New Google policy on political ads aims to get info to broader audience
Advertisers will not be allowed to target individuals based on party affiliation
With the 2020 presidential election now less than a year away, Google is placing broad new restrictions on how political ads are targeted on its sites, including no longer allowing advertisers to target their ads based on a voter’s political ties.
Google announced the changes late Wednesday, saying that the moves would “align our approach to election ads with long-established practices in media such as TV, radio, and print, and result in election ads being more widely seen and available for public discussion.”
Scott Spencer, vice president of product management for Google Ads, said in a blog post that the new guidelines will let advertisers use only individuals age, gender and general location (such as a zip or postal code) for the purposes of targeted political ads. Google said advertisers will continue to be allowed to use “contextual targeting”, which includes serving ads to people reading or watching a story about a specific topic, such as the economy.
However, Google said political ads will not be allowed to be targeted at particular individuals based on factors such as their political affiliation, leaning or public voting records.
Google said the new policies will go into effect within a week in the United Kingdom, and ahead of its upcoming general election, in the European Union by the end of this year, and across the rest the world starting Jan. 6, 2020. The restrictions will apply to ads shown on Google’s search engine, YouTube and display ads the company sells that show up on other websites.
Spencer said the state of political discourse heading into the teeth of next year’s presidential election, and individuals’ concerns about the veracity and content in online political advertising were behind Google’s ad policy decision.
“Given recent concerns and debates about political advertising, and the importance of shared trust in the democratic process, we want to improve voters’ confidence in the political ads they may see on our ad platforms,” Spencer said. “Regardless of the cost or impact to spending on our platforms, we believe these changes will help promote confidence in digital political advertising and trust in electoral processes worldwide.”
Google’s moves come as social-media leaders Facebook and Twitter have taken differing approaches to political ads on their sites. Earlier this month, Twitter said it would enact a ban on all candidate and issue ads beginning Nov. 22.
A Twitter spokesperson said the company had no comment on Google’s new political ad policy.
However, Facebook said in a company Twitter post that, “For over a year, we’ve provided unprecedented transparency into all U. S. federal & state campaigns & we prohibit voter suppression in all ads. As we’ve said, we are looking at different ways we might refine our approach to political ads.”
On Wednesday, Facebook said it was giving advertisers new tools to better control where their ads appear, and the company has come under criticism for keeping in place a policy of not factchecking political ads that could include false information.