Whipped Cream Difficulties

A while back, I wrote about the Knife Depot and their battle with Google’s Adwords people over selling “assisted opening” knives. The Knife Depot lost their Adwords account because they refused to cave in to Google’s demand that they stop selling (not just advertising, but selling) “assisted opening” knives, which are legal in every state of the Union.

Dan Lawton over at the Knife Depot was kind enough to share a couple of his followup posts with me. Adwords restored the Knife Depot’s account in May, but imposed a requirement that the Knife Depot couldn’t have “assisted opening” knives on any of the landing pages.

Then Google yanked the Adwords account again…this time, because Google has a problem with “throwing knives”.

Could you injure someone with a throwing knife? Sure, in the same way you could injure someone with a baseball, a frying pan, a brick, a bottle, a rabid cat or a slew of other projectiles that can become weapons if paired with malicious intent.
However, a throwing knife is poorly suited for criminal activity. These knives are generally large, making them hard to conceal; they have blunt edges and they’re damn hard to throw with fatal accuracy.

I have no joke here, I just wanted an excuse to post this:

But wait, there’s more! You know who else doesn’t like knives? Yes! Facebook!

But surely Google has learned their lesson, and these policies are being applied equally to all vendors? Unlike the “assisted opening” advertising ban, in which Google allowed big vendors like Amazon and Walmart to advertise those knives, while cutting off the Knife Depot and smaller vendors? Right?

Hahahahahahahaha. Nope. Google is still operating on the same double standard they had back in March – the same double standard that was openly called out by a Google employee in internal communication – and refuses to offer any explanation of why certain vendors are allowed to advertise “assisted opening” knives, “throwing knives”…or “herbal incense”, for that matter.

Thanks to Mr. Lawton for bringing my attention to these posts. And, as a side note to people who want me to write about their stuff, this is the way to do it: Mr. Lawton sent me a nice, personalized email summarizing his posts, politely suggesting that I might want to write about them based on my previous coverage, and even provided some evidence that he’s actually read more of the blog than just that one post. He had my curiosity when I saw the email; by the time I finished reading it, he had my attention.

(For the record, the Knife Depot hasn’t given me anything – money, knives, gift certificates, or anything of value – in exchange for this post. Nor have I asked for anything.)