Google doesn't like balisongs

I sent a painfully polite note to Google, and they gave me the same pathetic response. This is how I responded to that outrage.
Dear Mr. Woytowicz,
This was the laziest, most pitiable excuse for a customer service response that I have had the irritation of reading in quite some time. As an email administrator, I would not have allowed one of my subordinates to give such a response. Not only is it innappropriate to quote another person's email in your response to me, including their taglines and business URL, but you couldn't even take the trouble to spell my name correctly! On top of that, your response was, to say the least, rather snide. To say "It is illegal somewhere, so we don't allow it." is also a fallacy, as there are regions of the U.S. that, constitutional or not, ban all forms of pornography. There are also regions that ban "Spy cameras", among many other items that are advertised by your customers.
I have reviewed your policies regarding what is acceptable, and have found no such policy in your public statements.
In future correspondence, I would suggest escalating questions that you do not know the proper response to, rather than making up a response that is questionable and rude.
Thank you for your time.
Osbourn
--- adwords@google.com wrote:
> Dear Osburn -
>
> Please read the enclosed thread:
>
>
>
> Dear Google....
>
> It has been brought to my attention that you have a
> problem advertising
> "Balisong" or "Butterfly" knives on your site.
>
> The Butterfly knife is a design that is hundreds of
> years old, originating
> in the Philippines.
>
> I'm saddened to see that your company has such an
> intolerant view on a tool
> that is legal in many places, and collected for
> their beauty and artist
> value...
>
> With your attitude towards such items, it won't be
> long before you outlaw
> knives, guns, hunting and fishing equipment
> altogether, while you allow
> pornography, Bomb making instructions and the
> sort.....
>
> I suggest you review your policy on Butterfly knives
> before you start to
> turn away more customers than you already have.
>
> It companies and policies such as yours that make
> the knife into an evil
> weapon instead of the useful beautiful tool that it
> is, that can give life
> as easily as it can take it...
>
> Until you do, I will do business with another search
> engine, remove your
> link from my site and encourage others to do the
> same.
>
> Eric E. Noeldechen
> On/Scene Tactical
> Canadian Heritage Leaves
> http://www.mnsi.net/~ericn
> Real Canadian Gifts, Not Imported Offshore Trinkets!
>
> On-Scene Tactical Products
> http://www.mnsi.net/~nbtnoel
> Leading The Way In Quality, Custom, Synthetic
> Sheathing Systems
>
>
>
>
> Dear Eric -
>
> Thank you for your feedback.
>
> However you have really addressed your own concerns
> with this statement.
>
> "an intolerant view on a tool that is legal in many
> places"
>
> This would suggest it is illegal in others. And it
> is.
>
> Our current technology does not allow us to target
> advertising by state so
> we must take the only route allowed us and NOT show
> the advertising
> anywhere.
>
> We continue to show thousands of results when you
> search for either
> "balisong" or "butterfly knife" so we are not
> prohibiting your research or
> enjoyment in exploring anything regarding these
> items.
>
> Google is still the finest resource for accessing
> information on the
> internet.
>
> We hope you will reconsider your stance.
>
> Regards -
>
>
> ***********************************************
> Bart Woytowicz
> Director Ad Ops/Sales
> Google Inc.
> 2400 Bayshore Parkway 650-318-0200 x
> 1073
> Mountain View, Ca. 94043
> bart@google.com
>
> ***********************************************
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: adwords_frontend@google.com
> [mailto:adwords_frontend@google.com]
> Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 9:32 AM
> To: adwords@google.com
> Subject: #519783: idea: Balisongs/butterfly knives.
>
>
> I was recently saddened to hear of your
> decision as a company to disallow ads
> that feature certain kinds of legal
> knives. I would respectfully suggest
> that you reexamine your stance on this
> issue. Balisongs, also known as
> butterfly knives, are the specific blade
> type that I am referring to in this
> instance. I would be interested in
> hearing the justification for this
> decision, as it affects my choice in
> advertising for my products. Thank you.
> --
> This message was sent by the AdWords user feedback
> form.
>
> Feedback ID: 519783
> Subject: Balisongs/butterfly knives.
> Category: idea
>
> Advertiser ID: NOT LOGGED IN
>
> NOTE: since the user was not logged in,
> the name and email address provided below
> were entered manually by the user.
>
> Name: Osbourn Hrothgarson
> Email: osbourn_hrothgarson@yahoo.com
 
Obviously, Google is bias against balisong knives. That means that Google is bias against knives. Google is anti-knife.

Google is a business. They need to make money to pay the employees who provide these rather poor responses to complaints and they need to pay the people who develope their software.

Google gives away its product, the searching service. It makes the money it needs by selling sponsored link advertizing.

Everytime you use google you are counted as a hit. The more hits google gets, the more they can charge for their advertizing and the more money they make.

So, I'd like to ask every bf.c member to refrain from using google for any searching. That's a tough request to make, I know. You can say what you want about their political agenda, but google does have a darn good search engine.

For the last few days, though, I've been using www.ixquick.com for my quick searching and I'm actually getting cleaner, more on-topic results than google. I've run a couple of side-by-sides and ixquick delivered better, more on-topic results.

So, please don't use google yourself, remove their links from your websites, and ask your friends to do the same.

If google wants to be anti-knife, well they are a private business and that is their option. But, let's make 'em pay for it.
 
I have received NO further word from them. Apparently, they don't care to give any further explaination. :(


By the way, the town I mentioned, which has, for the moment, banned Satanism, is Inglis, Florida.
 
When Fred from Knife Outlet explained that Google wasn't just concerned about butterfly knives on banner ads, but they actually looked at Knife Outlet's website and FOUND them, this signifies an even greater affinity on Google's part for fascist business practices...

I can't remember using Google, but I'll definitely know to avoid them now. And no, I didn't get an answer to my offer to teach a tolerance and diversity class on "A World of Knives."

They really need it, though.

Karl
 
They haven't responded to my abuse yet, either. I'm looking forward to further correspondence with that jackhole, though.
I'll post any other interesting messages.
 
They're not gonna respond, not to you and not to me.

I can only ask people to keep posting their resolutions not to use google and to remove google links from their websites.
 
Greetings:

Here's a thought.

What if?

Ex. A business(es)such as an outfitter or fantasy memorabilia company
started advertizing on google ..

Several months later they expand thier product to include "collectors edition" balisongs.

All of a sudden google cuts off all advertizing for that/those business(es). Remember some business pay in advance to advertize on google.

Has any one taken notice if Google has done this in the past?

*Note: The previous postings in this thread tend to sugest that
knifeoutlet was either a already stead fast advertizer with google
or sugests that knifeoutlet was trying to joing google and was refused because of the balisongs *

Also what happens to a business that has visual (picture oriented)
links on thier web site that link to knifoutlet.com. ex. picture of a balisong that links to knifeoutlet? Does this completely different business get censored as well?

We are curious to know if google has censored other businesses before knifeoutlet. Especialy if those business were already google advertizing paying customers..

We agree that google has realy "gone of the deep end" with thier censorship of knifeoutlet and balisongs..

We like www.mamma.com as a search engine. It won't give you an extremely broad set of results (a blessing in disguise) . However it will give you precise results. No real flashy ads either.

yt

Soar
 
What does ixquick say on the subject?

Edo Jansen of ixquick says:

If people search for these terms Why not show a good result. Besides that if people want to order they have to decide if it's legal in their region. So to answer your question: Yes we allow ads for knifes, no problem at all.
Click to expand...

No Problem At All.
 
I would like to add that Yahoo.com's search engine is run by google, I dont know if those count as hits too, but I wont be using either from now on.

ixquick or askjeeves.com for me.
 
You can legally buy radar detectors in Canada, but they are illegal to use. This is mind boggling, why would they permit the sale of an item that has the potential to be used in a prohibited fashion, where in most cases, it will be? Therefore, we can now claim that it wouldn't be a problem to sell a balisong in Canada if its use is soley for art/decoration/hobby, but not as a weapon. Of course, this is not justifiable; however, this proves that many laws in Canada seem to contradict eachother.
 
I am a creature of habit as many people are. I used Webcrawler for quite some time. Then, I was over at a friend's house and wanted to check something out and they had Google bookmarked, I tried it and loved it.

I've used it on an almost daily basis for over a year now. It's an excellent Search Engine.

I think we might run into a problem in the future where every search engine does something to piss off the knife and gun community and we might not have anywhere else to go.

But, thanks to Gollnick, the ever-present Batangas Watchdog, he has received a positive response from another Search Engine Company and by damn, as soon as I hit Submit Reply on this post, I'm eliminating Google's Poopstain from my Computer and going with the other Engine.

Even if it is not as good as Google and it takes some getting used to, at least my traffic won't benefit a bunch of knife-hating, California-dreamin' knucklehead, suit-wearing pricks at Google.
 
Here's the email I got from Google when I told them I wasn't using their search engine anymore because of their anti-knife bias:

Malcolm -

Not using Google anymore?

If I were to tell you we prefer to not show advertising for an item
that is illegal in some states since we do not have "geo-targeting" by
state would you think otherwise?

You point to a thread that makes no reference to that fact.

Here's a quote:

"They rejected sponsored advertising from www.knifeoutlet.com because they don't
like some of the merchandise that knifeoutlet carries.
In their responses, or lack thereof, they've revealed a clear anti-knife bias."

It appears to me if you search on Google the following:

Buy a knife - You will see advertising

If you search for:

Buy a really BIG knife - You see advertising

Does the fact we return over 2000 results for "balisong knives"
mean nothing?

If you prefer not to use Google, that's fine.

We didn't grow to 200,000,000 searches a day because we IGNORE our users.

Let your members make decisions based on real information.


***********************************************
Bart Woytowicz
Director Ad Ops/Sales
Google Inc.
2400 Bayshore Parkway 650-318-0200 x 1073
Mountain View, Ca. 94043 bart@google.com
***********************************************
 
Bart,

If you're reading this, why don't you and Google take the same steps against everything else that you DO allow to be advertised? Eh?

If you have no negative attitude about Balisong Knives, why are you singling them out then?
 
As he often is, Don is exactly right.

If google feels compeled for whatever reason to not accept ads for items which are illegal in some areas, well that is their decision and I'm not going to argue about it. But, if that's the decision that they make, then they should stick by it.

The issue is google's inconsistency. Why do they ban ads for certain types of knives that happen to be illegal in some areas and not others BUT, at the same time, accept ads for certain types of electronic equipment that also happen to be illegal in some areas and not others? That's bias. And if google is bias against certain types of knives, then they are bias against all knives.

Google says, "Let your members make decisions based on real information." They should do the same thing. They should let their users make decisions about what they do and do not want to buy. Those decisions may be based, in part, on local laws. But, it is up to the user to make that decision. Gee, it seems to me that I heard that very thought expressed earlier today... maybe in a prompt e-mail from ixquick, "Besides that if people want to order they have to decide if it's legal in their region."

If google wants to establish a policy of not accepting ads for anything that's illegal anywhere, then I'll respect that decision. But when they're picking and choosing what they want to accept, that clearly indicates an agenda. It's an agenda that I think many of us here may have some disagreement with. So, I think it's reasonable for us to be aware of that so that we can decide which search engine we want to use. (Again, keep in mind that when you use a search engine, even though you don't pay for it, you are still money in their pocket since you're running up their hit rate and they can charge for advertising based on that hit rate.)

It's wrong for google to try and use this smokescreen of "some these knives are illegal in some places," to hide their agenda. I'm glad that we've, as the current phrase goes, "outted" them.
 
Seems they're pretty proud of the "200,000" searches a day and basically saying "to hell with you insignificant knife wielding peons, we don't need you anyways"

Guess when I write thier nastygram perhaps I should mention a local news report that stated the number one reason K-Mart fell on thier asses here in Alaska was poor customer service. Perhaps Mr. Bart should be reminded that the customers didn't leave K-mart in flocks and droves, but rather one at a time.

Seems like pretty piss poor business practice to me. And that's if I exclude the bias anti-knife crap
 
This is my last email to Bart and his response to mine:

Bart,

It's you who's making it into more than it is. You
don't sell or distribute bali song knives, you provide
advertising space.

Knife Outlet knows where certain knives are legal and
not and they can choose where to sell and where not to
sell.

Seems like you've decided that knives are more evil
than radar detectors.

When you count your 200,000 new people using Google
today be sure you subtract me.

Regards,

Malcolm
--- Bart Woytowicz <bart@google.com> wrote:
> Malcolm -
>
> Please follow me on this.
>
> It is illegal to sell or import balisongs in the
> following states:
>
> Alaska
> California
> Delaware
> Hawaii
> Kansas
> Maine
> Missouri
> New Jersey
> New Mexico
> New York
> Ohio
> Wisconsin
>
> We do not have the ability to exclude these states
> in our ad system.
>
> I can't run the ads - I don't know how much more
> clear we can be.
>
> I CAN'T RUN THE ADS. I'm sorry.
>
> Yes I know radar detectors are illegal in Virginia
>
> But let's look at the level of impact, please.
>
> Do you think you'd be forced to hand over your
> "radar detector"
> to airport security if you tried to take it onboard?
>
> I could probably find a hundred laws on the books
> that make
> even the most common practices illegal in some state
> in the union.
>
> Did you know it's against the law for women to drive
>
> while wearing a bathrobe in California?
>
> The law states that "any person who shall in the
> city of Santa Monica
> use or carry concealed or unconcealed any bean
> snapper or like article,
> shall, upon conviction, be fined."
>
> Did you know it is illegal to enter a movie theatre
> within
> four hours of eating garlic in Costa Mesa?
>
> You could have brought up we sell porn ads when some
> acts are illegal.
>
> In Ames, Iowa, there is a law against drinking more
> than three slugs
> of beer while lying in bed with a woman.
>
> Did you know there is a law against having sex in
> any position other
> than face-to-face in Washington DC?
>
> I do not mean to be crude or disrespectful here. But
> that seems to
> be something that is between the two consenting
> adults.
>
>
> You've chosen a very sensitive subject to follow as
> a hobby.
>
> You look at the balisong knife as a thing of beauty.
>
> Most people look at it as a weapon.
>
> I really don't have an opinion either way on this.
>
> This is a business at the end of the day.
>
> We have the globe as our audience.
>
> It's not a personal attack on any singular person.
>
> As I stated, you can find thousands of websites on
> Google that promote, hail, love, glorify the virtues
> of the Balisong.
>
> What's wrong with that?
>
> There is an extremely high level of risk involved
> when
> you "promote" it through an advertisement.
>
> That's all we are saying.
>
>
> Please, don't make this into anymore more than it
> is.
>
> With all due respect.
 
This would be hilarious if it were not so sad.

Bart, again, if you are following this...try to keep up.

When a person spends between fifty dollars and several hundred dollars, like it or not, legal or illegal, for a RADAR DETECTOR, they are buying it to BREAK THE LAW.

By doing this, they put people at risk, innocent people. My five year old Son...in my car, when I am on a trip. People use these things to sometimes go as high as twice the posted speed limit.

I'm not arguing for banning them, I'm just stating what I THOUGHT was something everyone already KNEW about radar detectors.

ANY knife or GASP! A GUN...may be bought for any number of reasons.

If you think gangbangers are perusing Google and fear them buying a Balisong that was advertised on Google... I don't know what to tell you but this...

Crackheads usually don't find the time to do much of anything except brew up some more crack. They don't take the time to learn how to open a Balisong...

In fact, most of them let their teeth rot out because they don't have time for that either.

I find the position of BIG DADDY GOOGLE to be offensive. It is laughable, except for the fact they are serious.

In closing, you are singling out the Balisong. It really does not matter how much you protest to the contrary, it's a simple fact.
 
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