Google "Shopping", unlike Google Search, is a private commercial enterprise. It can display, or not display, shopping results for anything it decides to:
"First, we are starting to transition Google Product Search in the U.S. to a purely commercial model built on Product Listing Ads. This new product discovery experience will be called Google Shopping and the transition will be complete this fall. We believe that having a commercial relationship with merchants will encourage them to keep their product information fresh and up to date."A ban on any given product category is annoying as h3ll, given that Google Shopping is widely used. But I don't think that exercising their rights as a private commercial service to not carry firearm info is "censorship" per se, any more than a vegetarian shopping site that doesn't carry information about where to buy meat.
-- http://googlecommerce.blogspot.com/2012/05/building-better-shopping-experience.html
The Google Search results still carry the full range of info on firearms.
So, NSSF should encourage people to use another shopping service -- there are tons of them. Hit Google where it hurts -- their user base.
(This comment of mine copied from similar prior thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2903851/reply?c=11
I don’t think your vegetarian scenario flies. I would not expect to get any meat information from a vegan site. I would expect a search on Google shopping to bring back...whatever product I am search for. Though I agree it is their prerogative to do so, it just seems wrong and like you said annoying as h3ll.
I sent Google an email asking why but have not heard anything back.