How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads • Hacker News Board

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#51

Post by mindcrime » Mon, Mar 25, 2013, 8:02 PM UTC

Anechoic wrote: post #33

mindcrime wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a fair point, but - for whatever reason - the way it's interpreted in practice seems to be mainly (if not exclusively) about firearms.

Come to think of it, I don't know why that is, and I'm not arguing that it's correct.

Anyway, the real point is that there seems to be a lot more variation in laws concerning the legality of owning knives, nunchucks, brass-knuckles, etc., than there is about guns. Guns may be more highly regulated in general, but I don't know of a single state where private ownership of, say, a pistol, is illegal. But I'm pretty sure there are states where switch-blade knives are. But I'm working off memory here, so maybe I'm wrong.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#52

Post by kybernetyk » Mon, Mar 25, 2013, 8:03 PM UTC

pud wrote: post #36

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.

> dealing with user-generated content (like these ads) is hard.

That's not really an excuse because no one forces Google to be in the user generated ad business. They want money from advertisers so they should do all they can to offer the best service possible.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#53

Post by josefresco » Mon, Mar 25, 2013, 8:03 PM UTC

GFischer wrote: post #30

josefresco wrote: post #7

Being an AdWords veteran (having managed campaigns for several clients) all I could do was nod my head grumble under my breath about how this is "business as usual" for Google. One of my clients who was selling in the health market had this and other seemingly "unfair" treatments happen again and again over the years. All the while Google was taking money from Canadian "pharmacies" and allowing big brand competitors…

Google ads in the health sector is tough, we tried advertising a medication/pill management software (for keeping track of times, stock, etc. with a twist), and Google was extremely frustrating in randomly restricting our keywords, and we had to repeatedly assert that we were NOT advertising medications. They did not ban our account or anything, they were happy to take a few of our dollars :) (we didn't get to the MV…

Yeah I lost count on how many times I had to tell Google my client was not a pharmacy and not offering any prescription medications (even though we were bidding on terms that related to that market segment).

I understand (and can tolerate) false positives in regards to software but there was no excuse for the uneven application by human editors of the guidelines.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#54

Post by hfsktr » Mon, Mar 25, 2013, 8:04 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #20

tjic wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

I think the difference is that firearms are heavily regulated by localities in different ways. For example, transport over state lines may require coordination with the shipper. For Amazon, having attorneys stay up to date on the law in multiple jurisdictions doesn't fit with their operating model. Knives are less difficult regulatory-wise, and where there are local legal issues, they usually aren't serious felonies.

I used to work at a shop that sold firearms (among many other things) online. I didn't see all the laws we had to follow but quite a few I noticed (I worked on the intranet site).

Unless the customer was coming to pick up the weapon themselves (at our location) we would only ship guns to FFL's[1]. The FFL was also the one who did the background check as far as I'm aware. I don't know what percentage of our sales were local pickups but I am guessing we did the background for those (we had an FFL).

They shut down but the company made it up to 70 or so employees. I don't know how we kept up on the laws. Our suppliers might have done that as we were sort of a middleman from the suppliers to the customers. I do remember that we needed to track a lot of things for the ATF and they had to be very accurate. The ATF would come in once a year or so and audit the logs and other things related to shipping. I never saw them but I remember the boss(es) being stressed during those weeks.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Firearms_License

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#55

Post by yalogin » Mon, Mar 25, 2013, 8:04 PM UTC

I just realized that Adwords is Google's equivalent of the iOS app store. They review stuff and either remove or block certain "items". I cannot help but wonder how civil and accomodating the people effected by the adwords changes are compared to the developers effected by the iOS app store. Is it just because the developers know how to make noise better than the non-tech ones?

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#56

Post by kamjam » Mon, Mar 25, 2013, 8:05 PM UTC

msrpotus wrote: post #38

tjic wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That's bullsh*t, knives kill just as guns do. In the UK we have many more knife related crime than we do gun related crime.

That said, the issue here is not how lethal one is over the other, but Google playing judge,jury and executioner for something they should have no right to jurisdict over.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#57

Post by josefresco » Mon, Mar 25, 2013, 8:05 PM UTC

pud wrote: post #36

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.

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

That's your reason, not Google's. Google knows full well who is bidding on what keyword. Are you suggesting they are under-staffed, under budgeted or overwhelmed in their task of keeping AdWords clean? I'm not buying it. Google has the resources to evenly apply guidelines, they're not a one-man show who's too busy to squash out violators.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#58

Post by mindcrime » Mon, Mar 25, 2013, 8:08 PM UTC

lmm wrote: post #35

mindcrime wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, see my other reply. You're correct in that the 2A doesn't use the term "firearm". But in practice that seems to be the interpretation. I don't actually know why.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#59

Post by kkowalczyk » Mon, Mar 25, 2013, 8:11 PM UTC

kybernetyk wrote: post #52

pud wrote: post #36

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.

> dealing with user-generated content (like these ads) is hard. That's not really an excuse because no one forces Google to be in the user generated ad business. They want money from advertisers so they should do all they can to offer the best service possible.

If the advertiser is not happy with Google's service, they are free to use another service.

"no one forces you to do X" argument cuts both ways?

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#60

Post by mitchellhislop » Mon, Mar 25, 2013, 8:11 PM UTC

analog wrote: post #14

ImprovedSilence wrote: post #4

very slowly, but very, very surly, google is doing a complete 180 on "don't be evil". I think the slow pressure of being a public company is really going to strangle out much of the "good side" of Google. Everything they've done in the past 1.5yrs has been terrible for their users.

Hang on, what? Refusing to advertise knives which are clearly intended to be used as weapons is 'evil' now is it?

> clearly intended to be used as weapons

Knives are horrible, horrible weapons.

These are clearly NOT intended to be used as weapons, as they are normal, everyday lock-back knives. Knives intended to be weapons, such as those modeled after the Krambit design, are fairly rare in public, especially among people who use knives (their shape and features make them much less useful). Your outrage is misplaced - we are not having a weapon talk.

Google not allowing ads for something that is legal is bullshit. Them not allowing ads for some people, but allowing them for others, over the same product, is evil.