How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads • Hacker News Board

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#111

Post by ckb » Mon, Mar 25, 2013, 9:12 PM UTC

jetti wrote: post #29

xutopia wrote: post #12

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

First off, switchblades are legal in some states in the US ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchblade#United_States ). I can see some logic behind making switchblades illegal. They are easy to conceal both pre and post crime, as well as being low cost. Add to that there is no paperwork (that I'm aware of) to purchase one and you have a virtually untraceable weapon. That is hard to say about assault rifles.

Should paring and chef's knives be illegal then? They don't require opening at all, can be quite sharp, and are widely distributed. Baseball bats, tire irons, icicles: almost anything can become an untraceable weapon.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#112

Post by wyager » Mon, Mar 25, 2013, 9:12 PM UTC

ori_b wrote: post #15

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".

You ignored the important part: "Due to compliance issues". I'm not familiar with the legal issues. However, it is perfectly reasonable for Amazon to comply with the law. Perhaps the laws are stupid, but that's not Amazon's fight.

The compliant issues you mention (for the most part) do not exist.

There are very few extra legal limitations for selling ammunition over the internet. These legal limitations could be shifted to third-party retailers, with Amazon as a middleman only.

There are literally no extra legal limitations or regulations for a company selling (non-firearm) firearm parts, which Amazon does not allow.

Selling ammunition requires roughly the same amount of legal red tape as selling knives or tasers (which Amazon already does).

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#113

Post by wjy » Mon, Mar 25, 2013, 9:13 PM UTC

Anechoic wrote: post #18

analog wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You know we're talking about assisted-opening knives and not switchblades, right?

You push a button and the blade snaps out in both cases. What's the real difference? The internal mechanisms differ, but the end result is the same.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#114

Post by unclebucknasty » Mon, Mar 25, 2013, 9:13 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #96

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…

> They're unhappy with its actions, perhaps even livid, but it's always a tone of "Golly! This is really unfortunate and I'm sure nobody at Google really meant to do this, but...." They're trying not to burn bridges, which is good business. But it's true Google has a monopoly on online ads, which should not be allowed to continue unchallenged. Don't like Dell? Buy Lenovo. Don't like AdWords? Die. On the other hand, t…

> They're trying not to burn bridges, which is good business.

I think that's the parent's point: that you cannot afford to burn bridges with Google, even when they are wrong. Speaks to their power.

> Google asked them to stop advertising for one category of products.

I read it as Google asking them to stop advertising through Adwords as long as their site carried the products in question, even if the ads weren't for those specific products. If your interpretation is correct, however, I would agree with your conclusion.

Perhaps the OP can clarify.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#115

Post by corresation » Mon, Mar 25, 2013, 9:14 PM UTC

caf wrote: post #98

corresation wrote: post #89

http://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/176077?hl=en Company tried to sell a product that Google prohibits. Where is the story here? Trying to say "well they do it too!" is not and is never a valid complaint, just as it wasn't in primary school -- their day will come. Further the desperate reaching to make Google evil is a stretch given that doing this can only possibly lose them money (favoring the "big guys"…

The "big guys" sell a lot more products in a lot more categories, so are presumably putting in a much larer number of bids - it is not hard to believe that Google sees a lot more revenue from Amazon than some random knife shop.

I'm entirely sure that Amazon spends more. But for that keyword whoever bids the most spends the most. Google optimizes by the keyword, which of course they should, just as companies like Amazon don't bid on keywords because they're benevolent, but because they want to optimize their own return. Removing players from the market cannot possibly serve Google's financial interest, and that conspiratorial angle makes absolutely no sense.

Because their seems to be some confusion about how bid systems work (including by the dead post below), if Amazon and others outbid this company, netting more for Google, this would be a non-issue because you would have never seen this company's products.

It is notable that Google absolutely bans knives in the context of weapons, full stop (the author of the linked posting seems confused and thinks "such as" gives the specific culprits, when those are merely examples). This company may have authored their ads in a weapons manner, or targeted weapons-type keywords -- the sort of nonsense that gets Google sued by a bunch of state Attorneys down the road, everyone clucking about how evil Google is selling (indirectly) the knife that the kid used to do some evil.

EDIT: The only possible favoritism that Google might be showing her is in the context of legal responsibility. If some random knife site sells a kid a knife via a Adwords ad, everyone will come gunning for Google. If Walmart sells a knife to some kid, everyone will go gunning for Walmart, regardless of how they got the initial contact.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#116

Post by jordoh » Mon, Mar 25, 2013, 9:17 PM UTC

ISL wrote: post #83

jordoh wrote: post #31

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 alongs…

"- 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." And the little guy, selling the same product in competition with the big guy, gets killed. It's often better to have a level playing field.

How do you level the playing field in this case? One account has 50% disallowed items (50 of 100) and another account has 0.005% disallowed items (50 of 1,000,000). You could bias _against_ large accounts by banning when they reach a fixed number of disallowed items - but then you let little guys (or any big guy that makes lots of small accounts) skate by under some arbitrary limit.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#117

Post by betterunix » Mon, Mar 25, 2013, 9:17 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?

Knives are among the oldest and most versatile tools known to man. I have, on occasion, used my pocket knife as a gardening tool, screwdriver, box cutter, prying tool, wire stripper, wire cutter, torque wrench, and hammer. It is not the best tool for any of the above, but sometimes you just lack the time needed to go back to your garage and get your toolbox.

Nothing about "assisted opening knives" makes them "clearly intended to be used as weapons." It is a convenience, just like my pocket knife conveniently locks open. Why should a tool not be convenient?

Finally, the important distinction here is that Google is not refusing to advertise these knives, they are only refusing to allow this one, small company to advertise those knives. That is a key detail -- Google has no problem with the knives when Amazon is selling them.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#118

Post by smusumeche » Mon, Mar 25, 2013, 9:19 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #96

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…

> They're unhappy with its actions, perhaps even livid, but it's always a tone of "Golly! This is really unfortunate and I'm sure nobody at Google really meant to do this, but...." They're trying not to burn bridges, which is good business. But it's true Google has a monopoly on online ads, which should not be allowed to continue unchallenged. Don't like Dell? Buy Lenovo. Don't like AdWords? Die. On the other hand, t…

I'm not the OP, but I do work for Knife Depot. Google did not ask us to stop advertising for one category of product. They asked us to remove those products from our site, and if we didn't, we could not advertise for ANYTHING via AdWords, including kitchen knives, cutting boards, pocket knives, etc.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#119

Post by smusumeche » Mon, Mar 25, 2013, 9:20 PM UTC

unclebucknasty wrote: post #114

bambax wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're unhappy with its actions, perhaps even livid, but it's always a tone of "Golly! This is really unfortunate and I'm sure nobody at Google really meant to do this, but...." They're trying not to burn bridges, which is good business. But it's true Google has a monopoly on online ads, which should not be allowed to continue unchallenged. Don't like Dell? Buy Lenovo. Don't like AdWords? Die. On the other hand, t…

> They're trying not to burn bridges, which is good business. I think that's the parent's point: that you cannot afford to burn bridges with Google, even when they are wrong. Speaks to their power. > Google asked them to stop advertising for one category of products. I read it as Google asking them to stop advertising through Adwords as long as their site carried the products in question, even if the ads weren't for…

I'm not the OP, but I do work for Knife Depot. Google did not ask us to stop advertising for one category of product. They asked us to remove those products from our site, and if we didn't, we could not advertise for ANYTHING via AdWords, including kitchen knives, cutting boards, pocket knives, etc.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#120

Post by ChuckMcM » Mon, Mar 25, 2013, 9:23 PM UTC

jordoh wrote: post #31

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 alongs…

I don't think it works that way.

When you say "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." the implication is that total ad spend vs banned ad ratio prevails. That would suggest that the knife guys could start advertising flowers, buy 90% of their AdWords for their buddy the florist and only 10% of their AdWords for their knives and be Okay. I don't think it would work out.

Google is just acting poorly here, why doesn't matter. As the original poster points out, 'assisted open' knives are legal for sale in the US (even in California which is kind of picky about such things). They aren't part of the terms of service explicitly, so either they are or they aren't. And if they are, they are for everybody, and if they aren't they are aren't for everybody.

I'm sure if .01% of WalMart's ad spend was for Canadian pharmaceuticals that they would be shut down in a heartbeat (because the Government really came down hard on Google for that).

Its common knowledge that one of the ways larger successful sellers on Ebay harass smaller sellers is by reporting them for various rules violations. When a "Power Seller" has a dedicates account manager inside Ebay they don't have to put up with random reports like the small guy who randomly gets someone in the problem reporting staff. That asymmetry is exploited to mitigate small seller effectiveness. I have no idea if this goes on in "AdWord" competitors but some of the lawsuits I've read from various people (especially on contested keywords) suggests the advertisers (or their agencies) aren't above such tactics.