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WASHINGTON – Google, the Internet’s No. 1 search engine, is still running attack ads against besieged House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, despite assurances by the company’s spokesman they were all pulled last week.
The issue of the anti-DeLay ads came to light when a conservative activist group discovered the ads and designed a similar campaign, using the same verbiage, targeting House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
When the anti-Pelosi ads were rejected by Google, RightMarch.com protested what it saw as political bias in Google’s content.
When questioned about the apparent double-standard by WND, Mike Mayzel, spokesman for Google, said both the anti-Pelosi ad and the anti-DeLay ad were pulled.
“Both ads were taken down,” he told WND. “Any assertion to the contrary is false. As soon as an ad is reviewed and found to be in violation of our policies, we take it down as soon as possible. Any suggestion we would leave some ads up longer than others for reasons of political bias is false.”
However, a search of Google’s site yesterday shows at least three more anti-DeLay ads still running:
Google’s AdWords program places text ads in the right-hand margin of search result pages that relate to the words a user types in. So, a search for “Tom DeLay” elicits ads for mostly anti-DeLay sites.
Google’s advertising content policy states:
Ad text advocating against any organization or person (public, private, or protected) is not permitted. Stating disagreement with or campaigning against a candidate for public office, a political party or public administration is generally permissible.
This standard applies to everyone who wants to advertise on Google, whether we agree with their viewpoint or not.
Mayzel and other Google spokesmen could not be reached over the weekend.
The ad policy is just one factor among several Google critics cite suggesting the dominant search engine on the Internet is playing political favorites.
A WorldNetDaily search of Google executive and employee political contributions filed with the Federal Election Commission showed nearly 99 percent of its $469,500 went to Democrats over the last three election cycles.
Of approximately 200 individual Google employee political contributions to political candidates in 2004, 2002 and 2000, all but six went to Democrats, Democratic Party organizations and Democrat-supporting organizations such as MoveOn.org. One $250 contribution went to Ralph Nader, one went to President Bush’s campaign and three went to Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch’s campaigns.
Google Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt was by far the biggest benefactor, giving $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 2000, $25,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2004, as well as maximum $2,000 contributions to 2004 Democratic presidential candidates Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman, Gov. Howard Dean and Rep. Richard Gephardt.
Schmidt also gave $11,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 2000, according to records of the FEC, as well as tens of thousands more to a variety of other Democratic candidates including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
Besides his cash contributions to Kerry in 2004, Schmidt formally endorsed the Democratic candidate for president after he got the party’s nomination.
In addition, earlier this week, WorldNetDaily reported Google has announced it is getting ready to begin ranking news searches by “quality rather than simply by their date and relevance to search times,” giving preference to big news agencies such as CNN and the Associated Press – both news organizations that have been criticized for pro-Democrat bias.
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