Global search giant Google removed several fraudulent ads that targeted American citizens looking for voting information leading to the presidential election scheduled for this November.
The Non-profit watchdog Tech Transparency Project which discovered these ads highlighted that keywords such as “vote by mail,” “where is my polling place” and “register to vote” led users to ad links that either collected their data, charged the user for voter registration, or planted unwanted software in the system. A third among 600 ads generated provided the same results.
The Tech Transparency Project report also showed that the “register to vote” search query directed users to a site from PrivacyWall.org that charged $129 for “same-day processing” of voter registration while the US citizens are not required to pay for voter registration.
“We have strict policies in place to protect users from false information about voting procedures, and when we find ads that violate our policies and present harm to users, we remove them and block advertisers from running similar ads in the future.” Official Google Statement
A Google spokeswoman also stated that they were not yet sure how those ads moved past their stringent approval process.
“Some people may find it difficult to distinguish Google ads from other kinds of content because as of January, search ads on Google feature the same typeface and color scheme as organic search results,” the report from Tech Transparency Project added.
