Google ends gambling ad self-denial Yes, Google's self-denial goes only so far. Four years after telling itself to ban gambling ads across its worldwide collection of websites, Mountain View has suddenly lifted these sanctimonious sanctions in the United Kingdom. The announcement arrived on the same day the ad broker announced that UK revenue growth had slowed …
Google became evil at 03:23pm EDT 26 September, 2008. In the official google blog, Sergei Brin threw his company in mindless worship before the juggernaut of the liberal agenda to allow the manipulation of definitions. Very soon after this, Google mail introduced a new feature to make it harder to embarrass yourself by mailing while drunk -- but it was too late. It's all downhill from here. Enjoy them while they last.
Fine - so now they'll be showing adverts for gambling. And since they won't know how old their users are and be able to filter, this will include children and other vulnerable groups.
How precisely does this comply with the Gambling Act 2005, which specifies that advertising must be socially responsible? Will they guarantee to check every advert to ensure that none use models under the age of 25 or link gambling to sexual success? Will they ensure they only appear after the 9pm watershed? Will they proactively take down adverts from outside the UK which don't comply to UK law?
Or will they perhaps claim, yet again, that since they're not a UK company, UK law doesn't apply?
And how exactly is this "consistent with local business practice" - unless they mean its consistent with businesses routinely flouting the regulations?
..but with this and other recent moves of the past year, I believe those that held the right values at google have all either left, or been corrupted by the money and power.
greed is now the defining factor of how they behave. I wish the lurky things they did were minor and trivial - like slapping a download link for their own browser on their main page - but no, policies such as this are serious. especially at a time when gambling is putting many weak people in the UK into debt and recession.
next? They'll be advertising tobacco with each search you do. mmmm, that smooth Laramie taste....
For example, what if it hadn't been Google that became the dominant Internet player?
How about old Rupert Murdoch, say, or Bawling Ballmer's outfit or some rapacious old media company. Imagine Google's position taken by the people who brought you The Sun. On the the other hand, there'd be a lot more tits ...
because the Doctors (who are one of the main contributors to the Global Economic Meltdown), have got their grubby little way of demonizing beer and fags, which were traditionally places to put your money in times of recession, a lot more people have invested in the vice of gambling.
I say we lift the smoking ban, and fire a few doctors, that will make us all feel a bit better.
In my old business I built websites for - ahem - ladies of negotiable affections and one of the cheapest ways of advertising was a well constructed adwords campaign. Occasionally the ads would get banned if they were too "blatant" but it was usually possible to modify them, resubmit and a maybe less purient editor would pass them.
Recently all my old clients ads have been banned and if you do a google search on london escorts you no longer see ANY adverts!
Escorting in the UK is still legal, although Harriet Harman wants to see the oldest profession made illegal again, ignoring the fact that it will just make conditions worse for the most vulnerable people in the business and simply allow the Russian, Maltese and Albanian gangs to take over the business and bring even more crime intot he country.
I can't understand why the Google empire is just dawning on people as a bad thing. They have systematically built an information gathering network of proportion people have not yet really tied together, or if they have are under the impression it is no bad thing.
Search habits, shopping habits, email contacts, health problems (US system), IM, mobile phone OS, and now web browser; see clause 9 of their EULA for how startling in their arrogance they have become..
This paints a plan of information gathering that on the face of it appears haphazard, but is relentless in its consumption of people's habits and private data, all leading to an end game few can see yet.
I no longer use any Google tool, search or click through. I block all of their cookie domains, and there are a few. Perhaps people should start to think about them as no longer the nice friendly trustworthy opposite to the evil Microsoft empire. At least M$oft walked away from surruptitious data gathering a long time ago and built in transparency that is not there at Google and never will be.
Mine is the one with the broken rose tinted spectacles in the top pocket.
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