In July 2023, Google said it would no longer block advertisers from using trademarks that belong to other organizations.
This change quickly became a headache for nonprofits that buy Google search ads to find donors. They discovered that other companies were using their brands to attract Internet traffic.
Samaritan’s Purse, a nonprofit that helps victims of natural disasters, has found itself with new competition in the split-second auctions that determine which ads appear at the top of Google search results. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital competes with obscure search engines eager to bring more users to its sites. Misleading ads about the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees have spread in Google search results, according to data from SpyFu and Semrush, which track digital ads.
This pattern illustrates the unintended effects of Google’s policy changes and how ambiguous changes made to its advertising rules can have massive ramifications for groups that rely on the world’s largest search engine. In this case, nonprofits were forced to compete with companies that could better afford Google’s advertising prices.
The conflict also gets to the heart of concerns from regulators around the world that Google has simply become too powerful. It was the company It was considered an illegal monopoly In research last year. By August, a federal judge will decide what changes need to be made to promote a more competitive search market. In a separate case, A A federal judge is expected to rule Soon we will discuss whether Google has violated antitrust law by monopolizing advertising technology, the types of tools that place ads across the web.
Google said it changed its trademark policy as part of its efforts to comply with Europe Digital Services LawIt is a multifaceted law that requires technology companies to monitor their platforms more aggressively and stop ads that target users based on their identity.
A Google spokesperson said that competing search engines are allowed to display ads that take users to their sites, but the ads may not be misleading or deceptive.
“To ensure things are clear for users, all search ads are prominently labeled, display the advertiser’s website, and should indicate whether they lead to another search engine,” the spokesperson said.
When someone searches for something on Google, Google automatically runs an ad auction. Advertisers create ads in advance and provide Google with parameters on bid sizes and budget, as well as the types of searches they want to appear on.
Google’s systems look for relevant ads and decide whether or not to place any in search results. Algorithms select winning ads and decide how to rank them based on factors such as bid price, competition from other advertisers, and ad quality and relevance.
Before Google’s policy change, only product sellers and information pages (such as product review sites) could use third-party brand names to promote themselves, as long as they were providing the services they claimed and were transparent.
With the update, Google’s search competitors could do the same. Data from SpyFu and Semrush showed that Google’s change to its brand advertising rules led to an influx of ads from smaller search engines including Ask.com and Info.com. More competition and successful shows meant higher advertising prices, which was a particular problem for nonprofits. (Advertising costs can also fluctuate depending on the quality of the ads.)
Dozens of domains, including Info.com and Ask-owned sites Find Results Now and Quickly Seek, bid against nonprofits to appear on Google search results pages. Ad titles may have misled users into thinking they were clicking on a non-profit’s official website, although the smaller type below often indicates that users can search for the charity on their site. (Google required that its ads “must be clear as to whether the advertiser is a seller or an informational site.”)
“Samaritan’s Wallet Donation – Visit Our Website,” reads one ad from Discover Results Fast, a niche search site owned by Ask. When users clicked on the link, they were taken to search results from the Ask Media Group domain rather than the charity’s website.
When Samaritan’s Purse realized that other sites were competing with its ads on Google, it said it reached out to some of them to address the issue. But the nonprofit said it had not reached out to Ask or Info.com, and declined to provide further comment.
“We are aware that other organizations have bid against us on Google Ads,” a Samaritan’s Purse spokeswoman said in a statement. “Our team managing Google Ads has already been in contact with these organizations.”
In July 2023, the delivery of search results, which is the Ask domain, said, “Amnesty International website – here.” In fact, the nonprofit’s website wasn’t even there. And under the link there was an offer to “Search here now!” According to the text of the ad archived by Smersh.
In December 2023, an Ask landing page called Look Up Smart used a common misspelling of St. Jude, a popular children’s hospital, in its ad. “Donate to Saint Jude | “Visit our website,” the site said in the Google ad saved by Semrush, without any fine print specifying that users were taken to the search page.
During 2024, Ask domains and other sites continued to place Google ads related to Samaritan Purse.
Both Ask Media Group and System1, Info.com’s parent company, said they rely on automated tools to create ads, determine bids and decide what types of searches they appear in. Ask said it used Google tools for these functions, while System1 said it used internal and Google technologies.
A spokesperson for Ask Media Group said there was absolutely no strategy to “profit at the expense of charities”. Nonprofits account for less than 0.001 percent of its ads on Google, and its ad price data does not indicate that its “very limited advertising in these areas has had any systematic negative impact” on nonprofits’ ad costs, the spokesperson said. The Ask Media representative added that charities can ask the company to stop using their names in ads.
Often, nonprofits kept the first ad slot at the top of search results when users searched for their names in Google, but they had to pay more money to Google for that privilege, said five people who work with prominent U.S. nonprofits. And international, who requested it. Anonymity for fear of retaliation from Google.
A Google spokesperson said the company has given charities more than $17 billion worth of free advertising since 2003. Amnesty International, St. Jude and more than a dozen other major nonprofits declined to comment for this story.
Last fall, when the remnants of a hurricane devastated part of North Carolina, nonprofits including Samaritan’s Purse, Americares and Convoy of Hope advertised on Google search, trying to raise donations to help those affected by the storms. Info.com ran competing ads, as did Ask Media Group under domains including Search Online Info and Info to Discover.
System1 said its subsidiary Info.com did not intend to advertise against Samaritan’s Purse, and would discontinue any advertising that might inadvertently increase the group’s costs. The company added that it follows Google’s trademark rules and policies, and that the incident does not represent its broader business practices.
These types of ads continued through December. On December 30, Discover Results Fast was the third sponsored link when users searched Google for Samaritan’s Purse.
The nonprofit, which focuses on hurricane relief efforts, medical research and sponsorship advertising, said it has had to pay Google more for ads since Google made changes to its branding.
In the last two days of 2023, a major charity, which asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, paid Google $200,000 for advertising, double what it paid on the same days in 2022, before the change took effect, two people familiar with the matter said. . With advertising. The group exhausted its marketing budget and had to stop advertising on its biggest fundraising day of the year, December 31. As a result, the people said, she lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations.
Other nonprofits may be losing revenue from donors who never reach their websites after being redirected to Ask sites, said Ariel Garcia, director of intelligence at Check My Ads, an online advertising watchdog.
Ms. Garcia said Google’s policy change “was one of the sneaky little ways they can make revenue from their products.”
