Targeted election advertising - tailor-made for a well-defined target group - is an important tool of political parties, especially in the US election campaign. After stopping political ads on Twitter, however, Google is now also restricting the options for the targeted placement of campaign advertising.
Individual user groups should therefore only be addressed according to three characteristics: age, gender and postcode. Until now, this was possible with regard to the assumed political orientation.
At the same time, however, it remains possible to switch the ads to individual search words such as "economy", as Google explained in a blog entry in the night of Thursday.
In a further important step, Google emphasized that misrepresentation in any advertising violates the rules of the platform - even when it comes to politics. For example, this regulation also applies to manipulated media such as videos.
You can see that on Facebook much more relaxed. The company has recently sparked heated discussions in the US with the announcement that it has been proven to leave false contributions from politicians on the platform so as not to interfere in the political process. Messages from politicians are also not submitted to the independent fact-checking partners of the online network.
All too often Google does not have to intervene - believes Google
Google said that the Internet corporation is unlikely to intervene in political advertising - "but we will continue to do so in the event of clear violations." Twitter, meanwhile, will no longer broadcast political messages as advertising on Thursday. The reach must be earned and not bought, Twitter boss Jack Dorsey explained as justification.
At Google, the new rules will initially be implemented in the UK - where a new parliament will be elected on 12 December - within a week. By the end of the year they will apply in the EU and in the rest of the world on 6 January 2020.
The financial service Bloomberg reported that Google will also block the possibility for political ads to upload their own contact lists for targeted addressing of users. This is considered an important tool for companies as well as parties to locate people they already know on the platform. Facebook offers its advertisers a similar function.