Google to review limits of political ad targeting

In a blog post late on Wednesday, the search giant explained the new rules for their political ads.

“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,” wrote Scott Spencer, VP of product management at Google Ads.

The primary change will be the limitation of targeting terms that can be used for political advertising buys that appear in search results, on-display ads and on YouTube.

Starting from December, if the ad is political in nature, it will only be able to be targeted to age, general and postal code.

Google also emphasised that it’s already “against our policies for any advertiser to make a false claim—whether it’s a claim about the price of a chair or a claim that you can vote by text message, that election day is postponed, or that a candidate has died.”

It cited “misleading claims about the census process, and ads or destinations making demonstrably false claims that could significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process.”

Google noted that “no one can sensibly adjudicate every political claim, counterclaim, and insinuation,” so it plans to take “very limited” action, acting only in cases of “clear violations.”

Companies such as Google, Facebook and Twitter are being scrutinised over their power to reach millions and the effect that can have on political campaigns after the 2016 Cambridge Analytica scandal that saw the data of millions of Facebook users sold to political parties.

There is also increasing worry of fake news posts on social media and disinformation.