Is Google trying to Affect Politics?

So, here’s an issue that only matters when you are a company serving 40% of the ads on the Internet.

According to an article written by someone named Robert Cox, founder of the Media Bloggers Association, Google is not allowing a Republican senator to run ads that denounce MoveOn.org. 

According to the article, the banned advertisements said, “Susan Collins is MoveOn’s primary target. Learn how you can help” and “Help Susan Collins stand up to the MoveOn.org money machine.” The ads linked to Collins’ campaign Web site with a headline reading “MoveOn.org has made Susan Collins their #1 target.” The Collins Web site claims that MoveOn has contributed $250,000 to her likely Democratic opponent and has run onine ads against her costing nearly $1 million. The Web site also displays MoveOn.org’s controversial “General Betray Us” ad.

So, is this paranoia?  One one hand, a company should be able to run whatever ads it wants.  But on the other, if you are the ad serving technology running ads on millions of blogs and web sites, doesn’t the line get blurry if you are banning ads you may not agree with?

Google uses the argument of, "You don’t have right’s to MoveOn’s Trademark so you can’t use it in an ad."   But that’s a pretty slippery slope, and I’d be shocked if every other ad in Google Ad Sense avoids using an unlicensed trademark.  In fact, the article states, "Google routinely permits the unauthorized use of company names such as Exxon, Wal-Mart, Cargill and Microsoft in advocacy ads. An anti-war ad currently running on Google asks “Keep Blackwater in Iraq?” and links to an article titled “Bastards at Blackwater — Should Blackwater Security be held accountable for the deaths of its employees?”"

If Google’s not careful, long term these kind of issues could turn into a reason for the DOJ to start looking into whether Google is a monopoly that needs to be broken up, using the same logic they used on Microsoft a few years back.  Exept this time it’s not a piece of software Google isn’t allowing to be distrubuted, it’s censorship of speech. If a single entity that controls 40% of the online ads decides to censor those ads to affect public policy, even the non-paranoid might get a little spooked.