Google Discriminates

I have to weigh in on the lawsuit against Google's AdWords. According the CNSNews article posted at Crosswalk:

A pro-life Christian organization [the Christian Institute] in Britain wanted to offer another option [to abortion clinic ads] -- but Google turned it down, saying that because its ad linked to a Web site containing "abortion and religious-related content," it was not permitted.

I had the identical experience.

Blogger, of course, is part of Google so it seemed natural to run a set of ads on AdWords featuring what my site was about. Repeatedly, if I used the words pro-life or abortion in the ad, I would get the little editorial policy guideline malarky telling me I couldn't run the ads because they contained abortion information. But since I am a fledgling (read: limited funds) columnist, writer and, first and foremost, a mom to special needs children, my response was not to fight it but to change my ads to read "conservative commentary" and then eventually pull them altogether in favor of press releases. The press releases cost me the same amount but generate more traffic to the site. And I figured fighting Google would be difficult and costly with U.S. law on their side.

In addition, Google's U.S. policy must be a little different from their U.K. policy or they stretched their policy in not accommodating me-- my website is not overtly religious. Not that I'm not but I tend to be very linear in my thinking and so I stick to the political aspects as much as possible. I will appeal to a person's religion or sense of fairness but it's not particular overt because of my writing style and background working for a non-sectarian organization. I also tend to write with less of the polemics than one might find on another commentator's site for the same reasons.

Google's notes on it's editorial policy never mentioned religious content only the fact that I couldn't run an ad that mentioned abortion. Of course, this didn't make sense considering all of the abortion ads I see but I chalked it up to a subjective editorial policy based in bleeding heart liberalism wrapped comfortably in capitalism.

As for the religiosity of being pro-life: contrary to popular liberal belief, opposition to abortion is not solely a Catholic view, it is however a catholic view. There are many non-religous individuals and atheists who believe in the right to life.

Google needs to leave the stereotyping to the fanatics and run the ads.