Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Does Google pull this crap in China? Yeah, right.

It seems that the podOmatic atheist-ad-o-palooza is the doing of . . . (insert drumroll here) Google (insert cymbal crash here).

See, Google isn't just a search engine. It's an E-mail provider. It's in the video bidness (Can anyone say YouTube? I knew that you could). It's in the advertising sales and placement business. It owns Blogger, which is host to this web log.

And it slices, dices and makes perfect Julienne fries.

According to the fine folks at podOmatic, all of the ads appearing on podcaster pages are placed by Google. And Google only allows the recipients of their "network" ads (like podOmatic) to block ads on an individual basis.

In other words, according to the podOmatic folks, that company cannot go to Google and say "We will not accept any ads for nutball pro-atheism 'documentaries,' and you damn sure can't put them on the pages of faith-based podcasters." When people like me spot offensive -- or at least wildly site-inappropriate -- advertisements and raise holy hell with podOmatic, then the powers-that-be can go to Google and say, "Kill the ad for The God Who Wasn't There. NOW."

This is what the podOmatic folks report they've done, and I thank them for that.

NOW THAT GOOGLE also is expanding its "advertising network" to radio stations' unsold spot "avails" and even to the world of print advertising, this could get interesting. I cannot wait for the Trojan Man to make his way to a small-town radio station somewhere in the Bible Belt.

Or to the student newspaper at Bob Jones University.

D'ya suppose Google would let me place an ad for the Catholic Church (underground, not "patriotic") on a few mainland Chinese websites? I somehow doubt it would.

For example, go to http://www.google.cn and type in "Falun Gong." Then do the same thing at http://www.google.com.

If the price is right, American information conglomerates can ensure the free exchange of ideas will be Gone With the Yuan. Just as they can shove atheist apologetics down Catholic podcasters' throats.

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