These may be the most offensive Google Ads ever seen. Spotted in two separate incidents next to stories about the Mumbai attacks on the site IBN Live, they’re a typical example of the tactlessness of automated ad targeting systems.
We’ve seen Google ads go wrong before, of course, but do you recall a worse slip-up in recent memory?
We know it’s not Google’s intent to offend, nor their fault that these mismatches happen…and yet we’ve got to ask: surely something can be done to prevent instances like these?
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i dont think it was google’s fault, coz when you search for the same string you get result on http://amnesiablog.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/terrorism-pursue-a-certificate-in-terrorism-100-online-enrol-today/
so i guess it was not a slip up, but an accurate sponsored result.
Why would anyone even have an ad that runs that way? If it is legitimate wouldn’t it be ANTI-Terrorism? I know [for example] that Henley-Putnam University says you can earn a Master’s Degree in Terrorism and Counterterrorism but wouldn’t someome at a SCHOOL be wise enough to make sure this type of ad would never come up?!
I linked to your “inappropriate google ad word” appearance since I stumbled upon this CMS-driven blunder, on the Age, presenting a USB missile launcher next to a mumbai terror article.
http://between0and1.wordpress.com/2008/11/30/mumbai-office-warfare
What can be done to prevent his: Maybe an exemption or special classification of certain pages of high emtional/moral/ethical interest? Putting eyeballs/manual editorial control over them? Wait for the semantic web with an ethical understanding to arrive?
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