“In June 2019, the Google Ads healthcare and medicines policy for abortion will be updated with the following requirements for advertisers in the United States, United Kingdom, and Ireland:
- Advertisers who want to run ads using keywords related to getting an abortion will first need to be certified as an advertiser that either provides abortions or does not provide abortions.
- To get certified, advertisers must submit an application where they self-declare as an organization that either provides abortions or does not provide abortions. The application will require some basic information about your organization. Once your submitted information has been reviewed and verified, you’ll receive a certification.
- Depending on how you’re certified Google will automatically generate one of the following in-ad disclosures for your abortion product or service ads: “Provides abortions” or “Does not provide abortions.”
- The disclosures will show on all Search ad formats. This added transparency will help ensure that users have the necessary information to decide which abortion-related ads are most relevant to them.
“While this policy won’t go into effect until June 2019, advertisers can apply for certification beginning today. To ensure your ads aren’t negatively impacted when this policy goes into effect, we recommend you apply for certification as soon as possible.”
Learn more from Google about abortion advertiser certification and disclosures.
See also the behaviour of anti-abortion clinics described in this Guardian report – where women are directed to clinics whose advertisements suggest that the clinics provide abortions when they do not.This is some of the background to why Google has changed its policy on these advertisements.SOURCE: Google, May 2019