Google's rules for adwords

Tobacco advertizing not allowed

[talismon]

I would love to know who and how decisions are made as to what is acceptable for advertising in adwords. You can have the raunchiest sex site depicting acts which are illegal in most states however advertising premium cigars is taboo.

Selling Wine? No problem...Google loves you.

Selling Cigarettes? Forget it, not politically correct: your SOL.

[heini]

That's all been that way from the beginning.
With alcoholics only wine is allowed, nothing else. Tobacoo products are completely exempt.

But, talismon, you can't seriously want to force somebody to advertize certain products?

[ukgimp]

I think this sort of thing has come down from higher up than Google.

The law on tobacco advertising has be changing recently (not sure about US)

News Article [media.guardian.co.uk]

It is not illegal to sell wine or to advertise it, tabacco, thats another story.

[Shak]

this has been raise before, and Heini and Ukgimp have answered the question.

legal rulings out of Googles control.

Shak

[talismon]

Heini,

Not trying to force any type of advertising, just wanted to point our the disparity between what people view as acceptable these days.

Tobacco advertising on the internet is largely hit/miss. All PPC's allow it except for Google. Ask Jeeves wont allow it, Looksmart will. Lycos says it wont but grandfathered in certain sites. Yahoo used to pull in Over terms, now they have stopped.

The rights of the 50 million smokers in this country are constantly being restricted, who is fighting for those poor farm animals?

[WindSun]

Personally, it really bugs me that legal items like tobacco and booze are verboten on Google and other SE's (and in much print and TV advertising).
Not that I care much about the items, but if they can ban those, how long til they ban hamburgers and french.. er freedom fries?

[1milehgh80210]

Overture picking up the slack. 70 sponsored links for "cigar" .)

[WindSun]

I just read over the restrictions on Yahoo stores. Among other things you cannot sell there are "gun accessories" - and one of the items listed is scopes.
Now, I could see banning ammo and guns and gun parts, but banning optics too?
Of course they also ban beer, but not wine - figure that one out.

[WebSempster]

I have just received a mail from Lycos that they are banning any adverts where the site sells any alcohol or tobacco products and had already suspended advertising. This is for a client that has three restaurants and tells people what the wine with their meals is going to cost and what it would cost to have a case delivered to their home. Good cross-selling I would have thought.

Google have also changed their rules in mid March too: they now will not accept any AdWords where the site has 'substantial' references to 'hard liquor'. The same applies to beer, tobacco, guns and knives. My annoyance is that they do not publish this information. For the moment I'm getting away with sherry and port too. Given the inconsistent nature of Google staff, I might have got a rogue reviewer, but I don't think so.

Overture is (for the moment still) accepting adverts for alcohol, including spirits aka 'hard liquor'. I'm sure that they have published that they do not accept tobacco products. I have no idea on their policy towards knives or guns.

FindWhat do not appear to have a policy on alcohol yet, but given their links with Lycos, I am sure that it is only a matter of time. I have no idea about tobacco / knives / guns here.