I mostly see Google as a pretty responsible company, but I can see why this is a little scary. Not because of the particular issue, but the idea of Google going out of their way to target issue-based advertisers. As long as google keeps clear distinctions between which search results are paid and which are not, it's not a huge problem, but as a company that probably does more to organize and disseminate information for the masses, doesn't anyone else find it uncomfortable that they are going out of their way to get what will inevitably be one-sided propeganda (isn't that all issue-advocacy ads are) displayed prominently on their website?
Before you slashdotters get all crazy, I'm not saying that anything here should be illegal. I'm all about the first amendment and all that. But the discussion is whether google is being "evil", and while this is nowhere near as bad as, say, covering up internal studies about the health effects of smoking, or setting artificial price floors with your competitors (way to go SCOTUS, by the way), it's still not exactly what I'd call responsible corporate behavior.
I guess I just have a problem in general with what I perceive as the lack of honesty in most advertising today. Of course both sides of the debate on healthcare should be presented, and of course we all know what Micheal Moore's angle is, but at least he's a disinterested party in the sense that he's not directly making money on healthcare. Do you really think that the healthcare companies in this country have anything useful to add to the debate? Every one knows exactly where HCA and Humana stand on socialized healthcare - what is gained by innundating people with their opinion? It only serves to bias people in one or another direction (even though private medicine may well be the best policy). It'd be like having a massive campaign to publicize death-row inmates position on the death penalty. I think the country is much better served by reasoned debate than by a bunch of zero-information tirades from people on either side.
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I mostly see Google as a pretty responsible company, but I can see why this is a little scary. Not because of the particular issue, but the idea of Google going out of their way to target issue-based advertisers. As long as google keeps clear distinctions between which search results are paid and which are not, it's not a huge problem, but as a company that probably does more to organize and disseminate information for the masses, doesn't anyone else find it uncomfortable that they are going out of their way to get what will inevitably be one-sided propeganda (isn't that all issue-advocacy ads are) displayed prominently on their website? Before you slashdotters get all crazy, I'm not saying that anything here should be illegal. I'm all about the first amendment and all that. But the discussion is whether google is being "evil", and while this is nowhere near as bad as, say, covering up internal studies about the health effects of smoking, or setting artificial price floors with your competitors (way to go SCOTUS, by the way), it's still not exactly what I'd call responsible corporate behavior. I guess I just have a problem in general with what I perceive as the lack of honesty in most advertising today. Of course both sides of the debate on healthcare should be presented, and of course we all know what Micheal Moore's angle is, but at least he's a disinterested party in the sense that he's not directly making money on healthcare. Do you really think that the healthcare companies in this country have anything useful to add to the debate? Every one knows exactly where HCA and Humana stand on socialized healthcare - what is gained by innundating people with their opinion? It only serves to bias people in one or another direction (even though private medicine may well be the best policy). It'd be like having a massive campaign to publicize death-row inmates position on the death penalty. I think the country is much better served by reasoned debate than by a bunch of zero-information tirades from people on either side.