Regulating speech,
especially political speech,
out of existence would make the Founders so proud.

It's what our fathers died for.

@1 and @2 Google decided to stop selling ads in local political elections, no one "banned" these ads or "regulated" political speech. Instead, Google just decided it was more cost-effective for them to get out of that space, because the reporting requirements were problematic.

Admittedly, Eli has done a poor job explaining the dynamic, but all this story is about is a company apparently not following its own internal policy on something like 0.000000001% of its transactions.

@2 - The government didn't ban Google Ads... Google did.. because Google couldn't / wouldn't comply with Washington State political advertising requirements. And if you believe the following:

1) A 750 Billion dollar company can't figure out how to stop selling ads in specific market places.
2) That it's the consumer's responsibility and not Googles' to stop accepting ads from Washington. - This is especially hard to believe when actual people were selling the ads, and not an unintelligent website form.
3) That Google was not aware at some levels that they were still selling advertisements for WA election campaigns and issues.
4) That they were pro-actively enforcing their ban on those ads (like they do on YouTube for Copyright infringement).

Then I've got a large plot of Ocean Front property in the middle of Siberia that's a great bargain.

Good catch, but the bigger story is that due to the cost and complexity of monitoring and reporting such campaign contributions, Eli has effectively banned a form of speech. In my day the 1st Amendment meant something to those of us on the left.