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Australian Sex Party May Sue Google Over Ad Refusal
New submitter niftydude writes "Australian newspaper The Age is carrying the story: The Australian Sex Party has threatened Google with legal action after the search engine refused to run its ads on the eve of tomorrow's Melbourne by-election. It comes after Sex Party ads were blocked by Google at the last federal election because the company — which is typically opposed to censorship — perceived the text as too racy (the ads were reinstated by Google the day before the election). Sex Party candidate Fiona Patten said this time the search giant said it would not approve her ads 'because we have a donate button on our page and we're not a charity.' Don't all political parties allow donations? Is google imposing its own sense of morality onto Australian politics?"
A hypothetical child porn party would probably not be permitted to register and for election in Australia. Google could just refuse to run political ads from anyone other than a registered political party. But no, they pick and choose which parties they will or won't run ads for.
you should rename yourself 'inappropriate analogy guy'
It's "addds". Why do you people keep leaving off a D?
That's not necessarily the case. In some jurisdictions, it is required to give equal access to all political parties. If you will run ads for one candidate in a race, you must give make ad space available to all the other candidates in the race in similarly prominent positions for the same cost.
dom
It is censorship to ban adverts which don't breach the advertising legislations of the country in which they are being shown regardless of your moral standing.
Worse still I'm not sure on Australian law but some countries have specific rules about elections. Decisions like this may remove Google from the right to advertise for any political party during elections.
Also have you actually had a look at their policies? Despite what they call themselves this party stands for all the things a typical slashdot user holds dear including:
- Drug reform
- Anti-censorship
- Net Neutrality
- Anti government snooping
- Internet education
- Equal rights laws including same sex marriage
- Separation of religion from government
They are like the Pirate Party except they've been around longer.
I can't advertise my own band on Google. They refuse my ads again and again. Free music. It's MY music. My band wrote and recorded it. They will not let me advertise it as free.
The ads take days to get denied. Then I change it and it's days again to get denied. Eventually I just gave up.
On the other hand, the ads for free web games I make get approved in hours.
And if they were the child porn party? Would it still be censorship to ban their adds? Google have to draw a line somewhere and this is where they chose to do it.
You must be from the USA. You rationalize something related to sex by throwing in an extreme, illegal practice. No doubts left.
Buddy, sex isn't something to get all worked up about. It may come as a shock but both you and I are most likely products of normal sexual behavior.
I'll recap:
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
The issue here is whether or not Google should be going beyond what the law requires. Law typically requires child porn to be banned and for court orders to be upheld when issued and such, but beyond that it's up to Google to decide what to accept and what not to accept.
However, because Google has a dominant market position in advertising space if they make too much use of discretion, especially if it appears political, they could find themselves broken up.
Thank you, you make a very good point. If the law requires Google to ban it, then Google is not censoring it. Someone could make a case the government is censoring, but that is besides the point here.
However, in this particular case, there was no lawful requirement stopping those adds. It was Google's own decision. Then, we have a problem, and a big one at that.
morcego
As it is here. Refusal to run one parties ads on non equal terms leads to a bollocking. Fairfax, NEWS et al get around it in the form of editorial support/panning but the ads must be the same.
Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
They have every right to ...
Have you ever stopped to consider what that means, and how ridiculous it is if taken literally.
It implies that google has no legal obligations to government, shareholders, or customers. Its not true.
It's not "a sex party", it's "The Sex Party"...that is, it's a political party with policies centred on sexual and gender issues, and has nothing to do with putting your car keys in a bowl.
I should explain that Australian political parties usually have deceptive names. For example, the Liberal Party are the conservatives, the Labor Party usually puts everyone out of work, One Nation divided the country before forking itself, and the National Party doesn't field candidates in most electorates. The Greens are pretty much what you'd expect, though until recently their leader was a chap by the name of Brown, so while technically they tried to fit in it was a predictably feeble effort. On the New South Wales state level we also have the Christian Democrats, whose values are hardly those of Christ and is run by a religious oligarch, and the Shooters and Fishers Party, which is a reasonably accurate description but they put the "jerk" into "knee-jerk".
And if you exercise your comprehension skills you'd find the grammatical mistake was on the part of the submitter, not the candidate.
Blank until
And?? So now the porn industry is also synonymous with child porn? The party was launched to counter the ridiculous christian groups trying to impose their Puritanical and most unwelcome ways on Australians. While the name is a bit silly it is meant that way as a direct attack on the morons that would like to have you think and do exactly as they tell you to.
Care to point to the Google policy which you claim is being breached by The Sex Party? Some other parties in Australia also have donate buttons on their websites, and there is no sign of Google refusing their election ads.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Considering there are ads on Google for pornographic websites, I find it very hard to believe that they refused it out of their own moral sense.
Dilbert RSS feed
That is complete nonsense. It is illegal for a company to refuse business for all but a few very good reasons, due to decades of civil rights legislation to stop discriminatory business practice. And more specifically, it is illegal for a broadcaster to refuse a political advertisement.
In some countries they believe in fair elections and if you're going to give fair and equal time to all of them. I know the US is used to elections being something rich people buy but that's not free countries work.
They can refuse to do business with anyone they want.
That's not how it works here, there are rules about equal access to media services for political candidates in an attempt to ensure that one rich party cannot hog all the eyeballs, besides the paid for adverts from registered political parties always come with an "authorised by", so you know who to blame should you be offended.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
You are approaching it from a legal standpoint.
But sometimes things that are legal can still be problematic. This here is part of such a problem.
With the big U.S. internet companies providing world wide services, they tend to impose american moral standards on everyone of their customers.
Companies like Facebook have rules concerning profanity and 'adult' content, that abide american standards, Google filters what an American would consider morally wrong and so on. Even in countries that don't care much, when someone shows a boob on TV, these same rules are applied.
Why is this a problem?
Because it is shaping public opinion. A former more liberal community will get used to these puritanian concepts when exposed to them all the time and it will change that community.
If you have a hard time understanding this problem, because you are from the U.S. yourself, imagine if all the big internet companies were from Iran instead. Imagine how that would start shaping your daily life, if you had to abide to Iranian moral standards when doing pretty much anything online.
How does this differ from anything else? Most of the time I DON'T want to be forced to think about cleaning products or shopping for a new car or whatever either.
Actually, in the Netherlands there used(?) to be a "pedophile" party. Its goals among others were the lowering of the legal age of consent to 12 years. As long as the party itself acts within the boundaries of the law, they are free to promote any political opinion, even if these clash with the current law. This is very important for a healthy democracy.
Yes, 'used to be': The party got disbanded after they tried for four years to get enough autographs from people for them to have any right of existence (by lack of any other words :) ).
Since they couldn't get these 'votes of confidence', they couldn't start their party (the core members of the group was only about 4: 2 of them the typical dodgy pedophile).
Also, this pedophile-party used to organise group-events, but that recently got banned by a judge, as apparently dodgy stuff was taking place.
No shoes, no shirt...
I have always wondered what would happen if you walked into an establishment with a sign saying that with a shirt, shoes, and no pants. They never said anything about pants.
They would probably call the police and have you arrested for indecent exposure. However, most places of business do not have those signs because they care if you wear shoes and/or a shirt, but because of health regulations (they can be fined by the local health department if they allow people in the store without shoes and/or a shirt).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I think that they have to be gay before Google will support them.
testing out my trending skills