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Google Accepts Porn Ads but Refuses Those for Guns
Jeff Johnson
Congressional Bureau Chief
Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - A federally licensed firearms dealer in Connecticut is upset the Google search engine will accept ads for pornographic websites that illegally show their materials to underage children but will not accept ads from licensed gun dealers selling a legal product to adults. A spokesman for Google said Monday that the policy is "part of our terms and conditions."
"I'm sick and tired of having the good guys be discriminated against," Rick Millo, owner of Valley Firearms in Shelton, Conn., told CNSNews.com Monday.
Millo had subscribed to the Google AdWords service to promote his online gun sales and auctions. The AdWords service places colored bars above the search engine results and colored boxes to the right of the results that feature advertisers who have paid for their ads to appear whenever Google users search certain terms.
Under federal law, Millo can legally sell guns over the Internet to a person in another state as long as he ships the gun to another federally licensed firearms dealer and local laws do not prohibit such sales. The customer may only retrieve the gun after completing the mandatory federal background check and complying with any local laws regarding its ownership and possession.
Millo originally thought the AdWords service was "a great thing for a small business."
"When I read that you could set your own price range of advertising, in other words, you pick how much you want to spend a day on advertising...it was great because, for a small business, that's perfect," Millo said. "You can advertise nationally without getting into a big ad campaign."
Gun dealer's ad suspended for using keywords Google provided
After signing up for the service, Millo utilized the "Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion" feature, which recommended 44 terms that would be more likely to cause Millo's ad to be seen by those interested in purchasing new and used firearms legally online.
Initially, Millo said, the service functioned just as promised. But less than a week after subscribing, Millo found his ad had disappeared from Google and received an e-mail telling him that it had been "Suspended - Pending Revision" because "one or more of your ads or keywords does not meet our guidelines.
"At this time, Google policy does not permit the advertisement of websites that contain 'firearms and ammunition.' As noted in our advertising terms and conditions, we reserve the right to exercise editorial discretion when it comes to the advertising we accept on our site," the message stated. "This content is not permitted as ad text or keywords."
Millo was surprised, many would say with good reason, by the declaration that his keywords were "not permitted."
"Every single word that they disallowed me was picked by their own search engine," Millo explained. "They have a tool that you type in what you're selling, and it gives you suggested keywords. Most of those words that I used were suggested to me by their own tool."
After a little investigation, Millo seemed even more shocked that his ad, for a legal service delivering a lawful product, would be blocked while ads for other, less reputable and questionably legal services remained.
"You can go do a porn search, and you get all kinds of crap on there that minors can't [legally] view, but yet, Google does nothing to keep a minor from clicking on it and seeing pornography," Millo complained. "They'll let porn sites advertise but not gun sites?"
In fact, entering the word "porn" at Google resulted in "about 13,400,000" hits from a search that took 0.24 seconds. Every website listed on the first page of search results was for a website that either featured or featured links to pornographic images on its home page.
The search also produced five of Google's "AdWords" advertisements. Clicking on any of the three boxes yielded pages filled with links to pornographic websites, none of which required more than two clicks to view pornographic images.
Entering the word "gun" produced "about 17,700,000" items and took 0.47 seconds. A search for "ammunition" yielded "about 4,290,000" offerings in 0.36 seconds. Absent from those results pages, however, were any AdWords advertisements.
A spokesman for Google agreed to talk with CNSNews.com Monday only if his name not be used. Asked about the company's decision not to accept advertising for firearms or ammunition, the Google spokesman initially refused to explain.
"It's part of our terms and conditions," the spokesman said. "Google does reserve the right to exercise editorial discretion when it comes to advertising on the site."
After repeating similar comments in answer to multiple questions, the spokesman did share some insight into the decision.
"We make decisions about the different types of advertising we accept both from a legal and a company values perspective," the Google spokesman said.
The Google representative did not respond to a question regarding Google's acceptance of paid advertising from pornographic websites.
Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said the Google decision prompts only one response.
"I think, based on what we understand that Google.com is doing," Pratt said, "people who are interested in [free speech] better find another search engine, and we'd better start patronizing it, putting our ads there and hoping that the Internet doesn't depend on a monopolist that has decided they don't want the right to keep and bear arms to be promoted."
The e-mail message telling Millo that his ad had been disapproved twice mentioned Google's purported commitment to avoid censorship on the Internet.
"Google believes strongly in freedom of expression and therefore offers broad access to content across the web without censoring search results," the message stated. "Please note that the decisions we make concerning advertising in no way affect the search results we deliver."
Pratt stressed that Google can't have it both ways.
"That's a distinction without a difference because they could always change their criteria," Pratt explained. "Once they've accepted the idea that their company is going to be anti-gun ads, they can start, later on, deciding that they don't want to have gun search words."
While he respects Google's First Amendment right to refuse certain types of speech and expression on their privately run website, Pratt doubts Google will have as much respect for the exercise of rights he intends to encourage his fellow gun owners to exercise.
"Since we're in the private market, as are they," Pratt concluded, "we have every right to take our business elsewhere to somebody who appreciates us."
Google, a privately held company, claims to search 3,307,998,701 websites, while competitor All The Web boasts 3,151,743,117 web pages available through its search engine. Other well-known search engines include AltaVista, Lycos and MSN Search, none of which made the number of pages or sites they search readily available online.
Listen to audio for this story.
E-mail a news tip to Jeff Johnson.
Send a Letter to the Editor about this article.
"I'm sick and tired of having the good guys be discriminated against," Rick Millo, owner of Valley Firearms in Shelton, Conn., told CNSNews.com Monday.
Millo had subscribed to the Google AdWords service to promote his online gun sales and auctions. The AdWords service places colored bars above the search engine results and colored boxes to the right of the results that feature advertisers who have paid for their ads to appear whenever Google users search certain terms.
Under federal law, Millo can legally sell guns over the Internet to a person in another state as long as he ships the gun to another federally licensed firearms dealer and local laws do not prohibit such sales. The customer may only retrieve the gun after completing the mandatory federal background check and complying with any local laws regarding its ownership and possession.
Millo originally thought the AdWords service was "a great thing for a small business."
"When I read that you could set your own price range of advertising, in other words, you pick how much you want to spend a day on advertising...it was great because, for a small business, that's perfect," Millo said. "You can advertise nationally without getting into a big ad campaign."
Gun dealer's ad suspended for using keywords Google provided
After signing up for the service, Millo utilized the "Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion" feature, which recommended 44 terms that would be more likely to cause Millo's ad to be seen by those interested in purchasing new and used firearms legally online.
Initially, Millo said, the service functioned just as promised. But less than a week after subscribing, Millo found his ad had disappeared from Google and received an e-mail telling him that it had been "Suspended - Pending Revision" because "one or more of your ads or keywords does not meet our guidelines.
"At this time, Google policy does not permit the advertisement of websites that contain 'firearms and ammunition.' As noted in our advertising terms and conditions, we reserve the right to exercise editorial discretion when it comes to the advertising we accept on our site," the message stated. "This content is not permitted as ad text or keywords."
Millo was surprised, many would say with good reason, by the declaration that his keywords were "not permitted."
"Every single word that they disallowed me was picked by their own search engine," Millo explained. "They have a tool that you type in what you're selling, and it gives you suggested keywords. Most of those words that I used were suggested to me by their own tool."
After a little investigation, Millo seemed even more shocked that his ad, for a legal service delivering a lawful product, would be blocked while ads for other, less reputable and questionably legal services remained.
"You can go do a porn search, and you get all kinds of crap on there that minors can't [legally] view, but yet, Google does nothing to keep a minor from clicking on it and seeing pornography," Millo complained. "They'll let porn sites advertise but not gun sites?"
In fact, entering the word "porn" at Google resulted in "about 13,400,000" hits from a search that took 0.24 seconds. Every website listed on the first page of search results was for a website that either featured or featured links to pornographic images on its home page.
The search also produced five of Google's "AdWords" advertisements. Clicking on any of the three boxes yielded pages filled with links to pornographic websites, none of which required more than two clicks to view pornographic images.
Entering the word "gun" produced "about 17,700,000" items and took 0.47 seconds. A search for "ammunition" yielded "about 4,290,000" offerings in 0.36 seconds. Absent from those results pages, however, were any AdWords advertisements.
A spokesman for Google agreed to talk with CNSNews.com Monday only if his name not be used. Asked about the company's decision not to accept advertising for firearms or ammunition, the Google spokesman initially refused to explain.
"It's part of our terms and conditions," the spokesman said. "Google does reserve the right to exercise editorial discretion when it comes to advertising on the site."
After repeating similar comments in answer to multiple questions, the spokesman did share some insight into the decision.
"We make decisions about the different types of advertising we accept both from a legal and a company values perspective," the Google spokesman said.
The Google representative did not respond to a question regarding Google's acceptance of paid advertising from pornographic websites.
Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said the Google decision prompts only one response.
"I think, based on what we understand that Google.com is doing," Pratt said, "people who are interested in [free speech] better find another search engine, and we'd better start patronizing it, putting our ads there and hoping that the Internet doesn't depend on a monopolist that has decided they don't want the right to keep and bear arms to be promoted."
The e-mail message telling Millo that his ad had been disapproved twice mentioned Google's purported commitment to avoid censorship on the Internet.
"Google believes strongly in freedom of expression and therefore offers broad access to content across the web without censoring search results," the message stated. "Please note that the decisions we make concerning advertising in no way affect the search results we deliver."
Pratt stressed that Google can't have it both ways.
"That's a distinction without a difference because they could always change their criteria," Pratt explained. "Once they've accepted the idea that their company is going to be anti-gun ads, they can start, later on, deciding that they don't want to have gun search words."
While he respects Google's First Amendment right to refuse certain types of speech and expression on their privately run website, Pratt doubts Google will have as much respect for the exercise of rights he intends to encourage his fellow gun owners to exercise.
"Since we're in the private market, as are they," Pratt concluded, "we have every right to take our business elsewhere to somebody who appreciates us."
Google, a privately held company, claims to search 3,307,998,701 websites, while competitor All The Web boasts 3,151,743,117 web pages available through its search engine. Other well-known search engines include AltaVista, Lycos and MSN Search, none of which made the number of pages or sites they search readily available online.
Listen to audio for this story.
E-mail a news tip to Jeff Johnson.
Send a Letter to the Editor about this article.
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