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Desperate Google Will Now Take Gambling Ads

Larry Page White Coat.jpgGoogle's Q3 growth rate in the UK is a sign of things to come elsewhere: a measly 17%. Why was growth so slow? In part because of the economy and in part because of market saturation. Google utterly dominates search in the UK, as it will soon do in the US and everywhere else.  And when you utterly dominate a market, there's no more market share to gain.

More importantly, when you run out of room for growth while taking the super-high moral ground, you sometimes adjust your standards. And Google has now decided to reverse course and accept gambling ads in the UK.

At SAI, we couldnt' be more fine with this. We think it's absurd that, in the US, gambling is legal in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and 9,000 other places, but illegal everywhere else, and we're thrilled that a UK company like Betfair can provide a professional market for something that everyone does anyway.  In the UK, sensibly, gambling is also legal. So as far as we're concerned, there's no reason in the world why Google shouldn't accept gambling ads there.

But Google didn't accept them before--presumably because someone at the company viewed the practice a moral or ethical compromise. Now that the stock's at $350 and UK revenue growth has slowed to 17%, however...  Well, life's all about compromise.

See Also: Google Stock Future: Dead Money

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On February 28, Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, joined 31 other media groups and filed a $2.3 billion suit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses suffered due to the company's advertising practices.

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