Linkety-linkety

[moominmuppet]

Days after gay pride parades were held across the country, the Indian government has finally repealed Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalises homosexuality. -- YAY!!!!


Google AdWords Policy Disallows Ads for Abortion Services in Over a Dozen Countries -- BOO!!! (and a totally bullshit response from them, too)

a personal

Comments

[moominmuppet]

Thanks; I'd read about that -- sounds like a major screw-up on the part of the parade organizers, and the end results totally suck.

[marnanel]

I do feel we're not being given the full story on the AdWords problem. Specifically, why these countries? For example, are these countries where it's illegal to advertise abortion services and Google is just complying with the law (in which case we should be getting angry with the law, not Google)? If they were going to ban advertising for abortion services, why not everywhere?

Also, it seems that a lot of people are responding to this as though it was a problem with search (and saying "Let's find another search engine to use"), whereas it's actually a problem with advertising. There are ethical problems with Google's search system (one example is that the word "penis" is not automatically barred from safe searches but the word "clitoris" is) but this isn't one of them.

The CSR's response was canned bullshit, though, yes.

[fionnabhair_ii]

The article in the link mentions two countries- France and Italy- with liberal (by the author's standards) abortion laws.

I don't know why those countries, either, but it's not because people can't obtain legal abortions in those countries.

[marnanel]

I think perhaps you misread my comment:

are these countries where it's illegal to advertise abortion services

It may be illegal to advertise a legal service. (For example, advertising prescription medication is illegal in the UK.)

[fionnabhair_ii]

Whoops, I did misread that. More coffee is needed.