 Claudia Opdenkelder, the founder of Cougarlife.com, suddenly has run into opposition from Google which has banned advertising by sites that link older women with younger men. (TODD GILLIS file photo)
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TORONTO — - Cougars are an endangered species on Google.
I mean the ones wearing fur. Faux fur, usually, and Chanel and Gucci. The common two-legged cougar.
“This is an insult to women everywhere,” fumes Toronto cougar queen Claudia Opdenkelder, 39. “I’m shocked.”
Ms Opdenkelder’s knickers are in a knot because Google has suddenly banned advertising by sites that link older women (cougars) to younger men (cubs).
Among the victims — dare I say whipping boys — is her cougarlife.com.
The site has been going gangbusters for 15 months, adding 500 members a day and $500,000 revenue a month. For Claudia, it’s personal. She lives with a 25-year-old cub.
Boy, oh, boy, cougars are hot. Sites have been popping up like cherries, especially since Cougar Town debuted on TA.
Google blushed — and banned the ads on its 6,000 venues, including such biggies as MySpace and YouTube.
The company Policy Team has deemed all cougar sites as “non-family safe” (as in “adult”). That includes seedy cougar sites, which are basically pickup joints. And more elegant sites, such as cougarlife.com.
So, as of this month, you will no longer see Claudia cuddling her cub, with such messages as, “find a second chance at love.”
Pretty tame. You see hornier scenes on billboards along the Gardiner.
Still, Claudia and her backers at Avid Life Media offered to make whatever creative changes Google wanted. After all, they’ve been paying the Web giant some 100 grand a month. They have a separate deal with Facebook — and no problems.
But the Google ad department replied: “Making adjustments ... won’t really help, since the policy is focused particularly around the concept of ‘cougar dating’ as a whole.”
This is outrageous bigotry against cougars. Feline profiling, I call it.
Such general dating sites as eharmony advertise via Google at will. Same for some “sugar daddy” sites, as long as they’re toned down.
So horny old men like me are okay, but not cougars? Where’s Gloria Steinem when you need her?
Claudia sounds crushed, down the line from a meeting in L.A.
“What Google has done is make older women feel dirty just because we date younger men. Why does anyone care who we date? It’s not like we’re after little boys. It’s a relationship site, like match.com or eharmony.
“We had a Mother’s Day special and 23,000 women signed up, a lot of them single moms and recent divorcees. Is Google calling them perverts?
“It’s insane. The most ridiculous thing ever.”
(Next to the Lanny McDonald trade by that snarly ol’ cat, Punch Imlach.)
You may recognize Claudia as a frequent SUNshine Girl over the years.
And you may recall ABC refused to run her commercials at some stations for the debut of Cougar Town last fall. That’s like yanking popcorn ads during baseball coverage.
Claudia wants Google to treat cougar sites case by case. If the acronym MILF pops up, then pull the ad.
Otherwise, c’mon, let those cougars scratch their itch. They might even mate for life.
You can still find cougarlife.com and others via a regular Google search, but Ms Opdenkelder says more than half her business has come from the now-banned ads.
“This will affect us massively. And from all those (6,000) sites that carry Google ads, we haven’t had a single complaint about ours.
“But apart from the financial issues, I’m just offended. I feel sad for women everywhere.”
Says Avid Media veep Thomas Koshy: “Google’s short-sightedness has put us in the lurch.”
The ol’ double standard strikes again.
I think I’ll form up an army of Moonlight Ladies and march down there and kick some Google ass.
Strobel’s column runs Wednesday to Friday, and Sunday. mike.strobel@sunmedia.ca or 416-947-2265.
