Candice E. Jackson, the author of the book Their Lives: The Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine claims through a press release that Google is not allowing her to conduct an AdWords campaign promoting her book.

Google indicated Jackson’s current choice of ads violates Google’s content policy:

Ad text advocating against any organization or person (public, private, or protected) is not permitted. Stating disagreement with or campaigning against a candidate for public office, a political party or public administration is generally permissible.

In the press release, they stated that Google is a well-known haven for Democrats:

A recent study of Federal Election Commission records revealed that 98% of its employees’ political donations (totaling $463,500) went to Democratic political candidates in the past three election cycles. CEO Eric Schmidt is a particularly outspoken Democratic booster. In 2004 he publicly endorsed the Kerry-Edwards ticket, and he is also a financial backer of Senator Hillary Clinton, one of the primary subjects of Their Lives.

Chris Richardson conducted a research to proof such case, or otherwise, and posted his findings on WebPro News. I am not in the position to comment about this because I don’t recognize any politician mentioned, but Chris’ conclusion is that Google doesn’t have a liberal bias.

P.S.: I am not by all means interested in political issues but Google policy.

Via WebPro News, link to press release.

A study conducted by Consumer Reports WebWatch, published by ClickZ News:

Search engines continue to inadequately inform consumers about the influence that advertising dollars have on placement and rankings of search results.

The report, “Still In Search of Disclosure,” is the fourth in an ongoing research project undertaken by Consumers Union, the non-profit consumer watchdog organization behind Consumer Reports magazine. A follow-up to a 2004 study examining the ways search engines identify and explain paid search results, the latest study found little improvement over last year, and concluded that none of the 15 search engines examined had satisfactorily disclosed their practices.

“Follow-up research confirms these insufficient efforts to inform consumers about the financial forces at work every time they hit the search button,” said Jorgen Wouters, a WebWatch consultant and author of the report.

The report finds that search engines seems to conceal advertising and comply badly with FTC guidelines.

Article at ClickZ News.

Google planned to provide a search engine for web only video this summer that will let people preview media clips from its web site, Stefanie Olsen reported for CNET.

A Google representative declined to comment on the details of the search engine or the exact timing of the launch but acknowledged that a new service is in the works.

Longer term, Google is preparing a payment system for a premium video service that would let people pay to watch full video clips. Google is talking to several top-tier content providers, including Hollywood movie studios, to gain agreements for aggregating their video and selling premium or pay-per-view access.

Full story at CNET.

There has been a rumor that Google had banned ads from click fraud detection services. The rumor was triggered by the notification from the folks at Spider-Food.Net that AdWords advertising for Pay-per-click detection and analytics firms has been pulled from Google search engine result pages.

Clickfraud is a concerning problem for pay per click search engines which has been estimated to account for 5-10% of all PPC clicks. When search marketers noticed that ads related to click fraud was not appearning at Google, many assumed Google pulled the ads because they can potentially damage the search engine credibility about a potential problem, and of their bottom line.

AdWordsRep, an AdWords representative from Google, answered in Search Engine Watch forum:

Heheh. I’m sorry to disappoint those who were dusting off their tinfoil hats, but here’s the official word: A glitch briefly prevented ads from being shown for a small set of keywords, including words such as funeral, fraud and others. The glitch was technical and was not related to a specific issue or policy. To that I’d add that I hope you’ll accept my apology for any inconvenience - or suddenly high heart rates - this may have caused.

Via WWW Coder, link to SEW thread.

AOL will begin a search marketing effort on natural optimization, and selectively buy keywords from major search engines like Google and Yahoo to drive additional traffic to AOL content portal.

Zachary Rodgers reported for ClickZ News:

America Online (AOL) will engange in a large search marketing effort that will include natural optimization and keyword buys on Google and Yahoo this summer. However, the company’s paid search campaign will be small in comparison with its offline media buy and its natural search efforts, according to a spokesperson.

The search marketing plans are part of a scheduled summer campaign to promote AOL’s new public content, which it’s expected to make available to non-subscribers in the coming weeks. The interactive campaign will also include display ads on a wide range of properties in AOL’s network and on external sites. Offline placements are planned for radio and print, but not television.

Link to ClickZ News.