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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.


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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.
March 25, 2009 at 10:53 PM
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
March 25, 2009 at 11:10 PM
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