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Free Speech For Me But Not For Thee

(Thanks to Nat Hentoff for the title, by the way.)

Blogger and BIDMC CEO Paul Levy spent a few moments this morning here on Health Care Strategist, leaving a comment taking me to task for accepting advertising from the SEIU. If you've read Paul's blog, Running A Hospital, you know there's a long-running, very public disagreement between BIDMC and the SEIU over a number of issues.


The ad in question is one of Google AdSense's context-sensitive ads, appearing when you click on one of several posts specifically mentioning BIDMC. To my knowledge, it's never shown up on the main page - at least I've never noticed it before.

The SEIU is obviously running a keyword-driven, anti-BIDMC web campaign. Purchasing BIDMC-related keywords is their right and, from their perspective, a smart, easy, low-cost thing to do. Were I Paul, I'd get my web team to do the same thing, only more so - more ads, bigger ads, better ads, more keywords, better response tracking, more presence, more impressions, more RFM.

It's an equal-opportunity web, Paul. Fight fire with, well, fire of your own. And I'll cut you a great deal to advertise here.

BTW, keep up the great work on the layoff thing.


Comments

Anonymous said…
Of course they have a right to advertise. That wasn't the point, and you are wrong to suggest that I would want to interfere with their right to do so.

The question was about you, not them. I was wondering why you would want such negative and misleading stuff on your blog, which tends to be much more respectful and factual. I guess you think it doesn't reflect on your content.
Steve Davis said…
Paul,

I don't want their ads here.

I merely signed up for Google's AdSense program, not for the SEIU's ad campaign. I'd never noticed their ads until you pointed them out, at which point I blocked from appearing here any more.

MY POINT was simply that there's lotsa ways for you to compete with their message.

Thanks for your comment about my content generally!

SDavis

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