn't solve all the difficulties. A much better solution would be to seek an international treaty on trademarks that lets intermediate companies like google step out of the way and requires any legal action to be brought directly against the advertiser.
It isn't like google is never biased. Their policy (or at least their TOS last time I looked) on what custom buttons for their toolbar they will put into their gallery is pretty bad. It lets you post search buttons for sites that advocate gun control but not for sites that advocate gun possession (presumably like the NRA). Still if they are telling the truth here I don't know if this is really one.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Mods? Anyone? Parent's post is weapons-grade flamebait, starting with the title.
I don't know why people are talking about this being Google showing its true colours. Google have always claimed that their motto is "don't be evil", and supporting a pro-democracy group over a militarist group is simply in line with that.
I really did look at their website, honest. They seem to be so comprehensively political that the website is pretty-much content free. Who are these people anyway?
Everyone has a price, just pay it and you can own Google, too. Then you can run whatever ads you like. Don't like how the WSJ frames issues, buy it and make it say what you want.
In this case, I think Google has a legitimate beef, and they have the law on their side. They do the same for youtube videos. You prove it's yours, you ask them to take it down, they take it down (not always in that order).
If you don't like it, exempt your business and personal website from Google's searches, and don't use Google to search. Don't let them make make money off of you at all. When enough people vote with their feet, things will change.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
However, my understanding of trademark law tells me that I was in the right. I wouldn't be if I was using the word "Mac" in a way that was misleading, for example by claiming that Macs were my own product, or sold by a company other than Apple.
What is really ironic is that by running that ad, I was actually doing Apple a favor, by making it easier for prospective Mac software publishers to find an experienced programmer.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
So just because Google is trying to save it's ass from lawsuits from many copyright holders, all of the sudden they are evil?
Am I the only one confused by this?
google.slashdot
Couldn't I, as a political candidate / organization, just trademark my name, then give nobody permission to use it, and thus nobody could create a political ad that mentions my name?
I'm going to say however that this is probably google being lazy and didn't look at the ad or how it was used- just simply abiding to the complaint to prevent any sort of lawsuit.
They probably implemented the policy to stop people from running blatant smear campaigns via AdWords. This problem is perhaps more threatening via AdWords simply because it is automated and potentially anonymous. If it got out of hand, it could lose Google a lot of money as well as the interest of advertisers. Remember, ads were the big pot o' gold that dried up completely during the burst, and now that you can make money in internet advertising again, they are probably looking at every way that could self-destruct.
The real problem is they have trademarked the words,"MoveOn" and "MoveOn.Org". Now, how do you talk about, rebut, refute what they say without using it. I will say this, any /.'er is a hypocrit if they criticize Scientology for going after critics but support MoveOn.Org's action. They are further hypocrits if they are anti-copyright and support MoveOn. Just because it is a Republican group going after MoveOn?
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
And I'll cheer God when you get cancer. :)
I'm not being cute. I really, really hope you get cancer.
Hey, I thought you liberal types didn't believe in God. Oh, fancy that. Kinda hard to get divine justice from the Flying Spaghetti Monster, now, isn't it.
Hmmm, I wonder what country we bloodthirsty Republicans can bomb next. I'll have to think about that next time I run out to kick some homeless people. Sorry, but your kind doesn't believe in God... can't even have it on the pledge.... lol.
Besides, dumby. If I get cancer, I can really have the death penalty once, and if I don't believe in God, then what does that mean for you?
This is my sig.
The Left always does what they accuse the Right of doing
Well, let's not righteous... I mean, it's not like we've ever accused the left of expanding presidential power, being reckless with federal finances, inept diplomacy and involving our country in stupid, mismanaged wars, now, have we?
This is my sig.
OK - I deal with Google ads (and MSN, etc) for a living. The fact is - Google has very strict policies - but not every account manager at Google is equal (what... you think these ads aren't manually managed?). Some are very paranoid, and will shut down anything with a single complaint, others will spend more time and look into it, and a few won't act until they have gotten multiple complaints or even threatened with lawsuits. Also, the size of the account plays into how lenient they are as well. If you are bidding on a million keywords they'll tend to let things slide, as opposed to someone who bids on 10 or 20.
So... it's not a conspiracy and it's not a corporate ethics thing, it's just that some people are better at their jobs than others.
http://www.coderoshi.com/
Yes, I would get all angry about the removal on that basis alone. It depends on the wording of the advertisement and how the trademark device(s) is/are used. If there is any misrepresentation of what the trademark device(s) refer to, then it is infringement. If the trademark is also used in a way to attract views to the ad, it might be as well. The accusation of terrorism would have nothing to do with trademark law. If the trademark device(s) was only used as a way to precisely refer to the trademark owner, then it is proper use.
The problem with Google's policy is not whether they ban something that is legal, but rather, their process to handle it. If Google chose to ban all references using a trademark, then so be it ... their servers, their rules. The problem is that what they are doing is allowing the trademark owners to selectively filter the legal uses of the trademark. That basically comes down to a non-uniform policy implementation that is out of their control. While even this isn't illegal, it is a bad idea, and this itself could end up harming Google when more businesses figure out ways to use this as a method to make ad banning requests based on trivial references.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Dark Reflection
Also, the word is dummy. As in, "you dummy how can you be such a total dumbfuck, it's almost like you're deaf and dumb from having been exposed to so much propaganda from the big dumbo party." See, it's easy.
Google?
or
Goo-betray us?
I'd agree with you, except Clinton bombed more countries then both Bush'es put together. Sad but true, even if you don't count the Chinese embassy.
Oh, wait. This account is actually a sockpuppet of the well-known troll twitter, who even has his own tag category.
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There's limits on those things. More or less there's a fairness clause that you can't go and give heavy discounts for them to the side you like. I mean imagine if all the broadcasters on TV decided "You know what? Screw the democrats, we want the republicans to win." So what they do is charge dems the normal ad rate, maybe even higher, but give republicans a 90% discount. As such there are tons of republican ads airing, and little democrat response.
So the Times can get in trouble for undercharging. Moveon also has no reason to be pissed as they should know this.
Except in this case the ad was using the trademark MoveOn.org for the purpose of selling the oposition. It would be legitimate if it was a blog entry talking about the issue. But in this case, the trademark was being misappropriated to directly link to an opposition campaign page.
The whole power of the ad was derived from the the trademarke MoveOn.org, if you read it with a generic liberal replaced, it just doesn't have the same impact. And that is why ultimately it was a legitimate request.
The group itself has a name which is likely in violation of trademark protections. As much as I would love for somebody to put MoveOn.org in their place, this was a legitimate move on the part of Google to try and protect a trademark.
I don't believe Google here. It's as simple as that!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Collins is a Republican Senator from Maine, and faces a hard choice in her 2008 reelection bid.
Maine is a fairly moderate state, and Collins is in a position very similar to Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. That is, in order to appeal to the voters of Maine she has to take reasonably moderate positions. However, in order to maintain her status as a card carrying Republican, she has to appeal to the kooks.
Chafee in trying to appeal to the moderates of Rhode Island, made the kooks in the Republican party angry. So they launched a primary challenger against him in the name of Stephen Laffey. This primary challenger weakened Chafee's position, because it pointed out to independents in the state just how kooky the Republicans have become. So despite years of services, a solid reputation, he lost pretty handidly.
Collins doesn't want the same thing ot happen to her. So to fend off a primary challenge, she's trying to establish her credentials with the kooks. Picking something innocuous that nobody really knows or cares about, she's decided to attack moveon.org. Had she instead decided to champion their latest nutty cause of attacking 12 year olds for speaking in favor of SCHIP, that might have gotten her some negative press back home with regular people and that's not good. So by attacking something the kooks hate, that normal people don't really care about, she's in safe territory.
Just getting the ad out on google.com wouldn't have been enough, because nobody would have paid much attention to it. So it was necessary to place the ad in such a way as to cause it to be rejected. But not too whacko, using bad language would have drawn attention to regular people. So they lucked out on this trademark infringement thing.
Because if there is nothing the kooks love more(left, right, it doesn't matter), it is feeling like they are victims of a giant conspiracy to get them. Plus, it is easier to get the press to pick up on your ad being rejected then it is that it is running and nobody is looking at it.
This news article was intended for right-wing kooks to read, so they'd see Susan Collins as one of their own.
It's almost comical.
Therefore, Google's policy is When we receive a complaint from a trademark owner, we only investigate the use of the trademark in ad text. If the advertiser is using the trademark in ad text, we will require the advertiser to remove the trademark and prevent them from using it in ad text in the future. Please note that we will not disable keywords in response to a trademark complaint.
Their position is the only one that will increase shareholder value.
You can't take the sky from me...
That hasn't been my experience. Google is a business. I get ads for right-wing nuts hawking books through gmail.com all the time. You got money, they'll post your ad.
In this case, I fully suspect it's because they tried to place the ad as a sponsored link on the side of search terms. The rules are different there, and they care more about trademarks and such, because they don't want peoples searches being overrun with competitors ads.
Google is a private company. There is no 1st amendment issue here. Is there any reason why Google cant block ads defending/advocating people or organizations that Google considers to be objectionable? Its not like google is rigging search results against them, they just don't want to take the money of or do business with d*ckheads like Susan Collins.
I just dont see the problem here.
I know this is slightly OT, but I'd like to see some sort of reasoned debate over it here...
What exactly was so offensive about MoveOn.org's ad campaign in the first place?
Petraeus has handled the Iraq war poorly, and in several cases lied outright to the American people. MoveOn.org called him out on it. Isn't that how democratic politics and free speech are supposed to work?
It's no secret that many Americans feel that the government misled the general public in order to bolster support for their war, and the ad was a simple reflection of this reality. It wasn't even a baseless personal attack -- they provide quotations, and even cite their sources.
Perhaps the most troubling part of the whole saga is that the house passed a resolution condemning the advert 341-79, and the senate 71-29 (With all 49 republicans, and 22 democrats voting in favor). The president even got in on the action.
This Time editorial seems to have the best summation of the whole situation.
Is this all the legislative branch is good for these days? Sternly wagging their fingers at political action groups, and listening to baseball testimony?
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
No, he voted to approve the bill that funded the agency that funded the plan that expanded the project that created the internet...But, I don't know why she swallowed the fly...
And that's all he ever claimed to have done. He just claimed it in a way that he thought people would associate with his foresight.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
A fast cowboy since 2007
Hmm. Looked up the parent just because of your comment. Doesn't make even a tiny bit of sense (and the journal it links to doesn't either). Perhaps it's just that my train of thought derails every time it runs over the phrase "sins ... done much larger". There's a bright flash, and I not only forget what I read a few moments before, but incur anterograde amnesia—I forget what I'm about to read. So the question arises, are you a sockpuppet for this guy who posts mentally disruptive crap? Why did you draw my attention to him? And why am I wasting my time posting this? Damn...I forget...name...
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
Who didn't see the threat google's power (or any of the other gatekeepers) before?
When all you can do is character assassination, everyone and every organization is some sort of hidden evil needing exposure and ridicule.
I would like to know why right wing nuts can support conspiracies with significantly less ridicule/dismissal than everybody else can.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
What the whole controversy reveals to me is that MoveOn.org has decided that trademark protection is an important weapon to use to resolve a political issue. It strikes me that MoveOn.org has characterized themselves as a commercial operation by this action. Are they just hucksters soliciting funds from people by using political issues to rile them up and get them to send in their dollars? Nothing about MoveOn.org from the past has led me to believe this. I've long had the opinion that they want to act in the political, not the commercial sphere.
So why are they waving around 'TradeMark Protection' as a political weapon? It just seems, to use crude language, like a cowardly bullshit approach.
Microsoft says legacy (serial/parallel) ports are bad. They don't obfuscate the hardware enough.
Trust me, I feel your pain.
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From TFA:
"The banned advertisements said, "Susan Collins is MoveOn's primary target. Learn how you can help" and "Help Susan Collins stand up to the MoveOn.org money machine.""
3 out of 4 drinkers prefer Coke to [name removed due to trademark request].
Distributed proteome folding @ WorldCommunityGrid.org
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WITHOUT corporations, government, and destruction of freedom of speech and creativity. This time, people who use it as man's greatest invention need to keep it free of liars and eveeel dooers... Seriously.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Bush is the ultimate Republican. He's the first president to reflect their base. Loves big-business, giveaways to military contractors, no understanding or compassion for the problems of the working class, thinks foreign policy is a dick sizing contest and anyone who doesn't act from the gut is a wuss.
As to move on and Google, I'm against censorship, period. We have an equivalent problem on the other side with the large companies who own almost every TV network refusing to air Move On ads for what appear to be contrived reasons. One possibility is to require media companies to accept any ad at a set rate in exchange for immunity from liability for the ad (ad buyers are still liable).
Play Command HQ online
Am I the only one that finds it very hard to care about this?
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
big dumbo party.
Blah blah blah. At least our party believes in advancing an American agenda versus the world, rather than sitting there like the Dems waiting for the UN to rule everything.
This is my sig.
I work as a contractor at Google, so I'm not technically an employee. Also, I do not work in a department dealing with ads. So take my opinion for what it's worth.
Not everybody inside of Google is pleased with this situation. Unfortunately, these aren't the people that count when it comes to making these business decisions. I am extremely unhappy with how it is being handled. Yes, it is Google's choice to choose this route. However, it is, in my opinion, the wrong choice. There is no legal reason for them to ban these types of ads. What next, will they drop comparison ads because Microsoft doesn't like how their products stood up in a head-to-head with a competing office suite? If Microsoft complains, Google will drop the ads as per company policy. This is an idiotic situation. One that will eventually come back to bite them right on their corporate ass.
It does not matter what reason Google chose to drop the ad. People will continue to believe that it was for political reasons. Inside of Google, the employees have a very prominent tilt to the left. No surprise when you look at the age of the average worker. They have been aggressively hiring large numbers of new employees straight out of college where the politics tend towards the left. The tilt is so left, in fact, that there is a definite air of "political correctness" in the work atmosphere. Add that to the general arrogance of the workforce, and you have Google's eventual downfall in the making. So while Google's official stance is the ad was yanked for violating official guidelines, I personally think this is bullshit. I think they are using it as a way to get away with pushing a political agenda.
I like Google. It's a great place to work. But if the "feel" inside the company continues in its current heading, it will become unpleasant in just a few short years.
I understand why Google has this trademark policy--it avoids all sorts of legal hassles--but it's a bad (shall we say, evil?) policy. The purpose of a trademark is to identify a product unambiguously to buyers. The purpose of a trademark is not to give the trademark holder full control over the use of the trademark or to give them "valuable intellectual property".
So, "Olestra gives you diarrhea" and "MoveOn.org tortures kittens to power their web server" are valid trademark uses, regardless of whether they are true or not, and as such should not be restricted.
What is clear is that the rules are not being equally applied across the board here.
Google has a clear bias. Until recently, you could put "failure" in as a search term, click feeling lucky, and you would be directed to the white house page for George Bush. Is this what we expect from a supposedly non-biased search engine?
Their choices on which "news" sites anmd stories to display when using Google News Search is very questionable as well.
When Google engages in this kind of behavior, they lose credibility.
..unless you're dissenting against the wrong side.
What's awesome is that one of them has "friended" me, and the other has "foe'd" me.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I'm positive that I've seen pols run adverts along the lines of "Stop the NRA"...
Seems like a slippery slope that Google is on for this topic...
Perhaps the way around this is to just s/MoveOn/GeorgeSoros/g
I doubt you could legitimatly argue a trademark request a person's name (otherwize all the anti-bushies ad campaigns would be out of business)...
Perhaps your sample of Americans and the state of their health care was affected by the fact that you were getting it from an expensive boat. I suspect that there are other, non-expensive-boat-owning demographics that could have more difficulty paying for their kids' health care.
Bush is the ultimate Republican.
Abraham Lincoln was a republican, Eisenhower was a republican, T.R. was a republican (trust-buster, regulated business). Hoover was a republican, even if he wasn't a very good president.
No, the Grand Old Party was hijacked, likely by the same people who hijacked the Boy Scouts of America. The national level of the Republican is a completely different beast than it once was. And on the small town election level, the republican runners are far closer to the traditional Republican platform. (I believe the Democrat Party was also hijacked, because they used to be a pretty good lot at more than one point in history. even if they did drag us into more wars than Republicans ever have)
Our choices are tax and spend Democrats, or borrow and spend even more Republicans. Everyone has to hand out special deals to buddies and to the special interest groups that got them elected.
Also not sure why you're a Bush hater. the man is obviously a useful idiot, "All religions pray to the same God." I mean honestly, even a grade school child is not going to swallow that one. Either he thinks all Americans are idiots, or he's an idiot. I believe it is the latter. An idiot with powerful friends, perhaps. I think you should be far more concerned with the people who pushed him to the top of the ticket at the Republican Primaries.
Iraq war, the protests against the war, all of that is there to distract you. The war is relatively meaningless, it's just a decoy. Think of it as someone lighting some fires so they can rob a few places, it's the oldest trick in the book really.
Every jackass that takes a day off work to march around with a big sign "NO WAR!" is a sheep that has fallen into a trap. They are victims of this great distraction, they are the same as the people who run around with banners displaying "Support our Troops".
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The condemnation of Moveon has nothing to do with questioning someone in the military, but anyone who dares to question the bullshit of the right wing. If the Democrats who voted to condemn Moveon had two brains between them, they would have added language to the bill that condemned the attacks on Max Cleland, John Kerry, John Murtha, the generals who have questioned the war, and Rush Limbaugh's "phony soldiers". Then the Republicans in the Senate would have been forced to condemn the right wing's attacks on those who have served or are serving in the military, or be shown to be political hacks. But the Democrats who voted for this bill didn't do that. Because they are stupid.
Actually, Petreaus's report is backed up by the Brookings Institute, hardly arch conservative
You mean those two supposed critics of the war, that Dick Cheney called no friends of the administration, that have been big war backers from the start?
The fact of the matter is, conditions are improving in Iraq
Liar.
when your leftist ban on DDT has resulted in the deaths of 100 million people from Malaria since its inception
Debunked. Site is down at the moment for some reason.
the banning of the personal ownership of weapons
Which Democrats are calling for a ban on personal weapons, exactly? And of the current candidates for president, which one has backed gun control any time recently? I'll give you a hint: the candidate is from New York, and isn't Hillary Clinton.
the nationalization of health care
So what part of our current system do you like best? That we spend twice as much per patient as other industrialized nations for worse care? That insurance companies take your expensive premiums and use the money to try and find ways to deny you care? Or the fact that Cuba is catching up to us in health care despite spending 1/30th as much per patient?
yes, you'll be expanding, again, the IRS
Reagan and the Bushes have ensured the necessity of the largest tax increases in the history of this country. It's just a matter of when they go into effect.
If Move-On is pro-American, name me one web page where Move-On advocates -any- policy that will: a) improve the world share of American GDP
Irrelevant.
b) improve American access to or control of world's natural resources.
Irrelevant.
c) support American corporations, over foreign corporations
Irrelevant. Do you also demand that the American Cancer Society come up with better plans for fighting forest fires?
The USA is going to win the war in Iraq
Then we're going to need another 400,000 troops. And that's just to pacify Baghdad. I'm sure the 101st fighting keyboarders in the wingnutosphere are going to go down to their local recruitment office and sign up any day now. Any day now.
because, MoveOn wants the United States to be destroyed.
That's alright son, just go back to drinking the Kool-Aid. Soon, the pain of being that damn stupid will all go away...
Bush is the ultimate Republican
He ranks high up there on the list, but he isn't the "ultimate". That title goes to Ronald Reagan among fellow Republicans.
Life is not for the lazy.
What is funny is as horrid a polling number as Bush has Congress is polling less than half of that.
A trademark does not give you ownership of a word or phrase. Trademark protection is limited to the use of the trademark in commerce, to identify a product. MoveOn.org and Google should be ashamed of themselves for abusing the legal system to squelch free speech. MoveOn.org must be taking legal pointers from the scumbags at the so-called Church of Scientology.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
It'sh the corporashuns man! The corporashuns! Hey, puff puff pass! As I was saying, it'sh the coporashuns oppressing us all the time.
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. - Hunter S. Thompson
And Google knows it.
Prime example of why those in the political center or right say Slashdot is left-wing.
No. That is not what I meant. I thought I did a pretty good job of explaining what I meant. You're just trying to score some points by feigning a misunderstanding, correct?
Microsoft says legacy (serial/parallel) ports are bad. They don't obfuscate the hardware enough.
I see bias there too, in many areas. Who knows about the mysterious search results? I am troubled by the vocal support they get on the web, as if this new medium has yeilded some new breed of human. This from the same folks who routinely believe nothing,see evil conspiracy under every rug. Trusting Google is a mistake. Don't trust any group with that much money and power. The real problem right now is, what can anyone do about it?
It's distributed in the Washington and Baltimore areas, among other places. Free. And worth every penny.
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
Cafepress has a pretty lame attitude towards infringement as well and it looks like they nailed a bunch of people making critical items about MoveOn as well, based on demands from MoveOn.Org.
I think its pretty priceless that an organization that would normally be highly critical of laws protecting corporate speech is hiding behind them.
The Time was compelled to rectify the situation as soon as it was brought to their attention or face the possibility of a federal fine many times the amount in dispute.
How sad that the company whose motto was "Do No Evil" seems to be in bed with the foremost practitioner of dirty politics. how far the company has fallen. First the betrayal of Chinese seeking freedom, now this.
The stated reason is a croc. By posting political ads, Move on looses any right to claim 'trademark' status. If this were to stick as a precedent, it would absolutely smother freedom of speech. Suppression of disagreement was what the Democrat party that runs Move On wanted. It's a travesty.
The other side is not spotless either, but there is no well funded Republican dirty tricks smear campaign that even comes close to the absolute libel and filth of the Move On organization. Google just lost all credibility.
The only redemption would be a blanket rejection of anything by Move On too. Do you think there is any chance of that happening?
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
I reset my start page from Google to Altavista. I don't miss Google one bit.
from the article:
An anti-war ad currently running on Google asks "Keep Blackwater in Iraq?" and links to an article titled "Bastards at Blackwater -- Should Blackwater Security be held accountable for the deaths of its employees?"
Google is being hypocritical.
FWIW, as a somewhat liberal Democrat, Move On doesn't speak for me.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
And any way you look at it, 1/3 of the population of the wealthiest country in the world is not a group you should go out of your way to scorn.
In case you haven't noticed, the "wealth" of the citizens of the USA is falling in value very rapidly; their currency is now worth less than their sparsely-populated northern neighbor's. This trend will probably continue, and before long, the USA will no longer be "the wealthiest country in the world."
What are they going to do, start using Microsoft LiveSearch?
"Also not sure why you're a Bush hater. the man is obviously a useful idiot, "All religions pray to the same God." I mean honestly, even a grade school child is not going to swallow that one. Either he thinks all Americans are idiots, or he's an idiot. I believe it is the latter. An idiot with powerful friends, perhaps. I think you should be far more concerned with the people who pushed him to the top of the ticket at the Republican Primaries."
Agreed. Idiot or not, he's definitely just a symptom of the disease.
I guess my argument was a little bit circular since in retrospect I took "Republican Base" to mean the 30% who still think Bush is an awesome president.
Of course, the entire party apparatus is still behind the man for some reason.
Play Command HQ online