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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

#171

Post by ufmace »

mindcrime wrote: post #51
Anechoic wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

Before the recent set of court rulings, private ownership of a pistol was indeed completely illegal with no exceptions in Chicago and Washington, DC. Several other jurisdictions are almost as strict - as of the last time I read up on it, in NYC, it is illegal to even touch a pistol which is not registered to you, which is a lengthy and complex process.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#172

Post by rdl »

analog wrote: post #81
navyrain wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if you're just trolling, but I'll bite. The government has regulations in place on dangerous weapons, which you are ostensibly free, through the democratic process, to change if they are not to your liking. Google has decided that legal/illegal is not a sufficient criteria, and made up their own rules about how you can use their service, but then only applied those rules to smaller clients. That is the evil…

I agree that it would be better if Google applied the same rules to other vendors selling similar knives. They are entirely free to decide how you can use their service, there's nothing evil about that. Edit: To clarify, I've used knives professionally (diving instructor) and recreationally (kite surfer), but I fail to see the non-weapon use for a knife that is small (and therefore concealable) and also opens quickly…

Window smashing is one of the MOST justifiable things to have on a tool.

I keep glassbreakers and seatbelt cutters in my car with easy access, and also have tools which can break glass. I've been to two (civilian) vehicle accidents where that was incredibly useful -- being able to break the glass to access a person in an upside-down or sideways car from the outside. I had a glassbreaker for one, and the other I had to use a crowbar, which kind of sucked. I don't really see a "weapon" use of a glass breaker, particularly if you already have a knife or firearm to hand.

I also used a kershaw AO knife all the time to cut things while holding something else -- for instance, cutting open dressings while holding pressure, since someone had taken my shears. Or opening a cardboard box while holding it.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#173

Post by scarmig »

coolsunglasses wrote: post #100
scarmig wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As they say, the Cossacks work for the Czar. They have always worked for the Czar. If a big institution screws you over but has found a clever way of perpetually evading or delegating away vocal blame for that... they're still responsible, unless they're fixing the system in the very-near term. If the resources aren't there to fix the system, that's because they've consciously chosen not to allocate those resources.

"They" do not say it, DeLong does.

He originated it, but it's since become a mainstay on the political blogs, from Yglesias and Krugman to the folks over at RedState.

Plus, it has a certain panache to it, don't you think? And vividly conjures a real phenomenon, despite eliding real principal agent problems.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#174

Post by jordoh »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #120
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 f…

Do you have evidence to support the assertion that it isn't purely percentage based? Perhaps there is some account out there that has the same ratio of prohibited items as knife-depot, but has not been banned?

Whether AdWords should allow "assisted open knife" ads is beside the point. Correct or not, AdWords is counting those as prohibited, the allegation of the OP is that AdWords banning criteria are applied differently to large accounts. I'm suggesting that the criteria is applied _exactly the same_, based on a percentage.

What I'm describing is also how Google Product Listing Ads get moderated: if X% of your items are in violation, your account is automatically shut down, pending appeal. Google sends a warning when you reach (X - Y)%, and another email when you reach X% and your account is shut down. I administrate 30,000+ PLA accounts and deal with this on a daily basis. This banning process is completely automated.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#175

Post by vidarh »

anigbrowl wrote: post #156

I watched his video that purported to explain the difference between a switchblade and a spring assisted knife. As far as I can tell the only difference is that the location of the switch has changed. This is a distinction without a substantive difference. So yo would need a slightly different hand movement to trigger this alternative spring-assisted knife. Big deal; as someone who used to like knives enough to have…

Agree. To me it seems like the entire purpose of this design is to make an end-run around the restrictions on switch-blades.

But with respect to this article, the biggest problem I see is not whether or not they are allowed, but that Google is setting arbitrary rules, rather than democratically elected representatives, and that the policy is the even arbitrarily enforced.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#176

Post by DanBC »

bigiain wrote: post #170
Roedou wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As is often the case, Google has to find a line that allows legitimate brands to do their thing, but also make sure that smaller/less legitimate sites not exploit their systems. Google won't tell Amazon/Target/Walmart, to stop selling a product or get banned from AdWords. But a small retailer who wants to circumvent the rules could capture PPC traffic for a similar (but legitimate) product, and then funnel people to…

Did anybody else read through that keyword-heavy body text, and think "I wonder if they'll really get away with trying to own the organic SERPs while the Adwords team are swatting down their paid placements?"

I can't see any easy link from their blog to their webstore, so that tactic might fail.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#177

Post by rdl »

arethuza wrote: post #139
greyboy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK also has 1/5 the US' population - what does all this mean?

Murder rates are often given per 100,000 inhabitants - so size of country isn't really a factor: United States: 4.8 United Kingdom: 1.2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona... vacri's statement seems completely accurate.

While I agree the US is far more violent than the UK, most of the US's incremental violence is explained by the drug war. Even if we had zero guns and the UK had US-style gun possession and laws, I suspect US drug laws (and other forms of extreme economic/political/legal inequality) would give us a higher murder rate.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#178

Post by AnthonyMouse »

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…

>This is the same way you'd criticize a king, somebody you are beholden to. "Golly! I know you, the king, are not at fault, but some of these advisers of yours must have accidentally goofed up somewhere..."

I don't buy it. People don't criticize a king at all. You don't criticize the communist party in Stalinist Russia, tactfully or otherwise. Doing that gets you sent to the gulag.

The reason people say that it was a probably a mistake is that it was probably a mistake. There is no apparent malicious objective for Google to stop taking this company's money.

There are really only two plausible causes for this. The first is some bureaucratic red tape within Google, where some employee made a poor decision and no one has corrected it yet. The second is that this isn't Google at all, it's the government putting pressure on Google to stop doing business with certain types of companies, and then it's Google being beholden to the government and having to do its bidding.

And I have to say the second one is a lot more plausible. Google has every incentive to take an advertiser's money. They're a publicly traded company. They have an obligation to the shareholders. Turning down paying customers because of some moral objection to pointy objects is a little bit crazy. Turning down paying customers because otherwise the government is going to start harassing you is a lot more rational.

Of course, it could actually be both. Congress is fond of passing laws against doing business with "criminals" or "terrorist organizations" or whoever may be found wearing an Anti-Flag shirt, and lawyers are fond of the phrase "out of an abundance of caution." Put the two together and you get a de jure ban on certain things and a de facto ban on anything that might be sold in the same showcase as those things. And if you don't like that then you might want to stop voting for Congress critters who support the Patriot Act.

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#179

Post by gwern »

samd wrote: post #68

What's really important is this line: "For that reason, we wanted to let you guys, loyal Cutting Edge readers and Knife Depot fans, know that you might not being seeing Knife Depot ads peppered across the Internet. " If you don't get to advertise with Google you basically don't get to advertise on the Internet. That's a powerful monopoly, one they've had for years, and that's the real story here. You have to deal wit…

People were criticizing the infrastructure analogy made for Google Reader recently; so you can imagine how amused I was, while reading Levy's _In The Plex_, to read this bit:

> While some Googlers felt singled out unfairly for the attention, the more measured among them understood it as a natural consequence of Google’s increasing power, especially in regard to distributing and storing massive amounts of information. “It’s as if Google took over the water supply for the entire United States,” says Mike Jones, who handled some of Google’s policy issues. “It’s only fair that society slaps us around a little bit to make sure we’re doing the right thing.”

(In a part generally about advertising, fittingly enough.)

Re: How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads

#180

Post by JumpCrisscross »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #167
cromwellian wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google got sued over online drug ads before and had to pay $500 million in fines. The US Government was even running a criminal probe against Google that could have put executives in jail for these kinds of ads. So you can only imagine they are a lot more careful now given that experience. Alcohol, Weapons, and Drugs are areas regulated by various governments around the world and carry civil and criminal policies for…

What credentials does Google have to decide what is bogus versus what is not? Why should they get to decide what ads (for legal products) have a chance of being shown to me? Perhaps more importantly, especially for entrepreneurs, why should the effective "gateway to the Internet" be allowed to capriciously choose to favor established brands over small companies?

It's not so much that they get to decide as much as thu are being told to decide. Google would much rather operate in a safe harbour where they act as an indiscriminate marketplace for advertising, with the advertisers being responsible for compliance. Regulators, however, find it easier to go after bottlenecks versus chasing down individual offenders. This makes compliance the marketplaces' problem.

The alternative would require giving regulators the resources and power to screen through advertisements and pursue every offender individually.

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