Overture - advertising on the search engines

[Rich Z]

Man, I'm so mad I can't see straight.

I have had an account with Overture for several months now, spending about $700 per month advertising my sites. I guess it was helping to bring in more traffic, but probably not worth the money per registered user, I suppose.

Anyway some people asked me to start up a gun related site, since they liked the way I ran other sites, so, like a dummy, I agreed. I figured the most effective way to get the word out was to use my Overture account and do their pay-per-click advertising.

Well, that's when I found out about the first amendment being trampled all over by them. At first I thought it was a general restriction on ALL firearms related sites using the sponsored links, but this appears to be Yahoo and Google. Alta Vista will apparently allow firearms sites, but there was another brick wall thrown up, apparently by Overture itself.

Overture will not allow ANY site that shows anything at all about automatic weapons or military "assault weapons" on the site.

But yet if I type in something like "sex toys" in the search engine, that is perfectly acceptable.

There's something real wrong with this picture, if you ask me.

So what do I do? Swallow my pride and take a couple steps backwards on my stance on my own freedoms my removing those "offending forums", or just stick by my guns? Everyone setting up a new site wants to get visitors, but what the hell do you do about this sort of roadblock? I'm even willing to dig into my pocketbook to do it, apparently to no avail.

Sorry about the rant. But everytime I see crap like this I just get that feeling all the stronger that we really are losing the war on the second amendment.

I tried discussing this issue on one of the USENET groups, but believe me, that is no place for a sane person any longer.

 

[Zak Smith]

that's when I found out about the first amendment being trampled all over by them

Overture is run by Congress?

-z

 

[Rich Z]

Well let me ask you this: Does citizenship in the USA carry a pricetag? Are citizens not responsible for supporting and defending the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, or is that merely optional? From what do YOUR rights, as a citizen, stem from? And if you do have rights, do you also have responsibilities attendant with those rights?

Just what IS the definition of "citizen"? Just someone whose body lives in the USA, or is it more to it than that?

Can a person or business violate another's constitutional rights, then, with impunity?

Are military personel and elected officials at all levels still sworn in to defend and protect the Constitution, or is that a thing of the past now?

When the 49th and 50th states became part of the USA, were they not obligating themselves, as a body, to obey the US Constitution?

Just curious.....

I've heard a lot of people say the Constitution ONLY applies to what the federal government can or cannot do. Not sure I understand that, since I would think it filters down to every individual whom wants to be a USA citizen.

IMHO, of course, as I am probably wrong. The Constitution? That old rag?

 

[Zak Smith]

It's no different than "my house, my rules." A business owner has the right to dispose of his property however he sees fit. If he's an anti-second-amendment bigot, that's unfortunate, but it does not trump his property rights.

regards


-z

 

[Standing Wolf]

The search engine owners are entitled to make the rules pertaining to their sites; by the same token, I'm entitled not to use search engines that practice anti-Second Amendment bigotry—and entitled, as well, to publicize their anti-American behavior.

 

[Rich Z]

to publicize their anti-American behavior.

Believe me, I have been doing that. Not that I think it will matter much.

Do you know of a search engine service that is NOT anti-gun? Meaning I could have paid gun related ads there? They all will display search engine hits, but PHP/MySQL websites are notoriously search engine unfriendly.

AltaVista does allow sponsored links of gun related sites, but that advertising is THROUGH Overture, which doesn't gain me much. Which filters the content of the paid ad sites that get to AltaVista.

Thank you for contacting Overture.

First of all, please be aware of our current guideline regarding Web sites that sell weapons or ammunition:
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As you may know, Web sites that contain content (either on the site itself or through spawned windows, links, or banner ads) with material about assault/automatic weapons are not permitted on Overture. Overture has decided that it does not wish to be associated with these types of products.
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Furthermore, although we do allow advertisers to bid on search terms such as "weapon" or "ammunition," neither Yahoo! nor MSN will display sponsored search results for these terms. This is per our current agreements.

Which means, of course, even if I remove the forums related to automatic weapons and assault weapons, I will also have to remove the banner ads for Barrett Firearms and GunBroker as well. Plus since I have a shadow image of a Barrett Model 95 in my logo, I probably will have to remove that as well in order to comply. Then how much you want to bet they will grouse about my forum specific to the .50BMG? Wanna bet I have to at least change the name?

Yeah, I know I should just roll with the punches and do all the above, but dammit it gripes my butt.

If all of the vehicles available can block your expression of your First Amendment right, just what the heck good is having that right?

Yeah, I know I'm a hardhead....