Google, Don't Make Me Hate You

I thought I would leave my lovely vintage League of Women Voters poster up for the day, but I am so fired up right now that I just have to say something. (Honestly,  I really need a new post category for rants...)

You may not know this, but during the past few days Google AdSense has been sending out "Yes on 8" advertisements to the websites that use this service, wether they agree with the advertisement or not. For those that don't publish online, Google AdSense is something you've probably seen a million times - an advertising box generated by Google based upon the keywords found in the content of your site. Because of this, even gay rights sites have had "Yes on 8" ads showing due to the keywords found. Regardless of keywords, fashion, style, and culture sites have also had the "Yes on 8" ads forced upon them by Google AdSense, and no one knew this was happening until they saw the ads on their site.

Obviously, most of these sites such as Trend de la Creme, The Dieline, Cuffington, Laughingsquid, Independent Fashion Bloggers, etc, (I'm sure there are many more out there, but these are the ones I've read myself,) are horrified that they would host advertising in favor of such a hateful cause. Most have removed their Google AdSense boxes altogether until after the election. My personal favorite callout was on Laughingsquid who said "Yes on 8, get the fuck off my blog!"

I visited the Google AdSense blog, and instead of addressing the issue and apologizing, they merely posted a procedure on how to run additional filters on the advertising being sent out. They did not mention the "Yes on 8" ads, nor did they address any of the concerns voiced by their customers. As a corporation, Google has donated to the NO on 8 cause, so it is indeed a puzzle as to why these ads have come up on their advertising. Or, I guess it's no mystery really, corporate morals have lost out to the almighty dollar.

Poetic & Chic did not get any of these derisive ads and I'm not sure why. Luckily, I only received a nice PSA in the box from Google below. That being said, I am watching my Google AdSense box closely to see if anything comes up.

I am staunchly opposed to Proposition 8. It is embarrassing that we as Californians even need to vote on this measure as it is totally discriminatory, divisive, and just wrong. The advertising for the "Yes on 8" campaign has been horrifying at best, consistently raising my bile and sending me looking for things to throw at my television and radio.

I belive that if people love each other and want to enter into a marriage commitment then they should be absolutely free to do so, regardless of their sexual preference. Much like they should be free to do so regardless of race, color or creed. It shatters my heart to think that anyone would think otherwise because of fear, lack of exposure, education, or some warped notion that we need to label our marriages strictly between "husband" and "wife".

VOTE NO on 8!!!

If you work for Google or know someone who works for Google, please forward this to them and ask them to clean up their act. We trust AdSense to provide good, appropriate ad content to our sites, not mis-represent our views.

Comments

[Megen]

Right on, Annie! Keep ranting! It is totally shocking.

[Catie]

Thanks for the scoop!

[Randall]

Ironic to read this right now because I was just at Google's SF hq, even jokingly entertaining their talk about the 'Gayglers' in their corporate culture, and now this, pretty nauseating. Prop 8 is truly a hate measure, it's odd to hear some of my old Mormon acquaintances from Utah (where I grew up) rationalize their support for it. Their willingly selfish denial in order to conform to the pressure from their church is disheartening to say the least. I checked the 'find the supporters of prop 8' feature on SFGate and found some of my parents friends, as well as two people I went to high school with. Shudder.