Google restricts targeting of political ads

Google is going to limit the possibilities for political advertisements. Such advertisements may no longer be targeted based on political affiliation or voting behaviour. Advertisers are still allowed to target by age, gender, and location.

The changes to Google’s advertising policy will be implemented in the United Kingdom before the end of the year, before the elections there. The new rules will take effect worldwide from January 6, 2020. The rules apply to ads on Google and YouTube.

With the new rules, Google is making it more difficult to target political ads to specific voters. Now advertisers in the United States can target their messages specifically to people with a certain political preference and they can also use public voter records, Google writes. After the adjustments, this is no longer possible.

The new rules allow political ads to be targeted only by age, gender and location at the zip code level. Advertisers are still allowed to use contextual targeting, for example they can choose to show their message in articles about the economy.

Google says it has never allowed granular microtargeting for political ads and has adhered to local regulations for political ads. The search giant says it is making the new changes because of the recent debate surrounding political ads.

Twitter announced in late October that it will ban all political ads from its platform. The social network believes that politicians should not be able to sell the reach of their message, but should obtain it organically. The ban on political advertisements on Twitter will come into effect on Friday.