Google, the Silicon Valley giant which has made (Al) Gore a multi, multi-millionaire, has denied Sen. Susan Collins the chance to run an ad on Google condemning MoveOn.org, which is spending fortunes targeting her by funding ads against her or ads for her opponent. Ms. Collins is a Republican. Google says her ad against MoveOn violates some policy or other and they have to tell her no.
[qi:022] That’s enough for John Gibson, who wrote the story, to connect the dots between Al Gore, Google (GOOG) and MoveOn.org. This one looks like it is going to be a mess.
Update: Google just sent their response and also posted a blog post on their advertising policies.
The text of this ad was rejected by our system because it violated our trademark policy, not because of its political content. Under our advertising policies, companies and organizations that demonstrate that they own trademark rights can request that their trademarked terms not be used in the text of ads on Google. MoveOn made such a request, and as a result we required that this advertiser rewrite their ad and remove the trademarked terms.
If ads are running on Google that include trademark terms in their text, this is likely because either the trademark owner has not submitted a complaint, or because the advertiser has been authorized to use the trademark. It is also important to note that in the U.S. we do not disable keywords in response to a trademark complaint.
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