Google slammed for PC ban on bail bond ads
A group representing California bail bond companies is considering legal action after Google this week announced a ban on ads for bail bond services.
The Mountain View tech giant’s move comes amid a political fight over whether the system requiring people to pay money to be released fromjail while awaiting trial is unfair to lower-income people. California Senate Bill 10, citing “racial and economic disparities in the pretrial system,” would force judges to release charged parties on a signed promise to appear, or if a promise appeared to be insufficient, to set bail at “the least restrictive level necessary to ensure the appearance of the defendant.”
Google, in announcing the ban — to take effect in July — charged that “for-profit bail bond providers make most of their revenue from communities of color and low-income neighborhoods when they are at their most vulnerable, including through opaque financing offers that can keep people in debt for months or years.”
A lawyer representing the California Bail Agents Association hit back at the ban, and said the association was considering legal action. Bail bond companies’ advertising is an important service for poor and minority families who want to get their loved ones freed from jail as soon as possible, said San Francisco attorney Harmeet Dhillon, a Republican party official who represents James Damore, a software engineer fired by Google over a memo suggesting women may be biologically less suited for work in tech.
Bail, Dhillon said, is an “integral part of our justice system.” It is enshrined in the U.S. and California constitutions, and is regulated in California by the state, she said. Both constitutions bar “excessive bail.”
A ban from Google severely hampers the ability of bail bond companies to get their ads in front of the public, Dhillon said.
“Google has a virtualmonopoly on digital advertising in the United States,” Dhillon said. According to eMarketer, Google is expected to capture 37 percent of digital advertising in America this year.
Alice Chapman, who stars with her husband Duane — aka “Dog the Bounty Hunter” — on a re-