Google accused of sexism for censoring cougars but accepting sugardaddies

In another case of a tech company getting involved with public morals, Google came under flak for branding a dating site where older women can meet younger men as “not family safe”. This time, the tech giant is accused of being sexist.

The founder of Canadian site Cougarlife.com found that Google had classified adverts for her site as not family safe – drastically reducing the amount of sites they could be found on and the searches that would turn them up. That was the case even if the ads contain no sexually suggestive words or images.

Problem is, Google treats ads for sites which promote liasons between older men and younger women as perfectly suitable for a family audience. Claudia Opdenkelder, founder of Cougarlife, is considering a discrimination lawsuit against Google for sexism. We think she’s right.

Last week we reported on Apple censoring fashion magazines for nudity in the iPad App Store

Of course, it’s a mug’s game for tech companies who are most likely to get a bollocking when they get censorship wrong and no attention when they get it right. But this is a case where Google has got it wrong – either there are no dating sites, or there are all of them. Sexism like this doesn’t look good. What should older women just be receiving ads for knitting sites? Loosen up Google.

[via nationalpost]