Is it fishing, or phishing? Google-phishing and the genocide in Sudan

Google-phishing is a deviant version of "fishing" for web traffic with a Google ad (the "bait and hook"). In phishing the ad misrepresents what the user will find when he or she clicks through.  Fishing with Google ads is good, phishing with misleading ads is bad.  For example, a Google ad that offers medical advice should not lead to a site pitching health insurance.  A Google ad for celebrity news should not lead to a porno site.

Google-phishing is a clear case where an advertiser may benefit by using a misleading bait and hook--but the consumer suffers.

Not surprisingly, Google-phishing is forbidden by Google AdWords editorial guidelines:  "Your ad text and keywords must directly relate to the content on the landing page for your ad."

But the temptation to Google-phish persists, and not just for profit-making organizations.  Non-profits, too, benefit from traffic in terms of fundraising,  branding, and advocacy.   A right-to-life group might be tempted to advertise "information for pregnant teens."

The temptation rises when a worldwide crisis brings forth a massive outpouring of care.  Earthquakes, floods, and famines touch our hearts, and thousands of us reach out to help.  One of the ways we do this is through Google and the web, searching for information and for connections to organizations that we can join or contribute to.  Fishing in this stream is valuable to organizations bringing together resources to address these disasters.

Phishing in this swelling river of concern and goodwill can be tempting for cause-related organizations who are not involved in the particular disaster, but who want to benefit from the surge of public interest and web traffic.   Perhaps an organization is not quite centered on the particular tragedy, but is broadly in a related business.  Or perhaps an organization has one division focused on the particular situation, but has other needs as well.  Phishing can be seductive.  After 9/11 the American Red Cross raised millions for disaster relief, and then was discovered to have used the ample surplus collected to fund other initiatives.  The resulting firestorm of criticism led to one of the gravest public relations and long-term fundraising crises the organization has ever experienced.

Fundraising is the "third rail" of phishing--organizations must be terribly careful to avoid accusations of bait and switch when it comes to asking for money.  The case is less clear, the standards less established, when it comes to visibility--and web traffic.  Of course for non-profits, visibility is often as important as funding.  Visibility creates access and power.  And for those associated with a particular non-profit, socialites,  business leaders, and celebrities, the combination of positive visibily, access and power can be quite attractive. And web traffic leads to visibility.

And now to our case:

For months the tragedy in Sudan has been building.  Lately the US government has termed it a genocide.  The American public is starting to be interested, and the large network television news programs have, in the past few weeks, started to focus on the story.

Today I went on Google, and searched "Sudan." I noted the following ad--in second place on the roster--placed by rock star BONO's advocacy organization, DATA:

Sponsored Links

Sudan Crisis
Read the Latest News & Facts.
Learn How You Can Take Action.
www.data.org

I was surprised to see the ad, in part because colleagues had approached BONO's organization weeks ago and suggested that he could be helpful in bringing awareness to the situation is Sudan.  They were told that he was "working behind the scenes" but would not do anything publicly.  In truth it seemed that the organization's priorities were elsewhere.  Fair enough, I thought.  Sudan is not everyone's cause.

So today when I saw the ad it was news.  I clicked through the ad to see what BONO was doing.  After all, a number of celebrities have recently been involved in charity albums, and as a major international star, BONO could help.

What I found instead was a glitzy, sophisticated Flash animation site promoting DATA's regular causes.  At first I could not find anything about Sudan.  Finally I noticed a single line in the lower left hand quadrant of the page.  The Google ad above is "live" and if you click on it you may see the same page that  I did.  In case the page has been changed, here is a link to a Google cache of the DATA landing page as I found it.

From the landing page, by the way, my browser "back" button was set to loop, so that I could not go back to Google without opening another window, I could of course go forward into the site.  The barb on the hook. 

Clicking through the small link on the landing page I found a single static page of further links to public information on Sudan. The date on the page indicated that it had not been updated since 8/13/04--more than a month earlier.  There was one link leading to allafrica.com, so that the reader might search for current news.  A poorer source, by the way, than that available on Google, where the reader would have started. 

This minor reference to the crisis in Sudan is buried in a complex and sophisticated web site about DATA's causes. For example, there is a section called "your action center" linking to in turn to several campaigns including a petition drive.  None of these campaigns focus on Sudan.

So you make up your mind.  Are DATA's Google ads an example of Google-phishing?  Are they ethical?  Will Google continue to allow them?

We will see.

What is my purpose in this post?  To call attention to a broad issue facing all of us who hope to use the web for social development.  Google ads (and other sponsored ads) work because they are targeted and they are, generally, what they say they are.  Thus readers experience them as a service.  This is true whether the person is evaluating cars, or evaluating causes.

Readers of the web need to know that when they click they will find something relevant at the other end.  This is especially important for issue ads, where the reader does not have a direct economic reason to click.  Imagine if most of the ads running next to "Sudan" searches led off to unrelated causes.  The reader would quickly tire of being dragged off track, and would stop clicking the ads.  For those organizations who need to use these ads to fundraise for real work in Sudan, such as UNICEF and Oxfam, such an outcome would be disastrous.

We need to self-police.  Perhaps Google will address this matter with DATA, but in any case the non-profit sector has a clear interest in truth in advertising, on or off the web. This is my reason for bringing this case, and the broader issue of Google-phishing to our attention. As a community we need to sensitize ourselves to this issue.  And perhaps over the longer term Interaction or some other organization of charities might want to develop a voluntary code of conduct for advertising on the web.

Comments

[Wikus]

Jim

I must say I find this whole business of fighting for donors' money unseemly. DATA might as well argue that the organized hype around the Darfur issue is diverting money away to a symptom-based issue, whereas they are trying to address causes.

Maybe they brushed you off because your approach is too partisan. By demonizing the GoS you are playing into the hands of Christian fundamentalists, who would like nothing more than a full-blown "clash of civilizations". The role of the US in backing supposed Christian rebels are also at issue here and it clearly contrasts with DATA's interdenominational approach.

From where I am standing the impression is that this issue has been deliberately engineered by the American government to further America's strategic goals in the war on terror and, moreover, that it is being used by the Republicans to garner votes for the upcoming election.

Regards
Wikus

[dota]

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