No Abortion Groupon For You

“Guns, abortion and Donald Trump: Three topics so controversial that Groupon doesn’t want its brand anywhere near them,” declares CNN Money. Not exactly.

A campaign to get advertisers to drop Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice set its sights on Groupon. The company responded that “Groupon has never been a sponsor of The Apprentice on TV or on the web,” but that some of its NBC.com ads may have appeared on the Apprentice homepage. They’ve promised to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

But it’s not “political,” a company blogger explains:

It’s the same reason we don’t run deals on guns or abortion…this isn’t a political statement, it’s avoiding intentionally upsetting a segment of our customers.

This “guns and abortion” thing has been trumpeted by the company before. Last year, founder Andrew Mason told AOL,

“There are things you won’t see Groupon feature. We won’t do shooting ranges, abortion clinics — we wouldn’t do strip clubs or liposuction, things like that.”

That’s not strictly true, unless you think numerous poledancing class offers don’t count. Or the ones for shooting ranges. Or, um, actual liposuction.

We’re not necessarily suggesting the company should march over to Planned Parenthood or an independent clinic for some cut-rate suction-aspirations. (Although on second thought, some local abortion funds struggling to help low-income women denied state or D.C. Medicaid may welcome all the help they can get. And the company does offer other medical services like dental and chiropractic.) But it’s clear that some taboos run deeper than others.

Groupon Won’t Place Apprentice Site Ads Amid Complaints About Trump [Bloomberg]
Things Go Viral On The Internet…Who Knew? [Groupon]
Groupon Pulls Ad From Trump Site [CNN]
Related: Groupon’s Andrew Mason, The Unlikely Dealmaker [AOL]