NARAL Pro-Choice America has convinced Google to remove what it says are “predatory ‘crisis pregnancy center'” advertisements from the search engine.
The pro-abortion group claimed that, when one Googled “abortion clinic” ads funded by crisis pregnancy centers appeared 79 percent of the time, even though such centers of not provide abortion services. Further, Pro-abortion and Democratic lawmakers argue that crisis pregnancy centers provide misleading information to women about the dangers of abortion.
“Google’s leadership in removing the majority of these ads is a victory for truth in advertising and for the women who have been targeted by a deliberate misinformation campaign by crisis pregnancy centers,” Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a statement Monday. “The action taken by Google to address this pressing problem raises the bar for other search engines to monitor and enforce their own advertising policies.”
Google has an advertising policy that reads “Advertising can be informative, entertaining, metaphorical, or even tell a story. However, any factual claims and offers should always be credible and accurate. Misleading, inaccurate, and deceitful ads hurt everyone — users, publishers, developers, and advertisers.”
NARAL said that the group took a log of the “deceptive” advertisements and brought them to Google.
“Google has committed to continue to monitor these ads and NARAL will remain vigilant and alert Google and any other search engine about CPC advertising that violate their policies and the dangers it poses for women across the country,” the pro-abortion group wrote in a release.
Google said in a statement to The Washington Post that it applied its own advertising policy in its review of the ads.
“We’re constantly reviewing ads to ensure they comply with our AdWords policies, which include strict guidelines related to ad relevance, clarity, and accuracy,” Google said. “If we find violations, we’ll take the appropriate actions — including account disablings and blacklists — as quickly as possible.”
