Google Censors Guns, Ammo & Accessories from Shopping Results | Hacker News Reader

Google Censors Guns, Ammo & Accessories from Shopping Results

guns.com

33 pointsTDL66 comments

Google has long been unfriendly to firearms related websites. They don't allow their ad server to be used by them, or for adsense to be shown on them.

For example, my own site, http://bisonballistics.com, cannot use adsense because it links to sites that sell firearms parts. I dare you to find one word on that site that encourages anything unethical, unsafe, or illegal.

I'd be shocked if there was a good reason for this, but I'd love to hear it.

Entrepreneurs have filled the gap with specialized ad networks, just as Gunbroker did when ebay pulled similar antics.

EDIT: a couple of you have taken issue with my definition of ethics - fair enough. The broader point is that google just doesn't like firearms, no matter how they are used.

> I dare you to find one word on that site that encourages anything unethical, unsafe, or illegal.

Oh c'mon. Let's not get there. As someone in the gun community you should be more than aware that "ethics" are extremely subjective to one's opinion. There's no global truth for ethics. Respect other's opinion's and you won't be shocked if there's a good reason for this. The good reason is: some people don't actually agree with you.

> There's no global truth for ethics.

So it's OK if a moderator on this site deletes your comment because he doesn't agree with it? Your comment contains no profanity or anything that might be construed as obscene. That sort of censorship wouldn't bother you?

Wouldn't bother me, I'd just go somewhere else. Or build my own damn site.

Let me rephrase. I'd be shocked if there was a good reason for this other than "google doesn't like guns."

As for ethics, I would go as far as to say that punching holes in paper from 100 yards away is about as benign an activity as one can imagine. But perhaps environmentalists would take isuse, so I'll retract that as well.

Aren't there legal hurdles that vary by country and state? Perhaps that's why it is better to have specialists sites (like Gunbroker).

That's just a wild-ass-guess. Feel free to tell me I'm wrong.

I actually have no problem with Ebay's decision. The regulation in firearms sales is indeed complex and uncertain. At the time Ebay dropped gun sales, gun control was a hot topic politically. And online auctions were new enough so that one could imagine ebay getting caught in the middle of something bad.

But google is a mystery. Their TOS seem to indicate that they simply have a distaste for the shooting sports industry. But they send me tons of traffic. They could just drop shooting sites from the index. That gives me hope that there is some arcane legal reasoning behind their thoughts, but I suspect it's just a choice they've made, and that they cannot stomach the backlash they would incur by dropping huge legal categories from their results. I would love to hear from someone who has some knowledge on this, as it's been confusing me for years.

Your website might be informative and completely ethical, however advertising weapons could easily be deemed as unethical. Weapons are designed to end lives.

Weapons are tools to be used for many purposes. They are also designed to save lives. They are also designed to feed people. I'd venture a guess that 99%+ guns have never been used to kill a person. Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

Feeding people isn't the design of a gun, lethally killing is the design.

Google also doesn't accept advertisement for pornography, religion, and a whole bunch of other things that might be controversial to certain people under certain conditions. I don't think it's necessarily singling out weapons, it's rather staying out of lines of business that might cause Google more harm than benefit (I assume there'd be a lot of money to be made from pornography ads).

That's kind of my point. Google seems to find firearms to be as offensive as gambling, prostitution, illegal drug sales, and criminal activity. I would suggest that that is a rather limited, urban hipster point of view, while their business is global.

One reasonable explanation from a business perspective would be a PR one. If someone used Google to find and eventually purchase a gun used in a horrific crime, that would do much to tarnish Google's image.

I think the issue is that they're changing Google Shopping from a search engine to be only paid listings. They were okay with listing weapons before because they didn't make any money off them, but now all listings will be paid. They don't want to earn money from weapon listings.

eBay has the same policy. I don't agree with the policy personally but I certainly have no problem with a private company doing things like this.

ebay can at least make the argument that the legal headaches/uncertainty with enforcing interstate gun laws may not be worth the money they get from gun auctions.

Google won't even allow you to link to Cabelas.

Living here in India it's surprising to see the mostly unregulated Gun sale in the US. I believe it's a right the constitution of US grants to its citizens. But I've read that this is a major cause for higher homicidal rate in the US. It seems like common sense to us here that allowing nearly everyone to purchase Guns is counter-productive and will only result in more violence.

Correct me If I am wrong, I understand this is a highly polarized issue in US and it's election time too.

I agree. Military fact: offense is always superior than defense (no tank is immune to rockets/artillery, there is no nuclear shield able to stop a missile etc). Same goes with guns: if someone wants to kill you, he will be able to do it, even if you have a gun with you (sneaking up on someone is not that hard). More guns indeed means more guns in the hands of violent people. Common sense (for me at least) says "this is idiotic"

Uhm, statistics don't really show that. North Dakota is one of the most gun heavy per population states in the union. 2008 had 4 murders, all of which didn't use a gun(1).

I would say your "gun not a defense" argument is also wrong as home invasions tend to be one area to research to show counter examples.

1) http://www.ag.state.nd.us/reports/bcireports/crimehomicide/M...

You're overgeneralizing. Let me overgeneralize in the same vein then, "Camping beats offense". In my house, in a home invasion, I'm a camper. I'd rather camp with a gun than a knife.

You might actually want to look at what kills people in the US statistically. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/deaths_2009_release.pdf [PDF]

Homicide is down at 15th and had been going down for a number of years. So increasing gun ownership is not tipping the balance up.

People have access to many types of lethal weapons. To me it seems silly to try and regulate everything, so why even start with guns?

Correct me If I am wrong, I understand this is a highly polarized issue in US and it's election time too.

You are correct that this is a very polarizing issue.

It's also common sense to see that allowing nearly everybody to purchase guns will result in reduced violence, because the potential immediate penalty for violence is higher.

It's up to you which you believe, and after making your decision I suggest you use google to find further justification for it.

This isn't really true since people and especially small-time violent criminals aren't especially rational actors.

The more likely outcome is ongoing gang/tribal violence and blood-feuds, as we've seen throughout history.

> It's up to you which you believe, and after making your decision I suggest you use google to find further justification for it.

This is exactly the wrong order to do things in.

Assuming you value truth, then it's not up to you which you believe. You have to look at the evidence first, and then believe whichever one is best supported. Ask questions before you shoot.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/js/the_bottom_line/

Yes, that would be one valid interpretation of my post.

> But I've read that this is a major cause for higher homicidal rate in the US.

Explain what "cause" means. It's not like a gun can walk around and start popping people. I would say people are the "cause" for homicide, and we have many instruments at our disposal to use. What if violent movies and television caused violence? Should we ban television and movies?

> allowing nearly everyone to purchase Guns is counter-productive and will only result in more violence.

What if I told you it took violence to take people's guns away and prevent them from having them? Then would you support banning guns? At that point you would be in favor of using violence to prevent self-defense.

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.

~ Mahatma Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth (1927) [1]

----

[1]: http://notableandquotable.blogspot.com/2008/02/gandhi-on-gun...

Almost. The full quote has "act" capitalized[1], along with a better explanation of what he's on about.

[1]: http://blog.ryjones.org/2008/11/29/the-gandhi-quote/

You don't have guns there because of crime, but rather because the Brits wanted to keep you disarmed in order to control your population better. Gandhi himself said, "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest."

In the end, it's Google's product and they should run the service as they wish.

However, this and the previously announced change of charging for placing listings in the service leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. In the end, I'll just end up using one of many alternatives.

This is also on the extreme end of hypocrisy. Google frequency complains about the censorship it faces around the world and then turns around, and censors results when it doesn't have to here in the US.

A part of fighting censorship is tolerating content you may not like. In fact, that's what being part of a tolerant society is. Putting up with shit you don't agree with.

"Google AdWords doesn't allow the promotion of weapons or devices designed to cause serious harm or injury."

Swords are allowed?!? Which sword is not designed to cause serious harm or injury? Allowing swords and then disallowing knives is just weird.

My guess is it has something to do to the amount of crimes with knives vs with swords.

They might want to rewrite their intro then as it does not match the table. Also, tasers aren't exactly safe.

Meh, discussing subjectivity and semantics is boring. Nowadays most swords are designed as cosmetic decoration, not "designed for serious harm and injury". You could interpret it either way, it's just semantics. Same for tasers. Anyway, boring.

The semantics of rules is the only important thing about rules. Sorry to bore you, and wondering why you bothered?

A knife is easily concealed, letting you walk right up to somebody late at night and pull it out before the victim can run. A sword not so much.

I can do that with a kitchen knife also, and a knife is a pretty useful tool - heck - ask any worker who has to open boxes all day. The rules are really confused.

I'm upset by what I see as a sense of entitlement by gun owners who think that every retail outlet should be selling guns. Many gun buffs won't shop at Target because that store won't sell guns. Now they are complaining about Google. It's not like Google is the only way to shop online. Heck, it's not even the BEST way to shop online. Get over it and shop somewhere else.

Many gun buffs won't shop at Target because that store won't sell guns...Get over it and shop somewhere else.

I think that's what they're doing.

Using the word "censor" is inappropriate here because it doesn't distinguish between two very different things:

1) government-imposed silencing of speech by force (this is what "censorship" should mean) 2) a private person or group refusing to be a platform for someone else's speech (the definition of "censorship" should not include this. If it did, you would be "censoring" all those whom you did not assist in being heard.)

Each of us has a right to say whatever we want, but not the right to force others to help us say it.

[This isn't relevant to my point, but I'm very pro-gun. I'm just not pro-force.]

Seems to be down, pastebin mirror: http://pastebin.com/5RWeF5qQ or google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sugexp=chrome,m...

OT, how exactly do you find the google cache link, when this kind of thing happen? I looked it up earlier but didn't find it.

Either search "cache:[url]" via google or you can do it via the address bar in chrome.

cache:http://www.guns.com/google-guns-ammo-accessories-shopping-re...

Take the original URL and prepend "cache:" in the google search box. In this case:

  cache:http://www.guns.com/google-guns-ammo-accessories-shopping-results-9403.html

Good

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