Forum Moderators: open
They've just disallowed a bunch of ads because the client sells wines and BEER. Wines is fine but BEER is on the forbidden list !.
Can you believe that you can advertise every filthy adult term known to man....but BEER...oh no...where's the rationale?
I am assuming the facts stated are correct - that google does allow wine and not beer. I could understand not allowing ads for alcohol. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I could understand it. Alcohol does have a negative health impact and their are issues with underage drinking, drunk driving, and alcoholism.
It just seems to me that it is a little bit of class discrimination as their is a lower class beer drinking connotation versus an upper class wine drinking connotation.
Look at the way it is presented in the media. Frasier and his snooty brother drink wine and stuff I can't pronounce, while his ex cop father loves a good beer.
I am sure the people at google had good intentions, but it doesn't really make sense to me.
And theoretically, what people *from* a company do wouldn't necessarily have anything to do with ad policies anyway.
99% of UK wine merchants also sell beer but because my client happens to mention beer on his web page he's not allowed to advertise....bizarre !
Hmmm, must be the yuppie influence... Sounds classist, to me... :)
But since Google does not target adwords to specific countries but to languages, they have a problem here.
As far as I know - there are no laws regarding the online advertising of alcohol that are different for beer and wine. I could be wrong.
FOr a while - HARD LIQUOR was not advertised, but this was an industry imposed regulation -- not a law.
ADDED THIS:
[ndsn.org...]
the ftc seems to claim power to regulate ads that have large target audiences of children - so that you can't advertise alcohol in shows that would have large audiences of young people. So no advertising ANY TYPE OF ALCOHOL during barney, but ER would be ok.
I don't know of any distinction under US law. There could be one, but not that I know of.
And Canada, UK, Japan, Germany, France, Italy.
Interesting question, Chris. I would be very surprised if Google would not be subject to the same regulations as all global advertizers.
They do specially targeted advertizing, on sites running on local domains in local languages...
In some cases the adwords even get sold in the respective language from local offices in local currency.
Anybody with any insight in online advertisement and local laws?
So are you saying that because these ads are viewable in Saudi Arabia - that ads about porn would be outlawed?
Companies are only subject to the laws where they have a presence. Even though yahoo had a presence in france - they got a court to throw out a verdict for them advertising nazi trinkets.
[wired.com...]
There is clear case law on the side of companies - they don't have to follow laws in other countries (although you could make an argument the would for france, italy, and the other countries where they have offices).
Google could restrict ads on the .uk, .jp, ... and so forth or restrict them by country - as you already have the ability to.
I'd like to know what country FORBIDS beer, but allws everything else. I am not saying there isn't one - I am just curious. I think I read somewhere poland does.
From a biological point of view I know wine (particularly red wine) has specific health benefits when drunk regularly in small amounts. However there has been increasing research showing that beer also has similar (and some different) health benefits also. So while it can be argued that small amounts of wine are actively good for you, the same thing can be argued for beer. Also, beer has a lower alcohol content, so from that point of view they should discriminate against wine rather than beer.
Which brings it back to the class thing, ie drinking wine is considered somehow more socially acceptable and is therefore OK. But since when did something as smart as Google fall for such crass (and invalid) social stereotypes? There must be some other reason.
Who knows what agreements Google had to make with other countries too.
So thats what you get with prohibition, everyone is shopping for his own still. ;)
Yes so do I but how do I convince a client to change his web site, removing all trace of the word BEER just so that he can advertise on Google?
