Google Shopping bans Yin Yang Sister's Flu Away

If you've been on Google and want to buy something one easy way to do it is to search for the item you want then select the "Shopping" tab. Merchants submit a "feed" of their products to Google for this service. It doesn't cost the Merchant anything to do this but it is a good way for the Merchant to advertise their products and good for the Consumer to compare prices and services.

Recently we found that Google Shopping is also into banning products. In this case, East Earth Trade Winds found out the Yin Yang Sisters brand "Flu Away"* is not allowed to be in their data feed for products to be listed on Google Shopping. In fact, none of their products can be listed until this product is removed. Surprised? Maybe you shouldn't be. Google Policy-Censors have banned "Epimedium" and "Pe Min Kan Wan" (see previous posts).

Here's a email from the Google shopping team dated 4/15/13 (bold and underlining mine):

"Hello,
Your account was suspended for advertising and selling Flu Away by making problematic claims such as "This easy-to-use formula contains powerful Chinese herbs for fever, upset stomach and sore throat. This product would likely be considered an unapproved drug by applicable regulatory authorities.

Below is the list of items in your account that are currently violating our policies. Please ensure you're not submitting these items.

Once you've submitted your feeds after removing these, we would be happy to review your account again.

The Items are: Flu Away

Sincerely,

The Google Shopping Team"

 After removing what I thought were the "claims" and changing the questionable line to read "This easy-to-use formula contains powerful Chinese herbs in a convenient instant beverage that you can easily take with you." We found this wasn't good enough. The Google Shopping Team told us the product had to be removed (bold and underlining mine):

"Hello,
Please check your data feed again. Your item 'Flu Away' is still listed in the data feed. We would not be able to review your account unless this item and the similar ones gets removed.

Sincerely,

The Google Shopping Team"

As I pointed out in previous posts Google itself doesn't like to be censored by countries like China but they don't seem to mind censoring what the American public can view or sell. I suggest that people Boycott  the Google search engine. If you are involved in Oriental herbs, the health food field, or just a consumer please pass this information around so that people know that Google Policy-Censors are opposed to Chinese herb products.

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*(Flu Away was developed by Author and Acupuncturist Letha Hadady. It contains: honeysuckle, schizonepeta, ligusticum, burdock, forsythia, peppermint, vitex, and licorice.)