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 Search Engines Can Choose Not To Run Ads in the USA

In Langdon v. Google, Langdon, who operates web sites claiming to expose corruption by U.S. and Chinese government officials, sued Google, MSN, and Yahoo because they refused to publish his ads. Google allegedly rejected them because they attacked people, MSN  ignored his ad request, and Yahoo said it would only take ads from sites it hosts (for more information on the lawsuit see Update 41).

On February 20, 2007, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Farnan dismissed the suit. "Search engines have a First Amendment right to reject ads as part of their protected right to speak or not," Farnan wrote. So the court ruling affirms Google's right to enforce its long-standing ad policy and gives Google free reign to refuse an ad for any reason. However, one claim remains: whether Google breached a contract it had with Langdon in allowing him to sign up for AdWords.

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