Google has announced that limits will be placed on political advertising. Advertisers would no longer be able to target audience on the basis of public voter records political affiliation.
This information was disclosed by Scott Spencer – the Vice President of product management and advertising at Google – in a blog post. He stated that a ban would be placed on political advertisers from reaching targeted customers with political connections.
These advertisers can still reach their target audience on the basis of gender, postal code and age. They can also make use of contextual ads to target audiences who are engaged in related activities to their adverts. However, they cannot specify a particular location or geographical area to target.
Advertisers will still be able to target voters based on age, gender and zip code, but no more specific location targeting will be permitted. Contextual advertising, like “serving ads to people reading or watching a story about, say, the economy,” Google said, will also be permitted.
When Will Political Advertising Restrictions Be Implemented?
According to Scott Spencer, these new restrictions will be implemented globally by the 6th of January, 2020. However, it will be implemented in the United Kingdom by the end of 2019, just before the general election begins.
He stated that the reasons for this were due to recent issues arising in the aspect of political advertising. This move was to promote voters’ confidence and place the significance of shared trust in the upcoming election.
Before now, Twitter had announced via its CEO – Jack Dorsey – that all political advertising would be banned taking effect from 22nd November. Just this Friday, the company issued more limits on cause-based advertisers via its guidelines.
Google following Twitter to place limits on political advertising places more pressure on Facebook’s micro-target advertising. All political advertisers with Google are urged to comply with these new restrictions to promote responsible political advertising.
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