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.

Comments

Re:Sooo....

[reboot246]

Oh, this is just a case of Google doing what it damn well pleases. They're showing their true colors and bias.

Re:Wrong

[G Fab]

Ok, you're clearly being nutty, so I don't know why I'm bothering to respond, but google news's bias is extremely well documented and obvious. Just because you found one site that you believe is right wing fringe (it isn't, but oh well) doesn't mean there isn't a great deal of bias. Of course, bias is in the eye of the beholder (some people will think the Washington Post is rabidly conservative and some rapidly liberal), but your one example is particularly pathetic. The fact is, there are many major conservative news aggregates that are excluded from Google News, but many liberal aggregates that are very extreme remain. I think that's totally fine. Google can do whatever it likes.

I don't know what you mean about "Capitalizing on a trademark for campaign publicity" making something a violation. Do you dispute that the politician was criticizing Move-On's ad? No. Was the trademarked ad clearly being criticized? Yes. No one is confusing the politician for move-on. Trademarks are not intellectual property, they exist so that the public is not confused. No one was confused, because this was a criticism of Move-On. This is clearly not a trademark violation. What is your legal basis for insisting that the likelihood of publicity that a critique provides has something to do with the complain being a trademark violation?

Regardless, Ron Paul is a lefty (just look at his spending record). And I don't care that much. What point were you trying to make, anyway? Is every site that Ron Paul links appear at totally unbiased? You will find plenty of stuff about George Bush, even though he is extremely conservative, on any liberal news site.

The site that broke the Dan Rather forgery scandal is not a legitimate news source on google, even though it must have hundreds of thousands of views. It's very conservative, but not really even fringe. This same source has also proven that Reuters doctored some photos from Lebanon. It's a worthy and relatively major news source, but not for google news. This is one example of many conservative sites Google doesn't want on its news page. And that leads to weird headline such as "Gonzales confirmed: war criminal to head US Justice Department". That was an actual Google News headline.

Google's bias is well documented. I think it's a great part of American society to be biased and successful, so I like this, but still, the reasons for the ad ban are probably political.

Google allows all sorts of ridiculousness in. The site above had to post several times before google would remove new-nazi news. Liberal fringe folks have little trouble either. Antiwar.com is obviously antisemetic, but it's a google-news source. Michelle Malkin, a crazy ass conservative, doesn't get on google news, though her offensiveness is probably a but less than the anti-bush neonazis that google was ok with.

I'm not saying Google shouldn't be liberal, I'm saying that Google has a right to bias that they seem to exercise.

If you don't realize that, you aren't paying attention. Everything about Google speaks to multiculturalism and minimizes its American identity. You will see special google logos for Sputnik but not Memorial Day. Google is like Apple, a great company that wants to promote a certain way of thinking.

I'm not trying to troll here. Google's got a point of view. Why deny it? Politicians have to engage in these types of ideological arguments. They have to show the ads they are disputing. It's called discourse. Google has no obligation to show any ad they don't like, but this was a legal ad. You don't see move-on actually suing anybody, do you? Move-on has spent millions of dollars to fight this specific congresswoman. If she broke the law, they'd sue her into oblivion.

Re:Move-On can't seem to move on...

[The Spoonman]

The ad backfired only because of the pussy republicans who are so very terrified of terrorists. Real Americans aren't afraid of terrorists, but are done being represented as if we are. We're done with the lies, we're done with the deceit, and we're done with the bloodshed. Unfortunately, republicans, who hate America worse than the other terrorists, want to quash any dissent the mark of a true freedom-hater. Instead of listening to the 30 million Americans represented by MoveOn, the pussies in Congress instead decided to waste valuable time voting a resolution decrying the voice of real Americans. If Google's missions statement is to do no evil, then not allowing tax-and-spend, cowardly, America-hating republicans the ability to attack the views of the citizens sounds like a good start to me. If the 'pubs don't like it, too bad. They can get the fuck out of my country, then. They obviously hate everything that made America great anyway, we don't need their kind 'round here.