Google making it's own law...

My family has been in the advertising and publishing business for decades. Much of what we published had no editorial content (direct mail shoppers) and went to everyone's home. Our policy was to not run anything that could offend people (like ads for adult books stores or strip joints) who we were essentially forcing our product on. With that said, we otherwise made no judgements or comments regarding products, political issues or what have you. This may come back to bite Google as it goes beyond their search engine which many use by default and might hit them in the part of their business that actually creates revenue. I assume that there WERE trying to grow that side of the business.
 
Not a law, a business decision. While I do not agree with that they are doing, it is their right as a business to choose what they want to allow and do not want to allow.
 
I've switched to Bing, I'm in the middle of trying to research and price a .308 deer rifle (I usually spend at least a few dozen hours reading reviews, specs, comparisons etc before buy a firearm) so Google is pretty useless to me now.
 
michaelm466 said:
I've switched to Bing, I'm in the middle of trying to research and price a .308 deer rifle (I usually spend at least a few dozen hours reading reviews, specs, comparisons etc before buy a firearm) so Google is pretty useless to me now.
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You can still use regular Google to find prices and information; nothing is blocked in regular search. It's just Google Shopping and Adwords that changes.
 
Just a weird move. They conformed to China's censorship bs and then kind did some things against it. Then they make their own move in their home country that goes against many people's views for apparently no reason? Crazy.

Plus a couple of articles mention knives too, though can't find Google's own verbage on this.
 
When it comes down to business, Google is a media company. Unfortunately the ant-gun people in the media outnumber the pro-gun.

They have a right to do this if they choose. I also have a right NOT to use Google. Which is exactly what I will NOW do.
 
emopunker2004 said:
Not a law, a business decision. While I do not agree with that they are doing, it is their right as a business to choose what they want to allow and do not want to allow.
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I agree. If you note I said, "its own law". It can make its own decision and I respect its right to do so.
 
There may be a liability aspect to it. The trade groups trying to push ACTA and the other such international treaties are pushing to make all kinds of people liable for all kinds of things. Like websites being liable for the copyright protection of every bit of content on the site, and possibly extending to consumer liability for products sold. they may be getting external pressure from the EU, or something. Could it be an anti-gun thing? maybe. could it be that selling guns adds too much complexity? probably. Who's to know?
 
Thanks for the info.

Now that google is broken, I'll be finding a new search engine.
 
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I've gone from google to bing and then firefox. I am now back with google. The firearms policy is certainly not unique. Ebay,Craig's List and a host of others won't allow firearms. There are plenty of gun auction sites that you can sell guns and knives on. I currently have an HP 2509m computer. I may get an apple pc by mid week. I'm not sure which search engine I'll choose as default. In my opinion google is hard to beat.
 
Is anyone having trouble finding firearms, accessories, knives, etc on Google shopping? Because when I do a search I find all of the above. 15,000+ results for ammo, 5,000 results for Armalite, 7.6mil results for knife.
 
ecos said:
Is anyone having trouble finding firearms, accessories, knives, etc on Google shopping? Because when I do a search I find all of the above. 15,000+ results for ammo, 5,000 results for Armalite, 7.6mil results for knife.
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Methinks you are missing the concept, and using general Google search?

Do that, then click the Shopping tab over to left.

"Your search - armalite - did not match any shopping results"

(Unless maybe you're doing it from Philippines, and the filtering is different from that IP or something).

- OS
 
OhShoot said:
Methinks you are missing the concept, and using general Google search?

Do that, then click the Shopping tab over to left.

"Your search - armalite - did not match any shopping results"

(Unless maybe you're doing it from Philippines, and the filtering is different from that IP or something).

- OS
Click to expand...

It must be something with the IP. I was looking in the shopping results, but I am also in the Philippines so I guess they don't filter it here. I did some reading about this on a few forums and it seems like some people in the US can see results and some can't. Some people couldn't see them last week, but can now. Might be something to do with their ISP or Google is having trouble implementing it....shrug.

It's a shame because I like Googles products but this really puts a damper on my view of them. I mean banning knives from shopping? Pretty much every household in the world has a knife...even down to people living in huts (and I know a few), I don't see how this will make the world a better place.
 
riz_aaroni said:
Just a weird move. They conformed to China's censorship bs and then kind did some things against it. Then they make their own move in their home country that goes against many people's views for apparently no reason? Crazy.

Plus a couple of articles mention knives too, though can't find Google's own verbage on this.
Click to expand...

FWIW, we have been keeping an eye on this and so far there doesn't seem to be any impact on knife listings in Shopping, at least so far. And, I have to agree it is hypocritical in any case, but unfortunately, too typical.
 
After reading this post, I went onto the shopping section (which is a chore in itself since I'm at work) and I had no trouble at all finding knives of all kinds. I decided to check out guns and again had no issue finding parts and ammo for my mauser. Is it only certain places that this is in effect?
 
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