Google censors firearms, ammo, accessories results

[ithacaartist]

from: http://www.google.com/appserve/mkt/ApI7UWRj6OCZpd :

Unacceptable product categories
Affiliates, cataloged drop-shipping programs, and multi-level marketing

The promotion of affiliate or pay-per-click links, products sold through a commission-based relationship, or sites that bulk list products fulfilled through drop-ship consolidators is not allowed. This includes item pages that are made up almost entirely of advertisements, or pages where advertisements obstruct the view of the submitted product. The promotion of multi-level marketing (MLM) business products is also not permitted, such as businesses that recruit members and offer them rewards for recruiting others and/or selling services
Services

Services are not allowed on Google Shopping.
Examples of listings disallowed:

Event tickets
Subscriptions, such as magazine subscriptions or any kind of service subscription.
Online courses

Other prohibited categories

The following products are not allowed on Google Shopping:

Vehicles
Guns, ammunition and knives
Tobacco and cigarettes
Traffic devices (Learn more)
Products related to casino and gambling
Products or digital goods that require additional software installation in order to be purchased.
Products bundled with service plans. (Note: The only products that are allowed to be submitted with a service plan are mobile devices.)

There are plenty of other products they will not accept. Ted, does the "Slippery Slope" fallacy apply to everything on the list? The list does sound p.c. doesn't it? Google Shopping may indeed be throwing the baby out with the bath water. Does the ban also apply to Cutco, Chicago cutlery, and Oneida stainless table knives? Will anyone really miss being bombarded by MLM scams (Sorry, Amway folks...)? Can't buy a car, just tires, batteries and parts? Maybe decanter sets and spitoons, with their evil association with alcohol and tobacco, will also be banned. But wait, alcohol isn't on the prohibition list after all. And where will we buy those bingo card-marking pens? Services are banned, so advertising/selling firearms restoration services is out, on two counts! Maybe religious literature and artifacts will be next!

I'd presume Google makes $ running Google Shopping, and to ban any item limits sales and therefore income. Maybe worry over liability is at the root of it--I'm not convinced that a politically correct payoff is necessarily involved. If it is a payoff, how much will it cost the anonymous "liberal" donor to further control guns by bribing Google to filter its search engine? We have until he saves up that much... And if it is such a conspiracy, how long will they be able to keep it covered up? If it's as good a job as was done for the trips to the moon that nobody really made, then we are in trouble.

If Google filters its search engine in the way you propose, you'll see conservatives and liberals alike protesting it because everyone will detect the whole enterprise sliding down the slope, each in his own area of interest. And you'd see a new lease on life for Yahoo because the search engine business, after all, is competitive.

eBay won't let us list guns, but they obviously allow accessories and parts to be listed. How long has that been going on--and eBay hasn't slid any farther down its slope. Google is a business, just like any other. If they won't do the job for us, someone else will. Google's loss.

I prefer the firearms oriented sites anyway. Notice the difference in the seeming proportions of nincompoops who author the listings--way more people selling something they know nothing about are found on ebay than Gunbroker.