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How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

knife-depot.com

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Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#31

Post by jordoh »

This seems like a pretty clear-cut case of assuming that there is some intentional malice or favoritism in actions that are the result of an automated system.

- Google adds some terms like "assisted opening knife" and "assist folding knife" so they are recognized as prohibited knife ads. Adding these terms could very well have been automated based on the terms having a strong association with other terms found alongside prohibited items.

- knife-depots' account suddenly contains X% disallowed knife ads, based on the new terms - where X is relatively large percentage. Account automatically disabled.

- Amazon and Walmart also have X% disallowed knife ads, but X is an extremely small percent of their overall number of items. Accounts remain active.

Fortunately, AdWords is one of the few Google properties where you can actually get a human on the phone and have them intervene with the automated results (though it can certainly take a lot of back and forth, in my personal experience).

In a more general sense, this is something that you constantly run in to if you have your automated systems performing any action that a user could view as punitive. I've yet to see a site that was open about automated actions being such - likely because they don't want to make it too easy to automate getting around the automated rules - but it does seem like there is a reasonable amount of explanation of the system that could diffuse these assumptions of persecution.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#33

Post by Anechoic »

mindcrime wrote: post #19
xutopia wrote: post #12

Is it really illegal to own a switch blade but legal to purchase and own assault rifles?

Knives, nunchucks, brass knuckles, etc. are usually covered by state level laws, from what I've seen, and the legality varies widely. Firearms are a slightly different story, since the 2nd Amendment very specifically protects firearms ownership. So yes, it is possible that somewhere or other, a switch blade knife is illegal while an "assault rifle" is legal. I saw "assault rifle" in quotes, because most people talkin…

since the 2nd Amendment very specifically protects firearms ownership

I've seen folks use that rationale, but the 2A doesn't say "firearms" it says "arms" - presumably "knives, nunchucks, brass knuckles, etc" would fall under that, although that's clearly not how it's been interpreted.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#34

Post by OGinparadise »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #16

You cannot wield the kind of economic power Google does and not be evil, at least for the working definition many people have of "evil". We've put a huge hunk of our intellectual and economic capital under the control of a marketing company. I really, really like Google, but I don't see this situation as being stable over a period of decades. Maybe 5-10 more years or so, but not a lot longer. These kinds of decisions…

The worst part is that Google controls both the ads and search, and free clicks just happened to be under attack. Obviously Google wants you to advertise and search updates can do that. No one audits them at all despite them essentially controlling online commerce.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#35

Post by lmm »

mindcrime wrote: post #19
xutopia wrote: post #12

Is it really illegal to own a switch blade but legal to purchase and own assault rifles?

Knives, nunchucks, brass knuckles, etc. are usually covered by state level laws, from what I've seen, and the legality varies widely. Firearms are a slightly different story, since the 2nd Amendment very specifically protects firearms ownership. So yes, it is possible that somewhere or other, a switch blade knife is illegal while an "assault rifle" is legal. I saw "assault rifle" in quotes, because most people talkin…

There's nothing specific about firearms in the 2nd is there? Just "the right to keep and bear arms", which describes blades as much as it does guns.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#36

Post by pud »

Whenever I ban a user from one of my sites for an infraction, he invariably points to several other infracting users and says "well why do they get to post porn (or ads for weapons or whatever) and I don't?"

The reason is because I didn't catch the other users. Or their infraction isn't as bad.

While I feel bad for the knife company, I also know dealing with user-generated content (like these ads) is hard.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#37

Post by andrewpi »

mindcrime wrote: post #19
xutopia wrote: post #12

Is it really illegal to own a switch blade but legal to purchase and own assault rifles?

Knives, nunchucks, brass knuckles, etc. are usually covered by state level laws, from what I've seen, and the legality varies widely. Firearms are a slightly different story, since the 2nd Amendment very specifically protects firearms ownership. So yes, it is possible that somewhere or other, a switch blade knife is illegal while an "assault rifle" is legal. I saw "assault rifle" in quotes, because most people talkin…

The 2nd Amendment protects arms, not firearms specifically. I think a good argument could be made that knives should fall under its protection as well. However I'm not sure if the courts have addressed knives post Heller.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#38

Post by msrpotus »

tjic wrote: post #8
rdl wrote: post #6

I'm in favor of banning porn ads (generally), since those tend to be offensive to a lot of people and also are highly correlated with spammy behavior, but I'd be tempted to boycott a vendor who prohibited weapons ads for any reason other than legal compliance. Amazon is pretty reasonable (knives are fine, firearms accessories are fine, but firearms and ammunition are out due to compliance issues). Google has no excus…

> Amazon is pretty reasonable (knives are fine, firearms accessories are fine, but firearms and ammunition are out As a target shooter, I don't find this any more reasonable than a gay person might find "personal ads are fine, but not gay personal ads". All too often our definition of "reasonable" is "gores HIS ox but not mine".

Knives are a lot less lethal than guns.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#39

Post by IvyMike »

xutopia wrote: post #12

Is it really illegal to own a switch blade but legal to purchase and own assault rifles?

I have a friend who spent months in the California court system for having a decorative pair of brass knuckles. These are illegal in California.

Had he had a loaded pistol instead, I believe he would have never have been in the court system at all.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#40

Post by nekitamo »

alekseyk wrote: post #11
joey_muller wrote: post #3

I predict Google will come around and open up your adwords account again. Don't give up on it if, of course, you want their traffic. Were you running product listing ads (PLAs) as well?

Not a single person from Google will ever read the e-mails from your Adwords account unless you bring in thousands of dollars of revenue for them every day.

I knew a person who used to spend $3000+ a day on Adwords who never got much attention from Google (reseller in the cosmetics niche). The only thing he mentioned is that at some point Google assigned him an Adwords account rep. He followed the advice of the account rep and got all the ads and keywords suggested by the rep banned. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

Eventually the person's main account was banned. Last I talked to him he was creating a bunch of fake accounts and running cloaked campaigns. It was much easier for him to be non-compliant on Adwords than compliant.

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