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French party exploits Google Adwords
By ZDNet France Staff
Special to CNET News.com

Published: November 16, 2005, 8:36 AM PST

France's majority party has admitted to leading a marketing campaign using Google's Adwords system of sponsored links.

Keywords evoking the violent situation in the Parisian suburbs and elsewhere across the country point to a petition in support of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.

Over the weekend of Nov. 5 and 6, Web surfers who entered terms such as "violence," "riots," "suburbs," "burned cars" or even "scum" into the Google search site were presented with an advertisement linking directly to the official UMP ("Union for a Popular Movement") Web site.

More precisely, the link directed Internet users to a petition supporting party President and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy's "zero tolerance policy" in response to the confrontations rocking the suburbs of Paris.

"Since the riots began, we've received many e-mails of support, with a number of activists and elected officials circulating as many as 17 petitions backing Nicolas Sarkozy," a party spokesperson told ZDNet France. "So we asked our technical contractor, L'Enchanteur des nouveaux médias, to channel such requests so that Internet users conducting searches surrounding the violence and the UMP come across an (official) document.". . .