Google bars elections ads from using political leanings, voter data

- Alphabet Inc’s Google will stop giving advertisers the ability to target election ads using data such as public voter records and general political affiliations, the company said in a blog post on Wednesday.

Google said it would limit audience targeting for election ads to age, gender and general location at a postal code level. Political advertisers also can still contextually target, such as serving ads to people reading about a certain topic. “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,” Scott Spencer, vice president of product management for Google Ads, said in the blog post.

The voter file feature had enabled FlexPoint to target people who did not regularly cast a ballot and encourage them to turn out. The loss of such targeting could result in “a slow decline of civic participation” and hurt the ability of “insurgent, underfunded candidates” to gain support, Cameron said.

A Google spokeswoman told Reuters on Wednesday that the video would still be allowed under the latest policy.Google also clarified that its policies for political and nonpolitical ads prohibit doctored and manipulated media.

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