Thursday, September 4, 2014

Google's anti-Chinese herb policy demands removal of advertising Bi Yan Pian from East Earth Trade Winds website

I've previously written about Google's War on Chinese herbs. As a recap, East Earth Trade Winds advertises on Google Adwords -those little ads that pop up when you search for something. In April of 2013 they had their account shut down for three weeks for advertising Epimedium - a Chinese herb that is legal to import and legal to use. In Chinese medicine Epimedium is considered a Kidney Yang Tonifying herb. East Earth had to remove that product listing from the site in order to be able to advertise on Google Adwords again.
Now the Google anti-Chinese censors are at it again. This time the East Earth Trade Winds account violated Google policy by advertising Bi Yan Pian - a common remedy for allergies and stuffy nose. Once again this product is legally imported and there are no restrictions on the sale of this product by the FDA. It is simply that Google's censors don't approve of Chinese herb products.

Here's the violation that they pointed out to me:


"Please be advised that your ads are getting disapproved for promoting Bi Yan Pian on the Landing Page which is an Unapproved Pharmaceuticals monitored by Google. Please remove it from the Landing Page so that we could approve the ads. Please find attached a screenshot of the highlighted term on the Landing Page of your website which needs to be removed.  "

Googles anti-Chinese herb policy restricts legal Chinese herb products.



Instead of removing the product East Earth Trade Winds removed the product name Bi Yan Pian and changed the name listing to the English translation "Nose Inflammation Pills". As of this date we don't know if this will pass their censorship. Bi Yan Pian, by the way, is not a "pharmaceutical" - it is an herbal supplement.
Google  arbitrarily restricts the sale of Bi Yan Pian. There are others who advertise the same product and do not seem to have any restrictions.
I suggest that people use yahoo or bing for their search engines instead of Google. Yahoo and Bing do not seem to have an anti-Chinese herb policy.

3 comments:

Cathy W. said...

Did changing the name help for you? We are having the same issue here.

Acuatlanta.net

Michel said...

It appears to me that the anti-Chinese medicine faction in the Google censorship division is intent on culling legal Chinese herb products from the internet. You will have to pull the product from your website or change the name. I also recommend that you ask your customers to boycott Google and use Yahoo or Bing instead.

Cathy W. said...

I know it's very frustrating. This is not the first time it's happened. We need to find a solution for sure, because it will not be the last.

Good luck!
Cathy