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It’s not Google’s money, it’s advertisers money. Advertisers do not want to pay for their ads on the websites with unacceptable content and trust Google to do t

It’s not Google’s money, it’s advertisers money. Advertisers do not want to pay for their ads on the websites with unacceptable content and trust Google to do the moderation. Because the advertisement may even have a negative effect for them when published on certain websites. There are advertising networks (like those used on porn sites for an extreme example) which have weaker rules, but the websites get smaller profits.

Mirioron 6y ago
This is one of those situations where regulation of some sorts could help the business being regulated. If the government decreed that they're not allowed to pick and choose based on the content then the ad buyers couldn't do anything. It's unlikely this would ever happen though.
- lightgreen 6y ago
  These regulations would greatly harm the ads industry: Google will be forced to place their ads on trash websites. AFAIU Google is not yet the monopoly among the ad networks (it holds less than a half), so it’s too early to regulate.
StanislavPetrov 6y ago
>Advertisers do not want to pay for their ads on the websites with unacceptable content and trust Google to do the moderation. Are advertisers really choosing to "trust google to do the moderation" or is the reality that Google is a virtual monopoly and advertisers don't have much of a choice?
- lightgreen 6y ago
  Google is not a monopoly in ads networks, it has less than a half of ads networks market share.
zaroth 6y ago
Google is banning even advertisers which want to be on ZeroHedge from using their [dominant] platform to place those ads. I’m not sure if you’re suggesting that Google’s platform doesn’t provide advertisers the ability to mark specific domains which they do not want their ads to be shown on? I believe this feature is readily available under the Placements > Exclusions page.
- lightgreen 6y ago
  I guess advertisers do not want to manually maintain thousands of exclusion domains. If an advertiser did not explicitly excluded a certain domain, it doesn’t mean an advertiser wants to place ads on that domain. Sorry for using this analogy again, if Google banned some porn site, but an advertiser did not add that porn site to the exclusion list, likely it still means that advertiser agrees with Google moderation and don’t want to be advertised on that porn site. Google ads has a policy for ads and for hosters (which prohibits hatred, for example), both advertisers and hosters agreed with it when they joined the Google’s service. One might disagree with the fact that such policy exists in Google, but that’s topic for another discussion.
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    Seems like Google could just maintain a list for advertisers then. I think it's naive to think that they are purely doing this to protect Advertisers' convenience.
    - lightgreen 6y ago
      > Seems like Google could just maintain a list for advertisers then. Maybe it could. I believe the market of advertising on marginal websites is small, and it's not worth the trouble for Google to try to work on that market: the number of users of these websites is small, and the number of advertisers wanting to advertise on questionable websites is also small. > I think it's naive to think that they are purely doing this to protect Advertisers' convenience. It's not just convenience. When advertisers are unhappy, Google loses a lot of money, because ads make the most of Google revenue. If you have reasons to believe otherwise, please explain.
koheripbal 6y ago
> the advertisement may even have a negative effect for them when published on certain websites. I've heard this a lot... but does this really cause them problems?
- lightgreen 6y ago
  Them, Google or advertisers? Advertisers are afraid of being mentioned in some viral tweet like: "Coca-cola is advertising on the website next to a comment suggesting to kill all black people. They are racist! Let's boycott Coca-cola!" And Google has a reputation to maintain: they protect advertisers from situations like described above. Maybe it is not a real problem for advertisers, to be advertised on the wrong website, I don't know. But I understand they don't want to have that risk for virtually no profit.

Mirioron 6y ago

This is one of those situations where regulation of some sorts could help the business being regulated. If the government decreed that they're not allowed to pick and choose based on the content then the ad buyers couldn't do anything. It's unlikely this would ever happen though.

lightgreen 6y ago
These regulations would greatly harm the ads industry: Google will be forced to place their ads on trash websites. AFAIU Google is not yet the monopoly among the ad networks (it holds less than a half), so it’s too early to regulate.

StanislavPetrov 6y ago

>Advertisers do not want to pay for their ads on the websites with unacceptable content and trust Google to do the moderation. Are advertisers really choosing to "trust google to do the moderation" or is the reality that Google is a virtual monopoly and advertisers don't have much of a choice?

lightgreen 6y ago
Google is not a monopoly in ads networks, it has less than a half of ads networks market share.

zaroth 6y ago

Google is banning even advertisers which want to be on ZeroHedge from using their [dominant] platform to place those ads. I’m not sure if you’re suggesting that Google’s platform doesn’t provide advertisers the ability to mark specific domains which they do not want their ads to be shown on? I believe this feature is readily available under the Placements > Exclusions page.

lightgreen 6y ago
I guess advertisers do not want to manually maintain thousands of exclusion domains. If an advertiser did not explicitly excluded a certain domain, it doesn’t mean an advertiser wants to place ads on that domain. Sorry for using this analogy again, if Google banned some porn site, but an advertiser did not add that porn site to the exclusion list, likely it still means that advertiser agrees with Google moderation and don’t want to be advertised on that porn site. Google ads has a policy for ads and for hosters (which prohibits hatred, for example), both advertisers and hosters agreed with it when they joined the Google’s service. One might disagree with the fact that such policy exists in Google, but that’s topic for another discussion.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  Seems like Google could just maintain a list for advertisers then. I think it's naive to think that they are purely doing this to protect Advertisers' convenience.
  - lightgreen 6y ago
    > Seems like Google could just maintain a list for advertisers then. Maybe it could. I believe the market of advertising on marginal websites is small, and it's not worth the trouble for Google to try to work on that market: the number of users of these websites is small, and the number of advertisers wanting to advertise on questionable websites is also small. > I think it's naive to think that they are purely doing this to protect Advertisers' convenience. It's not just convenience. When advertisers are unhappy, Google loses a lot of money, because ads make the most of Google revenue. If you have reasons to believe otherwise, please explain.

koheripbal 6y ago

> the advertisement may even have a negative effect for them when published on certain websites. I've heard this a lot... but does this really cause them problems?

lightgreen 6y ago
Them, Google or advertisers? Advertisers are afraid of being mentioned in some viral tweet like: "Coca-cola is advertising on the website next to a comment suggesting to kill all black people. They are racist! Let's boycott Coca-cola!" And Google has a reputation to maintain: they protect advertisers from situations like described above. Maybe it is not a real problem for advertisers, to be advertised on the wrong website, I don't know. But I understand they don't want to have that risk for virtually no profit.