Yahoo! vs. Free Speech Political Speech6/5/2000; 7:18:08 AM April 25, 2000: "All the big portals have rules governing the types of banner ads that can run on their pages. Some portals have specific guidelines for political advertising. Those guidelines may be good-faith efforts to set ground rules. But in some cases, they have the effect of diminishing the quantity and quality of political expression online. Yahoo!, for example, has a blanket policy prohibiting negative banner ads."I have a hard time getting upset about banning negative banner ads on Yahoo. I think that moreso then on TV, ads do reflect on the site carrying them, as there is less seperation between ad and content. This lack of seperation causes problems as advertisers abuse this fact to trick people into clicking on ads that look like operating system messages or even a normal part of the site they are viewing. Forcing Yahoo and friends to carry negative banners would directly impact the public perception of the carriers and I can't force them to do that.You know it can't be that big a deal if I can't get excited about it "smile"There are some proposed odd scenarios in the article, like "What about a banner ad that promotes an anti-candidate Web site such as NotHillary.com or gwbush.com? Would those ads be deemed 'positive' (for the site) or 'negative' (against the candidate)?" Yeah, well, who cares? Besides, just to add some confusion into the mix, if those ads are considered libelous by someone in Britain, can they sue Yahoo?