Liberal Party under fire for Google ads

Updated

The Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of Cunningham, Jess Moore, has criticised the Liberal Party for buying advertising that targets people searching her name on the internet.

Earlier today, Google searches for any candidate's name from the seat, south of Sydney, brought up sponsored links that directed the user to a Liberal Party website. These links have since disappeared.

Google accepts paid advertisements, which it says "can appear above and to the right of organic search results".

Ms Moore says the Liberal Party is using its resources to stifle democracy.

"They are brazenly putting forward how undemocratic this system is by using the immense resources they have, resources a candidate like me does not have, because I'm not sponsored by the big end of town," she said.

"They are brazenly doing something incredibly undemocratic.

"There is no question the major parties, who are able to use their money in many different ways, whether it's TV ads or buying up links on the internet, have a ridiculously unfair advantage when it comes to elections."

At the weekend South Australian independent candidate for Mayo Bill Spragg complained that Liberal Party links were appearing when users searched his name on Google.

Mr Spragg described the ads as part of a dirty tricks campaign.

A Liberal spokeswoman says the party is trying to get its message out to as many people as possible and that it is essential to advertise online.

Information technology expert Jeff McQueen says online search advertising is relatively cheap and easy to do.

"For the kinds of keywords you are talking about you are talking about a few cents per click," he said.

"You only pay for the traffic when somebody clicks on the link - that's the way Google advertising works. So the Liberal Party probably isn't spending very much money at all."

Topics: minor-parties, government-and-politics, elections, federal-elections, political-parties, liberals, advertising, information-and-communication, internet-culture, wollongong-2500, australia, nsw

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