Google, and Political Ads

A friend took note of some news on Fox:

On Wednesday, "Washington Grapevine" on FoxNews reported that some conservatives tried to buy an ad on Google criticizing Nancy Pelosi's ethical behavior, and that Google rejected the ad because they "don't accept ads criticizing individuals". Problem was that the submitted anti-Pelosi ad was verbatim the same as an anti-DeLay ad already posted on Google, with only the name Pelosi switched for DeLay! If Fox's reporting was correct, Google actively suppresses public access to the media, based on political viewpoint.

So, my friend asked Google to comment, and this is what they said:

We have rejected both anti-Pelosi and anti-DeLay ads due to ad policy violations. Ads may run a short time before they are reviewed. Our editorial staff reviews all ads to make sure that they are appropriate for our site. Since we show ads immediately, there is often a short period of time when the ad is running before being reviewed and approved by Google AdWords Specialists. Please note that we try to keep this lag as short as possible. In this instance, we did show both ads when they were submitted, and they were subsequently disapproved per our policy.

Ad text advocating against any organization or person (public, private, or protected) is not permitted. We apply our policies equally, regardless of the political views represented by the ads submitted to Google. We welcome political ads and run many. We allow ads that urge voting against a particular politician, for example, but are likely to reject ads that allege someone is unethical.

I remember reading somewhere recently that Google and Yahoo are following much different advertising strategies (it wasn't this article, but at least here's a little background.)

The Google approach, where one can quickly bootstrap a simple ad campaign based on one's own initiative, is unusually vulnerable to political gaming. It wouldn't surprise me if both political parties have boilerroom operations to assemble quick-hitting - practically occult - ad campaigns using Google, and directed at the other party. Who knows how effective these campaigns might be?

What is strange to me is why Fox would bring the battle into public view. After all, I would think the appropriate approach would be to exploit the vulnerability, rather than to make a fuss. The only thing I can think of is base support: conservatives prefer to feel embattled, even when they're not. By calling Google's attention to the battle, the battle will surely be quelled. Maybe it's a reasonable sacrifice - buck up conservative morale nationwide, at the expense of degrading a potentially-effective advertising tool.