In July 2023, Google said it would no longer restrict advertisers from using trademarks belonging to other organizations.
That change quickly became a headache for nonprofits that buy Google search ads to find donors. Other outfits, they found, were using their trademarks to attract Internet traffic.
Samaritan’s Purse, a nonprofit that helps victims of natural disasters, found itself with new competition in the split-second auctions that determine which ads appear at the top of Google search results. Children’s Research Hospital St. Jude competed with obscure search engines eager to bring more users to their sites. And misleading ads about UNHCR, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, were rampant in Google search results, according to data from SpyFu and Semrush, two sites that track digital advertising.
The model illustrates the unintended effects of Google’s policy changes and how subtle changes made to its advertising rules can have far-reaching consequences for groups that depend on the world’s largest search engine. In this case, nonprofits were forced to compete with companies that could better afford Google’s advertising fees.
The conflict also comes at the heart of concerns from regulators around the world that Google has simply become too powerful. The company was found to be an illegal monopoly in search last year. By August, a federal judge will decide what changes to make to foster a more competitive search market. In a separate case, a federal judge is expected to rule soon on whether Google violated antitrust law with a monopoly on ad technology, the types of tools that place ads online.
Google said it made the trademark policy change as part of its effort to comply with Europe’s Digital Services Act, a multifaceted law that requires tech companies to police their platforms more aggressively and ban ads that target users based on their identity.
A Google spokesman said competing search engines are allowed to display ads that lead users to their sites, but the ads cannot be misleading or deceptive.
“To make sure things are clear to users, all search ads are clearly labeled, display the advertiser’s website and must indicate whether they lead to another search engine,” the spokesperson said.
Every time a person searches for something on Google, Google runs an automated ad auction. Advertisers create ads in advance and give Google parameters on their bid and budget size, as well as the types of searches they want to appear on.
Google’s systems look for relevant ads and decide whether to place any of them in search results. Algorithms select the winning ads and determine how they rank based on factors such as bid price, competition from other advertisers, and the quality and relevance of the ads.
Before Google’s policy change, only product resellers and information sites (such as product review sites) could use third-party brand names to promote themselves, as long as they provided the services they claimed and were transparent.
With the update, Google’s search competitors can do the same. Google’s change in trademark advertising rules led to an influx of ads from smaller search engines, including Ask.com and Info.com, data from SpyFu and Semrush showed. More competition and successful bids meant higher advertising prices, which was a particular problem for nonprofits. (Ad costs can also fluctuate depending on the quality of the ads.)
Dozens of domains, including Info.com and Ask-owned sites called Find Results Now and Quickly Seek, bid against nonprofits to appear on Google’s search results pages. Ad headlines may have tricked users into thinking they are clicking on a nonprofit’s official website, although smaller type below often says users can search for the charity on their site. (Google stipulated that their ads “must be clear whether the advertiser is a reseller or informational site.”)
“Samaritan’s Purse Giving – Visit Our Website,” read an ad from Discover Results Fast, a niche search site owned by Ask. When users clicked 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 other sites were competing against its Google ads, it said it tried to contact some of them to address the issue. But the nonprofit said it did not reach out to Ask or Info.com and declined further comment.
“We are aware that other organizations have bid against us for Google ads,” a Samaritan’s Purse spokeswoman said in a statement. “Our team that manages Google ads has already been in contact with those organizations.”
In July 2023, Search Results Delivery, an Ask domain, said “Amnesty International website – right here”. The nonprofit’s website, in fact, was not there. Underneath the link was an offer to “Search here now!” according to the text of the announcement, which is archived by Semrush.
In December 2023, an Ask homepage called Look Up Smart used a common spelling error of St. Jude, the famous children’s hospital, in its advertisement. “Donation to St. Jude | Visit our website,” the page said in the Google ad maintained by Semrush, without any fine print specifying users were being sent to a search page.
Through 2024, Ask domains and other sites continued to place Google ads related to Samaritan Purse.
Ask Media Group and System1, the parent company of Info.com, both said they rely on automated tools to create ads, select offers and decide the types of searches in which they appear. Ask said it used Google tools for these functions, while System1 said it used internal and Google technologies.
A spokesman for Ask Media Group said there was never a strategy “to profit at the expense of charity”. Nonprofits represent less than 0.001 percent of its Google ads, the spokesman said, and its ad price data does not show that “very limited advertising in these areas had any systemic negative impact” on Google’s ad costs. non-profit organizations. Charities can ask the company to stop using their names in ads, the Ask Media representative added.
Most of the time, nonprofits landed the first ad spot at the top of search results when users Googled their names, but they had to pay Google more money for the privilege, five people who work with nonprofits said. US and international celebrities, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation from Google.
A Google spokesman said the company has given away more than $17 billion in free advertising to charities 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 storm devastated parts of North Carolina, nonprofits including Samaritan’s Purse, Americares and Convoy of Hope all advertised on Google search, trying to collect donations to help those affected by the storm. storms. Info.com posted competing ads, as did Ask Media Group under domains including Search Info Online and Info to Discover.
System1 said its Info.com subsidiary had no intention of advertising against Samaritan’s Purse and would cease any advertising that might have inadvertently increased the group’s costs. The company added that it follows Google’s trademark rules and policies, and the incident was not representative of its broader business practices.
These types of ads continued until December. On December 30, Discover Fast Results was the third sponsored link when users googled Samaritan’s Purse.
Nonprofits focused on hurricane relief efforts, conservation and medical research and care advertising said they have had to pay Google more for ads since Google made its trademark changes.
In the last two days of 2023, a major charity, which asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, paid Google $200,000 to advertise, double what it paid on the same days in 2022, before the change to take effect, two people familiar with the matter said. with advertisements. The group ran out of its marketing budget and had to stop advertising on its biggest fundraising day of the year, December 31. As a result, the people said, hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations were lost.
Other nonprofits may be losing revenue from donors who never reach their websites after being redirected to Ask pages, said Arielle Garcia, director of intelligence at Check My Ads, an online advertising watchdog.
Google’s policy change “was another one of those little sneaky ways that they’re able to squeeze revenue out of their products,” Ms. Garcia.
