Thursday, October 8, 2009

Google Ads Objectify Blacks? Gays? Thugs?

WTH

You can't make this stuff up people. This was an actual exchange between a friend of mine and some friends of his. He e-mailed me the screen shot. You can see that he was actively responding to a message and the cursor stopped because he was taken aback when he noticed the ad. It's funny because it's outrageous, especially considering I know all the parties involved and the subject matter of the email (all identifiers have been redacted for public consumption, of course) and nothing connoting the circled portion, or the non-circled portion, is logically connected.

Oh, and I'm not lauding Google or anything of that nature, but it just gives me a timeout and a laugh for a genuine WTF moment. "Find Blackgay (one word) Thugs at Great Prices. www.Pronto.com."

Now, I didn't click the link to see what's at Pronto because, well, rest assured I don't see and signifiers that there could be anything remotely of interest for me, but let's go ahead and run through a checklist of what's off-base with the ad link.

1. Prostitution is illegal. I assume that's what they're selling? (Reaching)
2. Slavery is illegal. I assume that's what they're selling? (Reaching)
3. What's a "Blackgay"? (Dead-on)
4. What could possibly be Google Ads' algorithm for this?
        a) I Built A Solar Panel
        b) Free Beat Downloads
        c) Serbs Claim Independence
        d) Blackgay Thugs

I don't wanna hear any explanation about bots picking up on relevant topics, there's no possible conversation that could populate such randomness. I dare you to come up with one. Also, as mentioned above, the conversation from the email wasn't indicative of anything relating to those topics. (I hope you can derive that from the email clip posted. If I'm tripping, tell me.) Maybe it's time for some new programmers over there at Adsense. Maybe The King's English is a lot more nonsensical to robots. Maybe I'm reaching. One thing I know is that you guys over there at The Google are reading this so I hope you consider re-programming The Google Adsense algorithm because I have actually found legitmate, time-worthy investments through your ad placements. Now please excuse me while I investigate an urgent matter in the form of this link from a gmail ad, "Dead Broke to 50K a Week." Thanks, Google, I'm twenty weeks away from being a millionaire. Results typical.

*I bet my word cloud is going to look a week bit different after all of those keywords. 
**Despite whatever made you click on this entry today, no, this blog is not about that. Whatever that is.
*** Props to Cabby, who is neither black, nor gay, nor thug.