Women's rights organization GoTopless alleges discrimination by Google Adsense

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Aug 22, 2012, 02:21 ET

LAS VEGAS, Aug. 22, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Google Adsense, a program that pays third parties for displaying Google ads on their Web sites, is open to all comers.

"That is, unless Google makes an arbitrary decision that an applicant's online content violates its terms," said Nadine Gary, president of U.S.-based GoTopless. She said GoTopless is fighting for women's rights to go publicly topless wherever men have the right to do so, on the basis of gender equality as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

"We tried to set up Adsense for our organization's Web site GoTopless.org, but Google rejected us," Gary said. "Their representative said we're displaying adult content, and that a Web site with illustrations or text unsuitable for young children is generally banned from participating in the Adsense program."

But GoTopless's Web site content is no more unsuitable for young children than the images and words they already see elsewhere in our society, according to Gary.

"Google is discriminating against us for displaying things children already see in places where female public toplessness is legal," she explained. "Since 1992, women can legally go topless in New York State, as just one example. That means children already see women's breasts in New York City streets and in many other places. Shame on Google for being behind the times and hindering an important women's rights cause, which is also a civil rights cause!"

Gary said that although many GoTopless demonstrations are already scheduled in a number of U.S. cities for this coming Sunday, August 26, her organization may opt to add another location to protest Google's decision.

"We picked August 26 so that our events will coincide with Women's Equality Day, which commemorates Aug. 26, 1920, the day American women obtained the right to vote," she explained. "But rigid Puritanism is clearly so pervasive in our society that it seems to have affected even companies that were once considered cutting-edge for their liberal orientation. Accordingly, although it's short notice, we may add a GoTopless protest outside Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California, to protest their discriminatory exclusion of our organization from Adsense."

For a complete list of cities holding a Gotopless protest this Sunday, see gotopless.org/gotopless-day