Bet You Can't Click This

So Yahoo and Google aren't taking 'online casino' advertising anymore. Let's see how many things we can count that are wrong with this: # Collusion – I want these two companies to be fierce competitors. Not buddies who have a beer and decide what’s going to happen on the internet. # Censorship – The slippery slope gets steeper and greasier every day. Do these guys really want to be in the business of stopping certain kinds of speech? Every whacko paranoid group in the world is about to call for the end of advertising for something or another. # Hypocrisy – This move was clearly driven by political pressure, not because someone drew up a list of the most nefarious or socially damaging ads that they were making money from. I don’t know what would top that list, but it wasn’t online casinos. # Government Intervention – The article suggests that fear of the DOJ played a role in this ‘decision’. It’s John Ashcrofts world, we just live in it. # Ineffectiveness – Ads are out, but no mention that content pages would be excluded from the indexes. So all those third party gambling directory sites will have even more incentive to get top ranking and earn all the ad money themselves. Is there any chance this move stops even one person who wants to bet from doing so? Just say no. I’m sure there are ten more. Add yours to the comments. I may revisit this one later when I have more time. Other Blogs On This Topic: SearchBlog, and SEO Roundtable. Posted by Craig Danuloff at April 5, 2004 11:18 AM