{"id":33497,"date":"2018-04-25T06:00:02","date_gmt":"2018-04-25T10:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=33497"},"modified":"2018-04-24T22:06:53","modified_gmt":"2018-04-25T02:06:53","slug":"google-bans-concordia-publishing-house-ads-for-mentioning-jesus-and-the-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2018\/04\/google-bans-concordia-publishing-house-ads-for-mentioning-jesus-and-the-bible\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Bans Concordia Publishing House Ads for Mentioning “Jesus” and the “Bible”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Google has banned remarketing ads from Concordia Publishing House, the publishing company of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, because they mention \u201cJesus\u201d and the \u201cBible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carl Vehse brought this up in a comment<\/a>, I saw CPH president Bruce Kintz\u2019s tweet<\/a>, and I read the Federalist article<\/a>, but I had trouble believing it.\u00a0 Surely, this was just a mistake.\u00a0 But no.\u00a0 I contacted CPH and confirmed that it is true.\u00a0 In fact, CPH asked Google to review the decision twice, at different levels, and each time the ruling was the same.\u00a0 A Google representative helpfully said that if the company would remove the references to \u201cJesus\u201d and the \u201cBible\u201d on the website the ads could continue.<\/p>\n

\n

This refusal to allow any reference to religion\u2013which must surely impact many more Christian organizations\u2013applies to \u201cpersonalized advertising.\u201d\u00a0 In this case, the policy was triggered by \u201cremarketing advertising\u201d for CPH\u2019s Vacation Bible School curriculum.\u00a0 Someone is searching for VBS material and goes to the CPH site to check out their offerings.\u00a0 Then the person goes to other publishers\u2019 VBS sites.\u00a0 A \u201cremarketing\u201d ad would show up later to remind the customer of what was presented on the CPH site.\u00a0 That person had already chosen to go to the CPH site, so it\u2019s hard to imagine that the potential customer looking for VBS curriculum would be offended to find religious references there.<\/p>\n

Go here for the offending site,<\/a> if you dare, and if you are sure you won\u2019t be offended.\u00a0 Notice that you have to dig pretty deep, including opening .pdf files, to find the Jesus references and the Bible verses.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is the\u00a0press release<\/a>\u00a0from CPH that tells the tale:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Concordia Publishing House Responds to Google Disabling of Faith-Based Advertising<\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\n
\n
\n

Concordia Publishing House was informed on Monday that all CPH remarketing ads were \u201cdisabled due to a violation of Google\u2019s policy for advertising based on interests and location.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remarketing ads reach out to individuals who have made a decision to visit a CPH webpage. Google defines this as showing \u201cads to people who\u2019ve visited your website or\u00a0used your mobile app. When people leave your website without buying anything, for example, remarketing helps you reconnect with them by showing relevant ads across their different devices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upon receiving notification that the remarketing ads were disapproved, CPH staff contacted Google. In this conversation, CPH staff members were informed that remarketing ads based on religious beliefs were not allowed. After reviewing cph.org, cph.org\/blog, and splashcanyon.cph.org, the Google representative indicated that content provided by CPH was beyond the scope of becoming compliant with Google.<\/p>\n

CPH staff requested that a manager review the decision. This request was denied. The Google representative proceeded to inform CPH staff of changes that could be made to splashcanyon.org to bring it into compliance. These changes included removing specific faith-based content.<\/p>\n

Following this conversation, CPH contacted Google again for additional clarification. This call resulted in Google agreeing to conduct a manual review of the CPH AdWords audiences that have been disabled. CPH was informed that this review could take several hours to complete.<\/p>\n

Following this manual review, Google informed CPH that the type of ad in question would not be allowed based on Google\u2019s policy of religious belief in personalized content. As a Google AdWords Support representative explained, the disapproval resulted from the fact that the items in the ad and on the CPH website refer to Jesus and\/or the Bible. CPH was also informed that we could 1) remove all items that refer to Jesus or the Bible and proceed to use the remarketing ads or 2) use a different type of Google ad product. A follow-up email from AdWords Support reiterated the need to change or remove content. In part, the email said the following:<\/p>\n

\u201cTroubleshooter: Religious belief in personalized advertising<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Read the policy above<\/strong>to learn what we don\u2019t allow. Ensure that your ads, site, or app comply with Personalized<\/strong>advertising policies. Note that even if ads are not targeted using sensitive categories, some types of ad content are still prohibited.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. Remove that content from your site or app.<\/strong>If your site or app has content that we don\u2019t allow, remove all content that doesn\u2019t comply with this policy or rename with matching synonym. You\u2019ll then need to request a review\u00a0before<\/u>\u00a0moving on to the next step of checking your audience lists.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  3. Remove that content from your ad.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If your ad violates this policy, edit it to make it comply.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

    CPH President and CEO Dr. Bruce G. Kintz stated, \u201cClearly, CPH does not agree with Google\u2019s decision in this matter. If we are willing to remove references to our faith in our ads or website, then we will be allowed to use remarketing ads with Google. Simply stated, we are not willing to sacrifice our beliefs to comply with Google\u2019s requirements. It\u2019s no secret that society is becoming increasingly hostile to the Christian faith. This increasing hostility makes our mission of proclaiming that faith through the books, Bibles, and curriculum that we produce all the more important. We will continue to proclaim the faith because we know without a doubt that the Word of the Lord endures forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

    It continues to be CPH\u2019s mission to share God\u2019s Word with all Christians who are seeking faithful resources to support their faith. CPH will not be deterred by Google\u2019s actions in this instance but will seek all available avenues to connect people to Christ.<\/p>\n

    About Concordia Publishing House<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Concordia Publishing House (CPH) is the publishing arm of The Lutheran Church\u2014Missouri Synod. For 150 years, CPH has been providing individuals, churches, and schools with products that are faithful to the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions. From books and Bibles to church supplies, curriculum, and software, CPH offers over 10,000 products to support the proclamation of the Gospel worldwide. Visit CPH online at\u00a0cph.org<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    UPDATE:\u00a0 But see this<\/a> from an LCMS layman and online security expert, who explains the crackdown on \u201cretargeting ads\u201d and concludes that \u201cNo, Google is not attacking CPH.\u201d\u00a0 (HT: Carl Vehse)<\/p>\n

    But I still don\u2019t understand why \u201creligion\u201d is a forbidden category.\u00a0 If there is a privacy problem with these ads, why not just eliminate them?\u00a0 And the problematic areas do not seem to appear in the ads, but in the websites that the ads direct a person to.\u00a0 So what kinds of ads are allowed to \u201cretarget,\u201d and which ones aren\u2019t?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    Illustration, Splash Mountain VBS Curriculum,\u00a0 from CPH<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Google has banned remarketing ads from Concordia Publishing House, the publishing company of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, because they mention \u201cJesus\u201d and the \u201cBible.\u201d Carl Vehse brought this up in a comment, I saw CPH president Bruce Kintz\u2019s tweet, and I read the Federalist article, but I had trouble believing it.\u00a0 Surely, this was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":33506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10,11,44],"tags":[546,938,6734,6737,6740],"class_list":["post-33497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-christ","category-church","category-technology","tag-concordia-publishing-house","tag-google","tag-google-and-religion","tag-googles-cph-ban","tag-vacation-bible-school-curriculum"],"yoast_head":"\nGoogle Bans Concordia Publishing House Ads 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