Casino AdWords Causes Fury

Google has decided in favour of showing gambling related text advertisements on its Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) from today, in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales), excluding Northern Ireland.

Not a single day has passed, since, Google has taken a sharp U-turn and decided to allow gambling ads on Google UK’s website. (Read the complete story).

While, in rest of the countries, Google will continue to follow its policy of ‘no gambling advertisement.’

For Google, things don’t seem rosy and the path is not smooth either. Politicians and religious leaders are quite infuriated due to the timing of this occurrence. They despise Google for taking such a decision, without giving any thought to the economic reality of the world.

The attack on Google, led by The Church of England, came one day after the survey result, which claimed a 25 per cent increase in Britons with gambling problems.

Groups opposing Google’s decision to allow casino ads on its UK site claim, the world is going through one of the worst recession in the history, and encouraging gambling in such a situation is being irresponsible.

Former Labour Defence minister, Peter Kilfoyle had this to say, “It’s the height of stupidity. It seems probably the worst of times for people to be encouraging gambling… after we have been facing a financial crisis built on reckless gambling in the markets.”

While those in favour of the Google’s decision see it as a wise move, they feel it will help in fighting the recession.

Amidst all the bad news flowing from everywhere; smoking ban, changed visa law in China, the seizure of 140 domains in Kentucky; this decision, they believe has come as a sigh of relief and it might help the industry in regaining its lost glory.

Some experts feel casino can help the world economy in recovering its lost weight.

Before forming a judgement, we should keep in mind, Yahoo and MSN are already accepting ads from gambling companies and Google is a late entrant in this arena.

Meanwhile, the Queen visited Google’s headquarters on Thursday and gave her approval to the Google’s plan.