Canada launches extradition of top Chinese executive to US - <AUTHOR> https://www.yahoo.com/news/canada-begins-extradition-top-chinese-executive-us-214552544.html <comment><USER2> she is going to jail. 100%. Not very long but....it will take many years before it even gets to the US court for a judgement. During this period, she will be in a cell.

Selling directly to Iran while rying to keep it hidden, was a _bad idea_. Now Huawei is banned from US, and pretty much all major economies.</comment>


Google.ca no longer shows URL on search results - <AUTHOR> What the heck? Compare search results on google.ca vs google.com. The .ca domain hides the urls and instead shows favicons and site titles.. is this a bug? beta test? <comment><USER2> Can't reproduce. Probably an A/B test

<comment><USER3> I hope it was just an error. Links are the killer feature of the web, and what with Google hiding parts of the URL in the address bar, it seems like they are trying to hide them.</comment></comment>


MISC: A homoiconic language based on maps - <AUTHOR> http://will.thimbleby.net/misc/ <comment><USER3> > _maps can easily represent lists but not vice versa_

Obviously false, as demonstrated by Lisp, with which the author must be familiar.

The problem with maps as a basis for a programming language is that you need expressions to have _one_ entry point which says what expression this is. In a sequence, an obvious choice is the first element, or sometimes the last. This is why YAML-programming expressions in Ansible in fact work exactly like regular function calls, with their "- function: argument argument" syntax (which Ansible authors seem to not notice). 'Misc', of course, also has to choose '0' to represent the expression entry point.

I think this syntax is translatable one-to-one to old Lisp syntax, probably with keyword arguments.

<comment><USER4> Wouldn't it be fair to say a proper map can (more) directly represent a list, while a list can only be used as the underlying implementation of a map?

Specifically for lisp, a list is a sequence of cons cells, and you would have to do a linear search to look up a value by key - thus, it can function as a map from an Api point of view, but not in terms of performance?

That's why the common lisp "map" is a hash table, not a list?

[http://gigamonkeys.com/book/collections.html](http://gigamonkeys.com/book/collections.html)

<comment><USER3> > _while a list can only be used as the underlying implementation of a map?_

I certainly wouldn't advise that. We're talking about language syntax here. Lists serve alright for maps in the syntax (personally I like Clojure's curly- brace literals), but I sure hope that the implementation uses hash maps or something like that.

I also have no idea why lists have to be linked-lists and made of cons cells. Lisps working on top of pre-existing environments, like Clojure, don't seem to bother with that requirement, so it looks like it's just an idea from the stone age of computing.

<comment><USER4> By your definition of lists, misc uses lists to represent maps?

<comment><USER3> I guess it _can_ do so. I don't really understand why one would want to 'base' the language on maps to promptly go back to lists for putting these integer- keyed maps in. Where's the 'based on maps' part then?

It would be really map-based, in my book, if it used named arguments for every function—though that would be incredibly cumbersome ( _ahem_ ObjC _cough_ ). As it is, it's just regular Lisp but with map keys having colons on the right instead of the left.

<comment><USER4> A map with integer keys is closer to an array than a list.

I'm not sure I follow your arguments - you seem to be talking of "lists" as some sort of string syntax, possibly as some form of abstract syntax - <USER2> either way separate from the abstract data structure?

That's not how I read the comment from the misc page - they seem to be talking about the ADT - much like clojure chose to not use lists made from cons pairs?

<comment><USER3> Now your distinctions seem foreign to me.

Let's look at this structure in Python:

["qwe", 1.1, True, None, [], var1]

Is this an array, a linked list or what? Can an integer-indexed map be mapped onto this structure?

To me it looks perfectly cromulent for making a Lisp.

<comment><USER4> Since there isn't any traversal when looking up an element n, I guess the best "short hand" would be to call it an array - it's an array of pointers to objects on the heap.

[https://www.laurentluce.com/posts/python-list- implementation...](https://www.laurentluce.com/posts/python-list- implementation/)

As for collections within collections, python allows for that in "lists" (arrays) and "dictionaries" (maps).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In a similar vein, "lumen" is a small lisp/scheme dialect that experiments in a similar direction. It replaces lisp's lists with lua/javascript's "arrays and dictionaries at the same time" objects. (Self-hosted, compiles to both javascript and lua.)

[https://github.com/sctb/lumen](https://github.com/sctb/lumen)

<comment><USER6> I like Lua, and lisps, and I write a lot of JavaScript, but I don't understand why I would ever need 1 language that compiles to both Lua or JavaScript. Something like Nim compiles to C or JavaScript, so you have 1 lang for you high and low(er) level code. Just seems weird to target those 2 particular languages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This made me think of Racket's syntax objects, which are also more than simple lists. They contain a lot of information like source and position, but can also contains arbitrary properties (like a map, in a sense). See [https://docs.racket-lang.org/reference/stxprops.html](https://docs.racket- lang.org/reference/stxprops.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> This reminds me of these discussions:

[https://wiki.c2.com/?MaspBrainstorming](https://wiki.c2.com/?MaspBrainstorming)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/compsci/comments/brrzad/universal_p...](https://www.reddit.com/r/compsci/comments/brrzad/universal_programming_language_syntax_proposal/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammingLanguages/comments/e8f8c...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammingLanguages/comments/e8f8c2/nesting_block_structures_in_a_generic_way/)

I don't know if there is any relationship between authors. The idea of applying the lessons and benefits of XML to imperative programming to form a kind of meta language or meta-friendly language is present.

</comment><comment><USER9> I always found the excessive usage of linked lists in lisp style languages to be rather odd. It's about the worst possible data structure for performance unless you have a sufficiently smart complier... I think it's used for the beautiful simplicity of the language and not because it's actually a good way to compute things.

<comment><USER4> I think it's partly due to many university lisp courses focusing on the symbolic end of lisp/programming languages - rather than on the performance side of computing theory.

For common lisp, for example, it's probably fair to say that an over use of lists is "wrong" in the general case (ie, if your problem is data driven, which would probably be the case in most applications/utilities).

Now, if all you're doing is improving the language/honing a DSL - the you'll probably be using lists a lot, as that is what constitutes the abstract syntax tree you're manipulating.

See this for a brief discussion on collections in common lisp:

[http://gigamonkeys.com/book/collections.html](http://gigamonkeys.com/book/collections.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Thread from 2008: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=241832](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=241832)

2011: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2552330](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2552330)

</comment><comment><USER11> Unfortunately a Java applet, but the guide was interesting (click the "Next" near the top).

<comment><USER12> I missed that link and was coming here to complain about the lack of example code.

EDIT - how does one actually run a Java applet nowadays? Which browsers still support that integration?

<comment><USER13> I did the following to run it locally instead:

      cd $(mktemp -d)
      wget http://will.thimbleby.net/misc/misc.jar
      wget http://will.thimbleby.net/misc/bootstrap.misc
      java -jar misc.jar

And then it drops you into a repl. (Add `rlwrap` in front of `java -jar` if cursor movement doesn't work correctly)

<comment><USER14> It's _probably_ okay with this thing but in general don't do this. "wget totallynotmalware.exe; totallynotmalware.exe".

Note to self: if I wanted to distribute Java malware to the HN crowd this is _exactly_ how I would do it: write a minimalist, nerdy topic that requires an applet to run, knowing that my audience will happily find a work-around, like the above.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I'm assuming that people know what they are doing and taking the necessary precautions themselves when running untrusted code. I'm not gonna add "Run this in a virtual machine" every time I mention some software.

But your reminder is good for the newcomers around I guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So the core data-structure for aggregated data is associative maps, like PHP.

</comment><comment><USER16> Oh, maps as in dictionaries. From the title, I was hoping to see a programming language based on cartographs.

<comment><USER17> Befunge is a stack-based, reflective, esoteric programming language. It differs from conventional languages in that programs are arranged on a two- dimensional grid. "Arrow" instructions direct the control flow to the left, right, up or down, and loops are constructed by sending the control flow in a cycle. It has been described as "a cross between Forth and Lemmings."[1]

Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Befunge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Befunge)

        v>>>>>v
          12345
          ^?^
         > ? ?^
          v?v
          6789
          >>>> v
         ^    .<

<comment><USER18> Heck, had to make a virtual machine for befunge93 for a university course last month. It's a really fun language to play around with.</comment></comment></comment>


Offer HN: I'll design what you code - <AUTHOR> Hi guys,
I'm an entrepreneur bootstrapping my project and I would like to do some design work in the meantime.
I have worked with a couple HNers and they were very happy about what I've designed for them. Some of my work was featured at css design galleries
What can I do for you? From a website design with valid  w3c xhtml, a complete brand identity to an iPhone, iPad or web app design.
Since I don't have a live portfolio and my dribbble account has just a few shots (http://www.dribbble.com/nicogarcia/) what I offer is to send you a draft of the design and see if you like it or not.
You have my email at my profile info. Let's do it! <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link to my Dribbble account. <http://www.dribbble.com/nicogarcia>

</comment><comment><USER2> I need some design work for one of my projects. It's actually a byproduct of my main startup that I've decided to market as well.

I will working on pulling together a bit of information for you before contacting so that we can discuss your interest.

Cheers.

</comment><comment><USER3> You guys should avail of Nico's skills.

Nico has done several excellent designs for our startup.

Thanks Nico!

</comment><comment><USER4> Just emailed you with a great opportunity to stretch your skills and make a mark for yourself in the consumerization of enterprise software, one of the hottest markets for designers today.

</comment><comment><USER5> Just emailed you Nico...it'll be great if you could have a look at the shots I sent you and share some thoughts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just wrote you back! Awesome product btw!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Emailed you. I hope you can help me out! Didn't see this until now and thinking I may be too late.

</comment><comment><USER7> Just sent you an email</comment>


Health Stocks Crumble as Fears of 'Medicare for All' Snowball - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-16/health-stocks-take-28-billion-beating-in-medicare-for-all-fight <comment><USER2> "Fears of Medicare for all"

That's very specific wording.</comment>


Crowdsource questions for your all-hands meetings and AMAs - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/audience-interaction-hub-by-slido/address-your-teams-most-burning-questions-in-slack-with-our-new-integration-cef8fedc6e96 <comment><AUTHOR> Who here has a channel on their work Slack team dedicated to AMAs? What roles do those play in fostering and nurturing open culture and communication across your org?</comment>


How Google Sliced Away Our Knife Ads - <AUTHOR> http://www.knife-depot.com/blog/how-google-sliced-away-our-knife-ads/ <comment><USER3> You cannot wield the kind of economic power Google does and not be evil, at least for the working definition many people have of "evil".

We've put a huge hunk of our intellectual and economic capital under the control of a marketing company. I really, really like Google, but I don't see this situation as being stable over a period of decades. Maybe 5-10 more years or so, but not a lot longer.

These kinds of decisions, where we pick economic winners and losers, are _political_ decisions, no matter who makes them. (Personally I abhor making them, but that doesn't change what they are). These knife guys have representatives. Indeed, every small business Google has run over has democratic representation. Each year Google continues to make these decisions the political hue and cry will increase. This can't go on forever like this. "Don't be evil" was a great slogan, but its days are numbered. Perhaps over.

Side note: one of the ways I can tell Google's power has grown too large is the elliptical way many commenters have of criticizing it. They're unhappy with its actions, perhaps even livid, but it's always a tone of "Golly! This is really unfortunate and I'm sure nobody at Google really meant to do this, but...."

This is the same way you'd criticize a king, somebody you are beholden to. "Golly! I know you, the king, are not at fault, but some of these advisers of yours must have accidentally goofed up somewhere..."

Whereas if Dell, the electric company, or the garage down the street screws up in your eyes? Different tone entirely.

<comment><USER4> >This is the same way you'd criticize a king, somebody you are beholden to. "Golly! I know you, the king, are not at fault, but some of these advisers of yours must have accidentally goofed up somewhere..."

I don't buy it. People don't criticize a king _at all_. You don't criticize the communist party in Stalinist Russia, tactfully or otherwise. Doing that gets you sent to the gulag.

The reason people say that it was a probably a mistake is that it was probably a mistake. There is no apparent malicious objective for Google to stop taking this company's money.

There are really only two plausible causes for this. The first is some bureaucratic red tape within Google, where some employee made a poor decision and no one has corrected it yet. The second is that this isn't Google at all, it's the government putting pressure on Google to stop doing business with certain types of companies, and then it's Google being beholden to the government and having to do its bidding.

And I have to say the second one is a lot more plausible. Google has every incentive to take an advertiser's money. They're a publicly traded company. They have an obligation to the shareholders. Turning down paying customers because of some moral objection to pointy objects is a little bit crazy. Turning down paying customers because otherwise the government is going to start harassing you is a lot more rational.

Of course, it could actually be both. Congress is fond of passing laws against doing business with "criminals" or "terrorist organizations" or whoever may be found wearing an Anti-Flag shirt, and lawyers are fond of the phrase "out of an abundance of caution." Put the two together and you get a de jure ban on certain things and a de facto ban on anything that might be sold in the same showcase as those things. And if you don't like that then you might want to stop voting for Congress critters who support the Patriot Act.

<comment><USER5>
        I don't buy it. People don't criticize a king at all. You don't criticize the
        communist party in Stalinist Russia, tactfully or otherwise. Doing that gets you
        sent to the gulag

That's not true. Even during the Stalinist period in Russia or the Maoist period in China, there was still criticism of the government. It's just that criticism was phrased in language that was politically acceptable to the leaders. Individual cases of corruption and mismanagement could and were exposed and castigated, but as long as one was careful to emphasize that they were exposing and castigating the individual case of corruption (as opposed to the system as a whole), one could obliquely criticize the system.

That's exactly what I'm seeing here. Small businesses are afraid of Google. They're afraid to directly criticize the general principles behind Google AdWords program. But they can highlight individual failures of the Google AdWords program, and, as long as they emphasize that they're talking about this _specific_ business or that _specific_ account, they can obliquely criticize the general principles.

<comment><USER6> Are you seriously defending the comparison between Google and Mao?

<comment><USER7> A comparison about a specific aspect doesn't mean equating the two. So if that's all you have to criticize, it's probably valid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Being an AdWords veteran (having managed campaigns for several clients) all I could do was nod my head grumble under my breath about how this is "business as usual" for Google.

One of my clients who was selling in the health market had this and other seemingly "unfair" treatments happen again and again over the years. All the while Google was taking money from Canadian "pharmacies" and allowing big brand competitors to violate the same rules they were coming down on my clients for.

The kick is that sometimes you just luck out. Your ads are reviewed by another (anonymous) staffer who doesn't interpret the rules in the same way.

We found the best way to avoid issues like this was: never edit an existing approved ad. Seems silly but we cringed each time we had to edit or submit a new ad knowing that some random reviewer would roll the dice and deliver a verdict.

Finally however Google banned most of our most effective keywords, while at the same time allowing our competitors (both larger and smaller) to continue on without interruption.

<comment><USER9> Google got sued over online drug ads before and had to pay $500 million in fines. The US Government was even running a _criminal probe_ against Google that could have put executives in _jail_ for these kinds of ads. So you can only imagine they are a lot more careful now given that experience.

Alcohol, Weapons, and Drugs are areas regulated by various governments around the world and carry civil and criminal policies for even small violations.

You say health market, but don't specify details. Might this have been for quack homeopathy junk, diet pills that don't work, vitamins? Every time I hear a health related ad on the radio it is for some bullshit product backed by outright lies about "clinical studies show NutriWeightBlah will lose you 20 pounds in only 2 weeks", and bogus testimonials.

If Google is shutting down ads for that kind of product, I can only give them kudos, for essentially banning con-men who take advantage of desperate people.

<comment><USER10> What credentials does Google have to decide what is bogus versus what is not? Why should they get to decide what ads (for legal products) have a chance of being shown to me? Perhaps more importantly, especially for entrepreneurs, why should the effective "gateway to the Internet" be allowed to capriciously choose to favor established brands over small companies?

<comment><USER11> It's not so much that they _get_ to decide as much as thu are being _told_ to decide. Google would much rather operate in a safe harbour where they act as an indiscriminate marketplace for advertising, with the advertisers being responsible for compliance. Regulators, however, find it easier to go after bottlenecks versus chasing down individual offenders. This makes compliance the marketplaces' problem.

The alternative would require giving regulators the resources and power to screen through advertisements and pursue every offender individually.

<comment><USER10> Certainly, and to the extent Google is required to intervene, I have no problem. It's when it goes the next step and says, "Google has decided _foo_ objects are bad, therefore, thou shalt not sell them", independent of any regulatory concerns, that I have problem.

TFA is a gray area. I don't have a problem with Google's requirement so much as their capricious implementation. But if they decide it's OK to say, "We don't like the sound of that type of offer. You shall not pass." That I would have a real problem.

To be clear, this is a hypothetical brought up by the parent of my original post and referring to things like miracle diet ads that he/she doesn't like.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This seems like a pretty clear-cut case of assuming that there is some intentional malice or favoritism in actions that are the result of an automated system.

\- Google adds some terms like "assisted opening knife" and "assist folding knife" so they are recognized as prohibited knife ads. Adding these terms could very well have been automated based on the terms having a strong association with other terms found alongside prohibited items.

\- knife-depots' account suddenly contains X% disallowed knife ads, based on the new terms - where X is relatively large percentage. Account automatically disabled.

\- Amazon and Walmart also have X% disallowed knife ads, but X is an extremely small percent of their overall number of items. Accounts remain active.

Fortunately, AdWords is one of the few Google properties where you can actually get a human on the phone and have them intervene with the automated results (though it can certainly take a lot of back and forth, in my personal experience).

In a more general sense, this is something that you constantly run in to if you have your automated systems performing any action that a user could view as punitive. I've yet to see a site that was open about automated actions being such - likely because they don't want to make it too easy to automate getting around the automated rules - but it does seem like there is a reasonable amount of explanation of the system that could diffuse these assumptions of persecution.

<comment><USER13> I don't think it works that way.

When you say _"Amazon and Walmart also have X% disallowed knife ads, but X is an extremely small percent of their overall number of items. Accounts remain active."_ the implication is that total ad spend vs banned ad ratio prevails. That would suggest that the knife guys could start advertising flowers, buy 90% of their AdWords for their buddy the florist and only 10% of their AdWords for their knives and be Okay. I don't think it would work out.

Google is just acting poorly here, why doesn't matter. As the original poster points out, 'assisted open' knives are legal for sale in the US (even in California which is kind of picky about such things). They aren't part of the terms of service explicitly, so either they are or they aren't. And if they are, they are for everybody, and if they aren't they are aren't for everybody.

I'm sure if .01% of WalMart's ad spend was for Canadian pharmaceuticals that they would be shut down in a heartbeat (because the Government really came down hard on Google for that).

Its common knowledge that one of the ways larger successful sellers on Ebay harass smaller sellers is by reporting them for various rules violations. When a "Power Seller" has a dedicates account manager inside Ebay they don't have to put up with random reports like the small guy who randomly gets someone in the problem reporting staff. That asymmetry is exploited to mitigate small seller effectiveness. I have no idea if this goes on in "AdWord" competitors but some of the lawsuits I've read from various people (especially on contested keywords) suggests the advertisers (or their agencies) aren't above such tactics.

<comment><USER12> Do you have evidence to support the assertion that it isn't purely percentage based? Perhaps there is some account out there that has the same ratio of prohibited items as knife-depot, but has not been banned?

Whether AdWords should allow "assisted open knife" ads is beside the point. Correct or not, AdWords is counting those as prohibited, the allegation of the OP is that AdWords banning criteria are applied differently to large accounts. I'm suggesting that the criteria is applied _exactly the same_, based on a percentage.

What I'm describing is also how Google Product Listing Ads get moderated: if X% of your items are in violation, your account is automatically shut down, pending appeal. Google sends a warning when you reach (X - Y)%, and another email when you reach X% and your account is shut down. I administrate 30,000+ PLA accounts and deal with this on a daily basis. This banning process is completely automated.

<comment><USER13> _"Do you have evidence to support the assertion that it isn't purely percentage based?"_

No. I reasoned to it by flipping it over. If the banning is purely percentage based then a viable business would be to create an entity that laundered AdWords spend. This is how it would work.

Let's call our company "Ads-r-us" and it contracts with Knife Depot and 1-800 Flowers. It charges Knife Depot a 'premium' to get its 'ban-inducing ads' and it charges 1-800-Flowers a discount because its ads are "clean." It structures the premium and the discount such that there is a bit of cream in the middle for it to keep. Then our entity goes off and buys Ad insertions at various bid points. Knife Depot can advertise forever since there is no risk of them being banned because Ads-R-Us is keeping the percentages in check.

I looked around for these guys, I don't see them. (And as a web search engine they aren't talking to me either). So either they don't exist (which I reason is unlikely given how much thought people put into 'scamming' the advertising business on internet ads) or such a scheme wouldn't work. And if it really is strictly percentage based it _would_ work.

From that my thinking was that it might not be purely percentage based. No one is picking up the Canadian Pharma ads, and they have a LOT of money to throw around.

<comment><USER12> There could be such a service flying under the radar, but third-party AdWords resellers are required by the TOS to only use one account per client.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> (from UK, and happy to accept your downvotes):

I'm shocked that people litteraly sell knives _designed to hurt people_ on the internet, and that people on HN come to the defence of these _arms dealers_. I assumed this was about kitchen knives when I clicked on the link.

The US constitution was written with a right to bear arms so people could _overthrow the government_ , not protect themselves from criminals. Since then, that government has entrenched power to the point where it would be nearly impossible for even another state to take it down, let alone a group of armed civilians - thus rendering the constitutional clauses irrelevant to their original purpose. _(note to secret services: no, I don't want to overthrow governments or start wars, I'm talking hypothetically.)_

In the rest of the developed world where weapons are generally banned, as they are in the UK, criminals simply _don't use weapons_ on civilians (apart from high value targets, perhaps) because the penalties for doing so are so harsh. Criminals literally throw their guns away in a chase, rather than use them on the police/get caught with them. Police are generally unarmed, apart from specially trained units (dawn raids, at airports, etc).

This is the sole reason I would never _ever_ consider living in the USA - <USER2> risk from a) criminals, b) civilian "heros" and c) the police themselves, all of whom are armed to the teeth, legally. Terrifying.

<comment><USER15> To provide a rather different perspective, I was born and raised in Alaska where pretty much everybody has several guns. Granted, many of those guns are designed more for killing bears and moose than people, but they'll do the job, and most people have a combat-oriented pistol or two. I got a rifle for my fifth birthday.

 _I'm shocked that people litteraly sell knives designed to hurt people on the internet, and that people on HN come to the defence of these arms dealers._

Most of the knives in question are general-purpose utility knives. They are not designed to hurt people, and that is not the reason most people own them. I carry a Kershaw Leek myself; it has a 3 inch blade, assisted opening, a frame lock and a pocket clip. I routinely use it to open packages, trim rough edges off various objects, cut rope, strip wire, scrape contaminants off surfaces and remove those nasty little sticky screw covers from laptop computers. I have studied and practice the use of a knife as a weapon, but that is not a significant reason I carry a knife, and I would carry a different knife (or more likely, a pistol) if it was.

I've been to the UK. I did not bring my knife because I knew it would be illegal to carry there. Turns out, it's probably illegal to _own_ there, and the multitool I usually keep in my backpack might be illegal to carry in public because it has a locking blade. I never really noticed how much I use my knife until I started going to Europe regularly and couldn't bring it along. I'm _constantly_ reaching for it and finding it missing. I've been carrying a knife of some sort since I was 12.

 _Since then, that government has entrenched power to the point where it would be nearly impossible for even another state to take it down, let alone a group of armed civilians - thus rendering the constitutional clauses irrelevant to their original purpose._

Aside from the fact that some Americans aren't so happy about that, I think you're mistaken. A large minority of the civilian population would have a much easier time deposing the government and instituting a new one than a foreign state (or group of US states attempting to secede) would. A foreign state attempting to overthrow the US government would have to deal with a fully committed US military _and_ a large portion of the civilian population, which, as you noted is well armed. A large minority of the population rising up against the government would likely gain the support of some of the military and could blend in with the rest of the population when not fighting.

 _In the rest of the developed world where weapons are generally banned, as they are in the UK, criminals simply don't use weapons on civilians because the penalties for doing so are so harsh_

I don't think that's the reason. Penalties for being a felon in possession of a firearm in most US states are severe. Having a weapon while committing a crime, even if it was otherwise legal to have the weapon and the weapon was not used in the crime usually comes with a significant mandatory minimum prison sentence. Firing a gun during another crime means decades in prison.

Criminal-on-civilian violence actually _is_ pretty rare though; the vast majority of violent felonies in the US are criminal-on-criminal. The danger to civilians from Johnny the drug dealer shooting Jimmy the drug dealer is small.

<comment><USER16> > _A large minority of the civilian population would have a much easier time > deposing the government and instituting a new one than a foreign state (or > group of US states attempting to secede) would. [...] A large minority of > the population rising up against the government would likely gain the > support of some of the military and could blend in with the rest of the > population when not fighting._

I think this is pretty rosy-colored view of what would happen. A "large minority" would have to be several hundred thousand people, perhaps a few million. Anything less is just a radical cult that will promptly be put down...and everyone will say "thank goodness" as they watch on the evening news. If something big enough happens that a few million people take up arms, you have a full blown civil war and things are totally different.

Stockpiling guns and weapons is the opiate of libertarians - "it's fine, I have the weaponry I need to overthrow the government if things get bad enough". In reality, you have a better chance fighting zombies than successfully overthrowing the government through violent means.

To be clear, I have nothing against guns. I'll probably purchase one once I've moved into a more rural area. But I'm under no illusion that the weapon will _ever_ be useful in deposing any government.

<comment><USER15> _A "large minority" would have to be several hundred thousand people, perhaps a few million._

You'll get no dispute from me on that point. I don't even think that it matters much whether a group of the appropriate size starts out armed; the benefit to such a group from having an armed population has more to do with knowing how to use weapons that having stockpiles of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Whenever I ban a user from one of my sites for an infraction, he invariably points to several other infracting users and says "well why do _they_ get to post porn (or ads for weapons or whatever) and I don't?"

The reason is because I didn't catch the other users. Or their infraction isn't as bad.

While I feel bad for the knife company, I also know dealing with user- generated content (like these ads) is hard.

<comment><USER8> "The reason is because I didn't catch the other users. Or their infraction isn't as bad."

That's _your_ reason, not Google's. Google knows full well who is bidding on what keyword. Are you suggesting they are under-staffed, under budgeted or overwhelmed in their task of keeping AdWords clean? I'm not buying it. Google has the resources to evenly apply guidelines, they're not a one-man show who's too busy to squash out violators.

<comment><USER18> The famous last words.

Of course they are overwhelmed by the taks of keeping AdWords clean, just like Apple is overwhelmed by the task of timely approving apps for App Store, despite having more money than god and the number of AdWord ads submitted to Google is several orders of magnitude greater than number of Apps submitted to Apple.

Processes that involve humans are inherently non-scalable and determining whether an ad crosses the line of acceptable usage is a human task.

And humans have different opinions so there will never be "evenly applying guidelines", not for google ads, not for App Store apps. The only time 3 people have exactly the same opinion is when 2 of them are dead.

<comment><USER19> Reminds me of the time an Apple staffer called me to discuss an app I had submitted.

"We'd rather discuss this on the phone," he said.

"What's up?"

"We can approve your app, but can you please remove all references to midgets touching themselves, first?"

Would've paid to have seen that in writing.

<comment><USER20> I need to download that app NOW

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Oh, the irony of publicizing the same knives via YouTube, the Google property that censors boobies but allows you to promote machine guns to a global audience...

<comment><USER22> (At least in the US) weapons and violence are fine in video/audio format, while naked people are not. I'm not sure how much this has to do with Google than it does the regulations imposed by the FCC and social norms.

<comment><USER23> the fcc has nothing to do with it. there are plenty of places on the internet that have pr0n (legally). it is more about american social norms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What's really important is this line:

"For that reason, we wanted to let you guys, loyal Cutting Edge readers and Knife Depot fans, _know that you might not being seeing Knife Depot ads peppered across the Internet._ "

If you don't get to advertise with Google you basically don't get to advertise on the Internet. That's a powerful monopoly, one they've had for years, and that's the real story here. You have to deal with Google and all their idiosyncratic/evil/whatever behavior because there's no alternative.

<comment><USER25> People were criticizing the infrastructure analogy made for Google Reader recently; so you can imagine how amused I was, while reading Levy's _In The Plex_, to read this bit:

> While some Googlers felt singled out unfairly for the attention, the more > measured among them understood it as a natural consequence of Google's > increasing power, especially in regard to distributing and storing massive > amounts of information. "It's as if Google took over the water supply for > the entire United States," says Mike Jones, who handled some of Google's > policy issues. "It's only fair that society slaps us around a little bit to > make sure we're doing the right thing."

(In a part generally about advertising, fittingly enough.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm in favor of banning porn ads (generally), since those tend to be offensive to a lot of people and also are highly correlated with spammy behavior, but I'd be tempted to boycott a vendor who prohibited weapons ads for any reason other than legal compliance.

Amazon is pretty reasonable (knives are fine, firearms accessories are fine, but firearms and ammunition are out due to compliance issues). Google has no excuse.

<comment><USER27> > Amazon is pretty reasonable (knives are fine, firearms accessories are fine, > but firearms and ammunition are out

As a target shooter, I don't find this any more reasonable than a gay person might find "personal ads are fine, but not gay personal ads".

All too often our definition of "reasonable" is "gores HIS ox but not mine".

<comment><USER28> I think the difference is that firearms are heavily regulated by localities in different ways.

For example, transport over state lines may require coordination with the shipper. For Amazon, having attorneys stay up to date on the law in multiple jurisdictions doesn't fit with their operating model.

Knives are less difficult regulatory-wise, and where there are local legal issues, they usually aren't serious felonies.

<comment><USER29> I used to work at a shop that sold firearms (among many other things) online. I didn't see all the laws we had to follow but quite a few I noticed (I worked on the intranet site).

Unless the customer was coming to pick up the weapon themselves (at our location) we would only ship guns to FFL's[1]. The FFL was also the one who did the background check as far as I'm aware. I don't know what percentage of our sales were local pickups but I am guessing we did the background for those (we had an FFL).

They shut down but the company made it up to 70 or so employees. I don't know how we kept up on the laws. Our suppliers might have done that as we were sort of a middleman from the suppliers to the customers. I do remember that we needed to track a lot of things for the ATF and they had to be very accurate. The ATF would come in once a year or so and audit the logs and other things related to shipping. I never saw them but I remember the boss(es) being stressed during those weeks.

1\. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Firearms_License>

<comment><USER26> Yeah, compliance is tricky. You _can_ ship (e.g. a repair, or mailing a firearm to yourself if you don't take luggage on a flight), but it's a huge amount of complexity. Initial sale must be in-person or ship to an FFL or a few exemptions (C&R, CMP, pre-1898, 80%), and of course all the non-firearms parts which Amazon usually _does_ sell. Ammunition is more tightly regulated than e.g. barrels.

Once you add in state laws (e.g. Californians can't buy rifles in Nevada in person, although Nevadans and most other state residents can), and the penalties for non-compliance, and I don't think it's reasonable to require Amazon deal with firearms.

Through Marketplace it might be a little bit more vague. But a pure advertising site _should_ be comfortable running firearms ads. If the owner is personally opposed to firearms, no one is forcing him to carry those ads, but I'm a (very small) part owner of Google, so for a public company, it's probably not a great position to take.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There may be merit in splitting Google's Search and Advertising businesses. Advertising would pay Search (or Bing or Duck Duck Go) to place ads in its results via an API. Search would indiscriminately host ads posted to it by ad brokers, of which Advertising would be one. Search would be freed from having to police advertisements. Advertising's policing would be checked by competitive pressure.

In a stylised securities transaction we have customers, brokers, and an exchange. Customers have choices between brokers. Brokers, of which there are many, exercise discretion in how much capability they give which customers. The exchange, of which there is one, exercises discretion in which brokers it transacts with, but _not which customers get to transact on it_. This is important since the exchange has something approaching monopoly power. It also means the exchanges aren't liable for non-compliant customers - the brokers are.

Skip back to Google. Search is the exchange and Advertising is the broker. The exchange only permits one broker. Naturally, the broker-exchange is liable for policing non-compliant and stupid customers (barring a very large expansion in government which would permit it to monitor all transactions going through Google). It has also extended its exchange monopoly power to its broker.

We love disintermediation. But intermediaries facilitate checks on concentration in a competitive system.

</comment><comment><USER30> I watched his video that purported to explain the difference between a switchblade and a spring assisted knife. As far as I can tell the only difference is that the location of the switch has changed. This is a distinction without a substantive difference. So yo would need a slightly different hand movement to trigger this alternative spring-assisted knife. Big deal; as someone who used to like knives enough to have a small collection, I think I could get the necessary movement down in 10 or 15 minutes if someone handed me one of these

I have nothing against this guy promoting his business, but this is a switchblade as far as I'm concerned, just a slightly different design.

<comment><USER31> According to their site the assisted-opening knives are legal in all states, whereas switchblades aren't, so there must be some meaningful distinction (unless the law just hasn't caught up yet).

<comment><USER30> I'm pretty sure it's the latter. I strongly suspect 'legal in all states' means that it just hasn't come to court yet. It's possible that the legal definition of a switchblade is so specific (eg about the button being on the handle of the knife and a safety switch being present) that this new design doesn't qualify, in which case this new design would be legal unless or until states see fit to prevent its sale.

<comment><USER32> Folding knives aren't new, and aren't primarily intended as an alternative to switchblades. Folding the blade into the handle just makes an easy to carry package, with your are a contractor, or a sportsman. Knife regulation is mostly around the length, not whether it folds or not.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_Knives>

<comment><USER30> I'm not talking about folding knives; I have on in my pocket hanging off my keychain right now and I understand the difference. I'm talking about the spring-assisted mechanism.

<comment><USER32> The spring assistance in these knives doesn't cause the blade to move, it just makes it easier to pull them out. That's basically the definitional difference between them and switchblades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> very slowly, but very, very surly, google is doing a complete 180 on "don't be evil". I think the slow pressure of being a public company is really going to strangle out much of the "good side" of Google. Everything they've done in the past 1.5yrs has been terrible for their users.

<comment><USER34> Hang on, what? Refusing to advertise knives which are clearly intended to be used as weapons is 'evil' now is it?

<comment><USER35> Knives are among the oldest and most versatile tools known to man. I have, on occasion, used my pocket knife as a gardening tool, screwdriver, box cutter, prying tool, wire stripper, wire cutter, torque wrench, and hammer. It is not the best tool for any of the above, but sometimes you just lack the time needed to go back to your garage and get your toolbox.

Nothing about "assisted opening knives" makes them "clearly intended to be used as weapons." It is a convenience, just like my pocket knife conveniently locks open. Why should a tool not be convenient?

Finally, the important distinction here is that Google is not refusing to advertise these knives, they are only refusing to allow this one, small company to advertise those knives. That is a key detail -- Google has no problem with the knives when Amazon is selling them.

<comment><USER36> Actually it appears as though Google demanded that they stop selling those knives altogether, not just stop advertising them through AdWords.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Search 'assisted opening knives' and you won't see any ads about such knives EXCEPT for Amazon. You will also see "Shop for Assisted Opening Knives on Google" which, if you follow the link, will show you a nice assortment of about 14k assisted opening knives. This feels like an abuse of monopoly power.

<comment><USER38> I'm seeing adds for cabelas.com but not for amazon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I suspect the short question + answer is: are you buying Amazon or Walmart levels of AdWords? No? Well, congratulations, you're SOL.

It's no wonder that Google has started pouring large amounts of effort into lobbying in the last few years, because it's precisely this combination of de facto monopoly combined with poor treatment of customers who have no-where else to go that leads (eventually) to legislation or possibly even break-up of the company in question.

To paraphrase a famous quote: you may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you, whether you like it or not.

</comment><comment><USER40> Google's not the only one who bans you. I'm at work: "This Websense category is filtered: Weapons."

Yes, I work for a big company that filters the web and it does suck for me... but since a lot of people shop online while at work, it also sucks for you

</comment><comment><USER41> I just realized that Adwords is Google's equivalent of the iOS app store. They review stuff and either remove or block certain "items". I cannot help but wonder how civil and accomodating the people effected by the adwords changes are compared to the developers effected by the iOS app store. Is it just because the developers know how to make noise better than the non-tech ones?

</comment><comment><USER42> It's easy to see why Google banned these guys and not Amazon.com or Walmart. I could sum it up in one word: trust. Amazon and Walmart have it, these guys don't.

Personally, if I'm going to buy a knife, I'll buy it from Amazon. I trust them on a whole bunch of levels that I don't trust these guys.

Is it fair? I've been doing SEO / PPC for over a decade and its _never, ever_ been fair.

</comment><comment><USER43> If I was Knife Depot, I would focus on brainstorming a single opt-in offer they could use to have all their marketing and advertising channels function as a funnel for growing their email list.

"1 Badass Knife Per Week" is an opt-in offer that would get my attention, even though I'm not a knife guy.

I expand on this idea in this post: <http://www.tinylever.com/one-badass- knife-per-week>

Why be dependent on Google for your sales? Pay them once up front to help grow your list, and you'll be able monetize each subscriber for their lifetime using email - a FREE channel you own and control 100%.

A list is really where it's at, but to make list-building work you need a single opt-in offer that will cause people to sign up on the spot.

If you'd like some ideas for crafting your opt in offer, reach out right now by email: dan [at] tinylever [dot] com

</comment><comment><USER44> In the context of their world-wide monopoly, at one point we have to start asking if Google has the right to censor or control anything this way.

Don't get me wrong, I hate the idea of government telling anyone what they can and cannot do. Massive monopolies is one place where I can see a need for some kind of legal intervention. The reason obviously being that a large monopoly has no competing entity to force it to modify its behavior.

While it is true that Google tries to "clean-up" their search I think this is almost an arrogant stance. How can a few hundred people be in charge of deciding what you and I should and should not see? Methinks we should be given control. If I don't like weapons of any kind I ought to be able to go to my control panel and exclude them from my results. It should be my choice, not theirs.

That said, these "assisted opening" blades are an obvious example of exploiting a loophole in the laws. For all intents and purposes they are switch blades. The end result is exactly the same: Open a knife very quickly.

Then there's the whole argument about how much sense it makes to granularly ban stuff like this. I have no clue as to how much crime out there can be attributed directly to switch blades. Probably not much at all. Although I do remember that knives are on par with certain types of guns in terms of murders per year.

Circling back, the "Google Syndrome" is one that is constantly growing in threat level. I've said this many time. I like their services, but this business of killing your account auto-magically with no real business process in place to deal with the problems is just total bullshit. At one point it has to stop. I have no clue what's going to make that happen, but it sure seems to be leaving a path of destruction behind it.

The best thing we can do is stop using every new Google service they throw at us. I know, it's hard to let go of the free drugs, but look at what you are promoting and decide if this is what you want in the future five times over.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'd be curious to know where Knife Depot is putting its advertising dollars now that it's not spending on AdWords.

<comment><USER46> It looks like they haven't found another solution yet. FTA:

> For that reason, we wanted to let you guys, loyal Cutting Edge readers and > Knife Depot fans, know that you might not being seeing Knife Depot ads > peppered across the Internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Google suspends AdWords acconts without much recourse all the time, as a quick search on "adwords account suspended" shows. Doesn't matter if they're paying customers, etc.

The thorny part about it is that the guidelines that can lead to suspension change over time and deleting ads that are no longer in compliance might not safeguard your account. I've known account holders that got suspended retroactively for ads that are no longer in compliance, even though these ads were actually deleted before the guidelines changed. The point seems to be non-negotiable with Google though.

This can be pretty tragic for many small businesses since Google accounts for such a huge percentage of search traffic. Larger customers typically have dedicated account reps who I'm guessing might be able to help in these situations.

</comment><comment><USER48> There is one more point we all might be missing here. This is not just about knief-depot.

It is unreasonable to believe that someone at Google said, "Hey, I dont like these knief-depot people, let us screw them to benefit Amazon".

Likely case is this. People at Amazon (or put other large company spending significant amounts with Google) maintains a dashboard and does a competitor analysis to find out that knief-depot is doing better than them and hence there is scope for screwing this smaller company. They talk to google and create problems from them. And I dont think they have singled out knife depot alone, but they have done this with many more on the slippary slope.

This means that Google does have some non-transparent ways of doing business when with comes to Adwords.

This is not just bad for Knife-depot but bad for all of us.

</comment><comment><USER49> > We'd also been careful to not ever violate Google's Adwords weapons policy, > which prohibits "the promotion of knives, such as butterfly knives, > (balisongs) and switchblades."

Sounds like they were promoting knives, and hence violating the policy.

<comment><USER50> I'm not the OP, but I do work for Knife Depot. We have advertised with Google for over 8 years and they ONLY prohibit butterfly, balisong, and switchblade/automatic knives. We are within their guidelines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Is it really illegal to own a switch blade but legal to purchase and own assault rifles?

<comment><USER52> Knives, nunchucks, brass knuckles, etc. are usually covered by state level laws, from what I've seen, and the legality varies widely. Firearms are a slightly different story, since the 2nd Amendment very specifically protects firearms ownership. So yes, it is possible that somewhere or other, a switch blade knife is illegal while an "assault rifle" is legal.

I saw "assault rifle" in quotes, because most people talking about these issues have no clue what an "assault rifle" really is, and are repeating garbage they heard from various anti-gun activist groups, who routinely use a totally bogus definition of "assault rifle" or "assault weapon". It's important to understand that owning a _real_ assault rifle (that is, one capable of select-fire / bust-mode / fully automatic operation) IS legal but it's VERY highly regulated, VERY expensive, and you can only - as a civilian - purchase weapons manufactured before 1986.

<comment><USER53> _since the 2nd Amendment very specifically protects firearms ownership_

I've seen folks use that rationale, but the 2A doesn't say "firearms" it says "arms" - presumably "knives, nunchucks, brass knuckles, etc" would fall under that, although that's clearly not how it's been interpreted.

<comment><USER52> FWIW, I just found this article / paper discussing the very issue of knives and the 2nd Amendment.

[http://www.volokh.com/2013/03/25/knives-and-the-second- amend...](http://www.volokh.com/2013/03/25/knives-and-the-second-amendment/)

The author(s) appear to take the position that knives _are_ protected under the 2A and that many existing laws regulating knives are probably unconstitutional. At least from the bit I've had time to read so far...

<comment><USER54> If we're going to take a literalist reading of the 2A, shouldn't any armament that can be carried by a single person ("bear arms") be protected?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Comcast is doing something similar, they have banned advertising from legitimate, legal gun shops, but of course continue to carry copious amounts of programming featuring glorified, gratuitous gun violence.

I want to cancel my Comcast account; they used to be my only option but very recently AT&T is now offering their "U-verse" internet in my neighborhood.

</comment><comment><USER56> Solution B: start second site with the questioned knives. Link from main site. Keep adwords pointing to main site. ?

</comment><comment><USER57> Here's one possible explanation. Amazon is a high value customer so Google carefully reviewed their t&c to ensure their selling policies are in line with googles own policies. They confidently know that amazon won't sell anything illegal, and that amazon have measures in place to deal with rogue sellers on their service. They know amazon has been around for a long time and are trusted by google and the general public. They know that if amazon screws up, amazon would probably take most of the heat. With this information google considers amazon to be a low risk user of their services.

Knife depot is a small customer, and google cant justify the time to review your policies and risk that accepting you as a customer entails. If you screw up, google would probably take a large part of the blame.

The popular alternative hypothesis seem to be that google is pure evil.

<comment><USER58> This is a fair comment. A company of Google's scale simply cannot monitor every Adwords account for compliance, so they are being safe. It doesn't mean this advertiser isn't untrustworthy or loose, just that Google cannot effectively monitor advertisers of this size.

I also can't understand the mantra of 'don't be evil' still gets mentioned. This is nothing more than cute brand association with no real grounding in truth. Google are a public company who can be evil. It is like the platitude that Google shuns product managers and welcomes engineers, implying that Google products sell themselves because of rock-solid engineering (totally disregarding the fact that Google have an aggressive sales force and have spent billions on marketing activities, both directly and indirectly).

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I can imagine one of the justifications for letting walmart and others get away with it is because they're big, but more specifically, their ad budgets are big. But... so what? Where else are they going to go? Bing? Mapquest?

Perhaps if every major large retailer in the US shaved off a few percent of their ad budget away from Google and gave it to one competitor, there'd be a slim fighting chance of actually upsetting Google's dominance, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case.

Relatedly(?), MS has avoided hardware for a long time... ostensibly under the guise of "not upsetting their partners". But... what would the partners do? Bundle Linux? In mobile, they're sort of doing this, but hardware partners left MS not because MS was competing in the hardware business against them - they left because the option (android) was better.

</comment><comment><USER60> As more of these stories happen, Google adwords will simply consist of the big-brand marketers. There is something I trust in this process -- the market.

Companies like knife-depot are specialty, niche, hyper-focused on their particular product: knives. From their post, it's obvious they know those products inside and out. WalMart, Target, Amazon? They don't know squat about those products. If I want a specialty product such as the knife described in the article, I trust a specialty shop much more than the bulk-focused vendors.

As Google runs more of the specialty folks away and caters more to the big brands, I would venture they'll see click-through activity commensurate with that change. And that's called opportunity in that space.

Nice going, Google.

</comment><comment><USER61> In the example video both knives seem like they do pretty much exactly the same thing?

</comment><comment><USER62> I predict Google will come around and open up your adwords account again. Don't give up on it if, of course, you want their traffic. Were you running product listing ads (PLAs) as well?

<comment><USER63> Not a single person from Google will ever read the e-mails from your Adwords account unless you bring in thousands of dollars of revenue for them every day.

<comment><USER64> I knew a person who used to spend $3000+ a day on Adwords who never got much attention from Google (reseller in the cosmetics niche). The only thing he mentioned is that at some point Google assigned him an Adwords account rep. He followed the advice of the account rep and got all the ads and keywords suggested by the rep banned. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

Eventually the person's main account was banned. Last I talked to him he was creating a bunch of fake accounts and running cloaked campaigns. It was much easier for him to be non-compliant on Adwords than compliant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I got into the same situation with my outsourcing company <http://taskarmy.com>

They suspended our account although we made the changes necessary to comply with their terms of service (you can't guarantee 1st page in SEO services).

In the meantime, some of our competitors can still advertise their services.

Since my account has been suspended, it massively slowed down the growth and I couldn't a better replacement.

</comment><comment><USER66> "After some deep thinking, we decided that serving our customer base, who legally buy large amounts of assisted-opening knives, was more important than continuing to advertise with Google. For this reason, we decided to not remove the knives and forgo our Google Adwords account"

I'm not clear. Did Knife Depot remove their ads or did Google?

</comment><comment><USER67> Ironically I can't view this "because it has been categorized "Weapons;Shopping"" by the corporate firewall...

</comment><comment><USER68> Does anybody else notice that they now OWN Assisted Opening Knives in the organic SERPS? Making Google ads, while useful, not as vital.

</comment><comment><USER69> The real issue with these blogs is that there is no way to get to the main website easily.

</comment><comment><USER70> Seriously, there is a need for a startup to disrupt the hell out of google.

</comment><comment><USER71> This is great PR.

</comment><comment><USER63> Google is a two faced company who only cares about money.

And unlike other companies, they only care about BIG business money not small business money.

I know that all too well, they banned one of the web sites I owned for 'adult' content on first strike while competitors who had 10x the traffic (and 10x the reports of user uploaded adult content) remained in their network.

I never spoke to a single person there, always a robot. That was back in 2003.

Now my headphone jack failed on brand new Nexus 4 and I never heard back from Google at all.

This will bite them in the ass sooner or later.

<comment><USER72> NEXUS 4 POWER USER RIGHT HERE

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> <http://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/176077?hl=en>

Company tried to sell a product that Google prohibits. Where is the story here? Trying to say "well they do it too!" is not and is never a valid complaint, just as it wasn't in primary school -- their day will come. Further the desperate reaching to make Google evil is a stretch given that doing this _can only possibly lose them money_ (favoring the "big guys" isn't rational for a bid-based service, where the highest bid gets Google the most money, regardless of the vendor).

The only real story here is that Google managed to achieve such dominance in advertising (though it certainly isn't as absolute as some are pretending).

<comment><USER74> The "big guys" sell a lot more products in a lot more categories, so are presumably putting in a much larer number of bids - it is not hard to believe that Google sees a lot more revenue from Amazon than some random knife shop.

<comment><USER73> I'm entirely sure that Amazon spends more. But _for that keyword_ whoever bids the most spends the most. Google optimizes by the keyword, which of course they should, just as companies like Amazon don't bid on keywords because they're benevolent, but because they want to optimize their own return. Removing players from the market cannot possibly serve Google's financial interest, and that conspiratorial angle makes absolutely no sense.

Because their seems to be some confusion about how bid systems work (including by the dead post below), if Amazon and others outbid this company, netting more for Google, this would be a non-issue because you would have never seen this company's products.

It is notable that Google absolutely bans knives in the context of weapons, full stop (the author of the linked posting seems confused and thinks "such as" gives the specific culprits, when those are merely examples). This company may have authored their ads in a weapons manner, or targeted weapons-type keywords -- the sort of nonsense that gets Google sued by a bunch of state Attorneys down the road, everyone clucking about how evil Google is selling (indirectly) the knife that the kid used to do some evil.

EDIT: The only possible favoritism that Google might be showing her is in the context of legal responsibility. If some random knife site sells a kid a knife via a Adwords ad, everyone will come gunning for Google. If Walmart sells a knife to some kid, everyone will go gunning for Walmart, regardless of how they got the initial contact.

<comment><USER74> I don't think the keywords are relevant. The policy is _"if you sell any weapon-knives, then you can't use AdWords at all"_ \- nothing to do with keywords. The point being that Google would stand to lose a lot more revenue by enforcing an AdWords death-penalty against Amazon than they would against a much smaller business, like the one in question here.

I don't see a conspiracy here, either - it just looks like the huge advertisers like Amazon have a lot more leverage in their relationship with Google than the tiny ones do, so are less likely to have the rules enforced as strictly against them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> Waahaa!!!

The beauty of Hacker News!

It started at Google Adwords and is now going to Communist China and Stalinist Russia!! Just have a look at the comment threads.

Not bad!

</comment><comment><USER76> Why is this sort of post even on HN, not to mention the front page? and why is this thread dominated by idiotic language about "evil" and "kings" and incoherent babbling about politics and democratic representation?! and suddenly everyone is a law scholar.

I blame Matt Cutts' occasional appearances for the subsequent flocking of SEO sorts here. This post doesn't belong on HN, certainly not on the front page.

<comment><USER77> > I blame Matt Cutts' occasional appearances for the subsequent flocking of > SEO sorts here. This post doesn't belong on HN, certainly not on the front > page.

Your anger is misplaced. The blame is solely on Google for not having an adequate customer service department.

When Google has arbitrary decided that your business is in violation of some of its rules, you end up falling into a Kafkaesque nightmare of form responses and then you stop getting even those. The only way to get a response from Google in these cases is to _LITERALLY_ get a popular post on Reddit or Hacker News. That's why small businesses post about this stuff here. Don't blame them.

Blame Google for not providing a decent customer service center because they want to shave a tiny bit of expenses.

<comment><USER76> So HN has to be the consumer service?! that's not what this place is about.

<comment><USER77> * Technical issues that affect the livelihoods of almost every person on here are important. The fact that this has so many upvotes is indicative of that.

* Unfortunately, because Google is on the surface a very friendly company, many technical people place Google on a pedestal and actually believe their slogan about doing no evil. It's just a slogan, and yes, Google does do a lot of evil.

* I suspect that you've never experienced the frustration of having your entire business on the line and not even being able to get a human response from Google. If you've ever been in that situation, I think you'd be able to understand how frustrating Google actually is.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


YouTubers Will Enter Politics - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/brazils-congressional-youtubers <comment><USER2> They haven't already? YouTube is already a key intellectual touchstone for many people already. Whether or not they're party members, they're already influencing many people's views.

I personally worry about it given the flagrant disregard for rigor in their op-ed style, but it's here to stay.

<comment><USER3> Not so much "disregard for vigor" as systematic far-right racism, helped along by Youtube's algorithmic suggestions. Not only is there a risk of them in politics but also of them radicalising the already angry to acts of terrorism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is less ridiculous than it sounds.

There is a long history of entertainers and cultural icons becoming politicians.

And YouTube and other streaming platforms are merely the newest and recently successful platforms for entertainment and cultural influence.

It should not be surprising that these new cultural icons might enter politics.

<comment><USER5> It's funny how standards change. During the 1980 campaign, people complained that Ronald Reagan was just an aging pretty-boy actor whose only political experience was 8 years as governor of California.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm reminded of the Black Mirror episode "The Waldo Moment".

It's the 3rd episode of season 2 (6th episode overall). Worth watching.

<comment><USER7> There are times when I think Black Mirror portrays things too ridiculously, but the underlying sentiments end up being eerily real.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. That episode in particular had quite an unbelievable ending.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The article forgot to tell that they were financed by the most corrupt party in Brazil, PMDB.

<comment><USER10> As with any claim made against them, there's at least a video of one of them talking about it. Sadly, only those who understand Portuguese can draw their own conclusions [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lDTRhfyVXE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lDTRhfyVXE), [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SprN1s7aW8k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SprN1s7aW8k)

In my opinion, the claim "they were financed by PMDB" is fake news that people who only read headlines fall for, as stated in one of the videos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Who's gonna be youtube's Reagan ?

</comment><comment><USER12> Already happened in the UK: Sargon of Akkad and CountDankula joined UKIP and are out there speaking out about their brand of alt right/lite YouTube politics.

PrisonPaul of InfoWars also joined, but it seems he's still mostly staying in his basement and making endless clips about PC or immigration than making the transition to "IRL" like the other two have.

What kind of impact this will have remains to be seen. UKIP is still a fringe party for now.

<comment><USER13> Given you are calling Sargon and Count Dankula alt-right shows how little you know about them.

<comment><USER14> I think it's fair to say that Benjamin is somewhere in the alt-right nebula: Anti-feminism, UKIP, 4chan, anti-"political correctness"... If it quacks like a duck

<comment><USER13> alt-right is right wing identity politics.

Sargon is anti identity politics and a classic, free speech pro-capitalist liberal. I'm not sure where you take your information from

<comment><USER15> People just have to look at the politicians and parties he's supporting. For example in the last French presidential election he opposed the pro-capitalist liberal (redundant as liberals are by definition pro-capitalism). I wonder what's his opinion on the Brazil one. A moderate social democrat vs. fascist belonging to a party called the "Social Liberal Party"?

He's not even a good source of information as his 3 hours long videos consist of Wikipedia articles he glanced through and repeating extreme right-wing conspiracies (Cultural Marxism, the terrorist attack at the Unite the Right rally).

(Also the only decent anti-idpol people are Marxists.)

<comment><USER13> cultural marxism is an extreme right wing view?

The term "liberal" has changed in the minds of people, my friend. Liberals are now synonymous with left wingers, who are NOT pro-capitalist.

<comment><USER16> The US is not the whole world. In Europe, liberalism is synonym to «market liberalism».

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I love how fast things are changing. Excited to see where things go

<comment><USER17> HN is a weird place, so weird I was downvoted for being excited about the future.

<comment><USER18> Upvotes & downvotes are used in a specific way here. They aren't meant to show agreement or support, but rather to recognise that your comment holds some interesting value (or lack thereof) for other readers. A quick comment of excitement is low value to other readers, regardless of it being an authentic feeling. Hope that clarifies.

<comment><USER19> This might have been true 18+ months ago, but not now. HN now more closely resembles, and more closely acts like, Reddit in 2018 than HN in 2016.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Today it's the YouTubers. Tomorrow, it's the AI running for office. Welcome to digital age. Do you think this will be for the better? I mean, sure, if these YouTubers studied and know politics, but if they're doing it just because they can, then we're probably still doomed.

<comment><USER21> I think that's quite a leap you made.

These are still people and YouTube just gave them a platform to become popular.

<comment><USER20> It is, but think about what happened in the American politics and who ended up in the position. He did because he can and now look at the situation of the country. It's true they're still people, but we can't deny the fact that there are those who will run for office just because they can. I won't say all of them should stay away from the politics, but one or two of those YouTubers could be running for office just for the sake of "views" and "likes".</comment></comment></comment>