Search Engines Rights to the First Ammendment
Posted by jonathan at 3:34pm EST on 02/28/2007
Search engine decisions to reject ads is protected by 47 USC 230(c)(2) as a legitimate decision to filter “otherwise objectionable” content. The court concludes that “Section 230 provides Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft immunity for their editorial decisions regarding screening and deletion from their network.” I’m expecting the KinderStart judge to protect Google’s ranking choices under 230(c)(2) as well. (In case you’re wondering, we’re still waiting for the KinderStart ruling that was promised by the end of 2006.)
In the case of Langdon vs. Google Inc., Langdon tried suing the three major players in the Internet advertising industry: Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Google. What was he fighting for? He was suing these major players because they would not place his “gripes” and “attacking” ads in their networks.
From an outsider perspective, search engines and any company has every right to what they accept and reject. If let’s say, Google, chose to decline his ad proposal (which they did), everything would continue just as it was.
But what if they had lost the case and were forced to display his ad on the AdWords/AdSense network? That would open up a whole can of worms because then Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft would be forced to accept mature ads (pornographic), gambling ads, and anything that they had previously ruled out as acceptable ads in their network.
Search engines purposely have rules and regulations to what the ad quality is to be acceptable. If the courts had chosen to press Google and the other players on letting Langdon actually pursue his ad placement, the entire industry would have crumbled and fallen to the knees of the consumers.
The court decision is, I think, the reason that these major players are still in business today.
Not to say that this is the sole factor, but I think it’s an important one.
