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Google Stops Ads For "Cougar" Sites
teh31337one writes "Google is refusing to advertise CougarLife, a dating site for mature women looking for younger men. However, they continue to accept sites for mature men seeking young women. According to the New York Times, CougarLife.com had been paying Google $100,000 a month since October. The Mountain View company has now cancelled the contract, saying that the dating site is 'nonfamily safe.'"
why do we always need to self-censor? Who said the web needs to be "family safe"? Why are companies voluntarily following 1950's morality codes that the FCC imposes on broadcasters?
and what's offensive about women looking for some love'n?
It seems like in this country love is the biggest taboo of all
The problem is that the two are not often compatible. The site for older men trolling for younger women likely intentionally does some obfuscation to hide what they are after. The cougar site, however, is relatively unambiguous by name. In the same light we seldom see political advertising that pushes facts, most political ads (the ones on slashdot being excellent examples) instead push rumors, half-truths, and outright lies.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
because of the pervasive censorship, and announces a strong anti-censorship stance, even in engaging in a hopeful (although a little hamstrung) effort to show themselves as friends of transparency:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/20/google-google-street-view
but on the other hand it engages in a strange, fossil pre-'The Graduate' sort of hysterical moral panic that doesn't even exist (as a compelling widely believed opinion) in western countries anymore:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Graduate
even if you are so cynical as to say google has no real allegiance to transparency and truly fights censorship, that it's just a pr campaign, the contrast here is so galling as to nullify even the pr campaign on a surface level
therefore, this has to be a case of google losing some coherence in internal corporate guidelines. there's going to be some meetings, some people are going to get a stern email, and this decision will be reversed by higher ups
as to say this decision is hypocritical of google is putting it mildly
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Considering I had never heard of them before, I'd say that by cancelling the contract Google has done the service the biggest favor yet! I imagine most people out there hadn't heard of it, either.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
Except on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, Sundays, after 4pm, if it makes us lots of money or if we just cant be bothered with our fake holier than thou image
Wow, you didn't even bother to the summary or even the headline before you gratuitously bashed Google. This is about turning down ad revenue because of some holier than thou impulse, not making more money no matter what.
If you can't laugh at yourself...
Whale
A large organization has a subjective policy that defines a keyword list on which they base ad acceptance.
You think it's more likely that an inconsistency in that list is based on sexist attitudes, than that it's based on a lack of central quality control?
Don't anthropomorphize bureaucracies. They hate when you do that.
It's not sexist. Some posts in this thread are outright lies. "Cougar" is banned for being an adult term. So is Sugar Daddy, contrary to what some claim. Not sexist. There ARE sugar-daddy style sites that have slipped through, by being surreptitious about it. They call it "arrangements" and "friendship deals" and all kinds of other things. Google can look at keywords and decide that a site named for an old woman who prowls bars looking for easy sex, and maybe an ongoing boytoy for when her husband is away, is an "adult site" but they can't look at a picture of an older man holding a young woman that says "Make that special arrangement" is a sex site. Their software just isn't that smart. (There are "cougar" sites that are allowed, too. They don't use the word cougar or sex in their ads like cougarlife does, and that's why they're allowed. They call it "age gap" and so on. The same company also runs a "height gap" sex service, allowed to run in that they don't call it a sex service up front.) At any rate, some cougarlife.com ads were mild, but some were borderline pornographic. Not that it bothers me in GENERAL, I just don't want porn if I'm browsing a tech site in the office, looking for reviews. There ARE ad aggregators that allow porn, and if you want porn banners you deal with them. You don't whine to every newspaper in the entire world about how Sexist google is for banning you.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
As much as guys complain about the drama, they really should look at Cougars. Sure, they have drama, but orders of magnitude less than the young models. They're single, have their own life, and don't need you mucking it up; do your thing and then she doesn't care until next week.
I seriously doubt this is the reason. Cougar is something someone searches for when they want mature woman porn. That is probably the just of it.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Right on - I'm sure Google doesn't care that you want to hook up with an older man/woman. They're not even banning the ads per se (they're still available on google.com - search for "cougar"), but given A) the connotations of cougar (on the prowl, looking for sex - see also urbandictionary) and B) the ads I've seen/heard from them are of the form "you could be banging a hot divorcee tonight!" - well, if I were making the call, I'd call it "Not-family-safe" as well - and that takes them off the content network.
So, why would they do that? They don't allow adult content, because there are plenty of advertisers who wouldn't want it on their site. Google takes a conservative approach and says "not going to chance it" - when the alternative is a cougarlife ad eventually popping up on something like: http://www.ccu.edu/athletics/ - can't imagine it would go over well.
What the hell is so evil about money being involved? Aside from an outdated puritanical moral code, sex is (illogically) about the only thing that's legal to give away but not to sell. If you're going to argue about the merits of monogamy and how prostitution can spread STD's then I can assure you - a casual "hookup" site is on just as shakey of ground there compared to outright prostitution. Afterall - it's not the money that causes STD's - it's sex with casual or unfamiliar partners.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I've seen this again and again. Too many young women are just bad at life. They might be attractive, fit, and successful at their jobs, but outside of that there is isolation and void and fear. And much like their cars and their computers, they want to dump their unhappiness on Mr. Man for him to fix it. I don't mind reinstalling Windows every now and then, but I am not a spiritual healer and if my loving doesn't take away the pain, I don't know what will.
Since I’m at work, can you do the same search for “cougar” and see what comes up?
Searching for an explicit term (with safe search off) likely un-censors the ads.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
It's evil to use your advertising clout to promote a version of 'family friendliness' which is couched in outmoded and sexist ideas about age differences in relationships.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!