Recently, educators by the hundreds have been signing a petition requesting the search engine moguls at Google change some of the advertising policy. It seems a number of Google’s advertisers market prewritten essays, term papers and the like and these ads make it onto educational websites.
These educators have waged a protest of sorts and have petition going to get Google to change that policy. This movement was started by a fellow named Jack Paulus. His website, TruthMapping, encourages intellectual debate and discussion over various issues and he says he used to run Google ads until he saw those advertisers showing up. After contacting Google about the matter and unable to reach satisfaction, he took to the petition route:
Please help us encourage Google to stop undermining education through their policy of displaying ads that encourage plagiarism and academic fraud through the sale of pre-written and made to order term papers and essays especially when these ads are displayed on web sites that promote education.
Google screens all of its ads for acceptability and they already choose to NOT accept ads that promote alcohol, tobacco, weapons and other things ranging from miracle cures to license plate covers. Google has therefore chosen to accept advertising dollars from companies whose sole purpose is to promote academic dishonesty.
After contacting spokesperson Barry Schnitt at Google, he had this statement:
“We appreciate the comments made about our advertising which help to inform our future policy decisions.”
At the time of this story, the petition had over 300 signatures and the numbers move up each day. The signatories include teachers at all levels including college professor from all across the country. There’s no word on whether the policy will change, although Google has paid attention to such petitions in the past.
John Stith is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business.
