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Google faces criticism over environmental ad ban

13 February 2004

Concerns over Google's policies and power have been raised this week as the search engine put a ban on adverts from an environmental group.

The search engine's profitable marketing program, banned the ads of Oceana, a two and a half year old non-profit group, which were protesting over a major cruise line's sewage treatment methods.

Oceana has reportedly claimed that its text-based ads displayed in shaded boxes were blocked by Google, because it was critical of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines.

Hoping to publicise complaints by paying to have its ad appear whenever 'cruise vacation' and 'cruise ship' were put into the search engine, Oceana's ad only appeared for two days before it was pulled.

Challenging the ban, the group was emailed by Google explaining it does not accept advertisements with 'language that advocates against Royal Caribbean'.

Although not mentioning the company directly, the adverts did direct Google users to a web page critical of the cruise line.

Chief executive of the group, Andrew Sharpless, told AP the company was stunned by the decision, arguing it was full of favouritism and censorship.

Becoming a big money maker for Google, the ads have reportedly provided the company with hundreds of millions of dollars.

In response to the complaint spokeswoman Cindy McCaffrey told AP: 'We do reserve the right to exercise editorial discretion when it comes to the advertising we accept on our site.'

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