Google AdWords Disallows Advertising for Abortion Businesses in Several Nations
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 1, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Search engine giant Google is apparently disallowing advertisements for abortion businesses in several nations, some of which prohibit abortions and some of which don’t. There appears to be little rhyme or reason for the Google decision, which abortion advocates are blasting.
Pro-abortion activist Lori Adelman corresponded with a staff member at Google who confirmed the denial of abortion advertising.
While ads for abortion are allowed in many nations, such as the United States, Google appears to have banned them in countries such as Brazil, France, Mexico, Poland, and Taiwan.
While nations like Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Poland protect women and children, others such as France and Taiwan allow abortions.
"Last September, we reviewed our abortion ads policy in order to make sure it was fair, up to date and consistent with local customs and practices," the staffer told Adelman. "We decided to disallow ads for abortion services, such as abortion clinics, in the following markets: Germany, Poland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, France, Italy and Spain."
"However, general, factual ads on abortion continued to be allowed and we also enabled religious associations to place ads on abortion in a factual way," the Google staffer said.
The latter comment appears to be a response to concerns from pro-life advocates in England and elsewhere that their ads were facing denial from Google.
Asked for further clarification from Adelman why the specific countries were selected for disallowing ads for abortions, the Google staffer did not provide a specific answer.
"I can share that we conducted the review and made the change to ensure our policy was fair, up-to-date, consistent with local laws and codes of practice," the staffer said.
That frustrated Adelman, who wrote on the pro-abortion blog Feministing that she "Never thought I’d be taking sides in the war of the search engines."
"Google’s rationale behind disallowing ads in these particular countries … is shrouded in mystery: the spokeswoman deftly avoided answering my question about how the countries were chosen," she lamented.
"Regardless of the reason, I’m pretty disturbed by Google’s ability to withhold information about reproductive health services [sic abortion] in these countries without justification or accountability," she said.
ACTION: Contact Google and thank it for not running ads for abortions in these countries. Call 650-253-0000, fax 650-253-0001, or go to https://www.google.com/intl/en/contact
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