NEWSLETTER
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. They discovered that other companies were using their trademarks to attract Internet traffic.
Samaritan's Purse, a nonprofit that helps victims of natural disasters, has encountered 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 competed with obscure search engines eager to attract more users to their sites. And misleading ads about UNHCR, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, proliferated in Google search results, according to data from SpyFu and Semrush, two sites that track digital ads.
The pattern illustrated the unintended effects of Google's policy changes and how obscure changes made to its advertising rules can have huge repercussions on groups that depend on the world's largest search engine. In this case, nonprofits were forced to compete with companies that could better pay Google's advertising rates.
The conflict also gets to the heart of concerns from regulators around the world that Google has simply become too powerful. Last year the company was determined to be an illegal monopoly in search. In 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 advertising technology, the types of tools that place ads on the web.
Google said it made the policy change on trademarks as part of its effort to comply with Europe's Digital Services Act, a multi-pronged law that requires technology companies to police their platforms more aggressively and stop targeted ads. to users based on their identity.
A Google spokesperson said that competing search engines can serve ads that direct users to their sites, but that the ads cannot be misleading or deceptive.
“To ensure things are clear to users, all ads in search are prominently 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 about their bids and budget sizes, as well as the types of searches in which they would like to appear.
Google's systems look for relevant ads and decide whether to place any of them in the search results. Algorithms choose winning ads and determine how they are ranked based on factors such as bid price, competition from other advertisers, and ad quality and relevance.
Before Google's policy change, only product resellers and information sites (such as product review sites) could use third-party trademarks to promote themselves, as long as they provided the services they claimed to offer and were transparent.
With the update, Google's search competitors could do the same. Google's change to its brand advertising rules led to an influx of ads from smaller search engines, including Ask.com and Info.com, data from SpyFu and Semrush showed. Greater competition and successful bids 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 called Find Results Now and Quickly Seek, bid against nonprofits to appear on Google's search results pages. The ad headlines may have misled users into thinking they were clicking on a nonprofit's official website, although the smaller type below often said users could search for the charity. in your place. (Google stipulated that its ads “must be clear as to whether the advertiser is a reseller or an informational site.”)
“Samaritan's Purse Giving: Visit our website,” said an ad for Discover Results Fast, a specialty search site owned by Ask. When users clicked the link, they were directed to search results for 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 tried contacting some of them to fix the problem. But the nonprofit said it did not contact Ask or Info.com and declined to comment further.
“We are aware that other organizations have been bidding against us on Google advertising,” a Samaritan's Purse spokeswoman said in a statement. “Our team managing 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.” In fact, the nonprofit's website wasn't there. Below the link was an offer to “Search here now!” according to the ad text, which was archived by Semrush.
In December 2023, an Ask landing page called Look Up Smart used a common misspelling of St. Jude, the famous children's hospital, in its ad. “Donation to Saint Jude | Please visit our website,” the site said in the Google ad saved by Semrush, with no fine print specifying that users were being directed to a search page.
Until 2024, Ask domains and other sites continued to place Google ads related to Samaritan Purse.
Ask Media Group and System1, Info.com's parent company, said they relied 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 features, while System1 said it used internal and Google technologies.
A spokesperson for Ask Media Group said there was never a strategy to “make profits at the expense of charities”. Nonprofits account for less than 0.001 percent of its ads on Google, the spokesperson said, and its data on ad prices does not indicate that its “very limited advertising in these areas has had any systemic negative impact” on advertising costs for nonprofit organizations. Charities can ask the company to stop using their names in ads, the Ask Media representative added.
Much of the time, nonprofits kept the first ad space at the top of search results when users searched for their names on Google, but they had to pay Google more money for the privilege, five people who work said. with prominent American and international nonprofit organizations, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation from Google.
A Google spokesperson said the company has donated more than $17 billion in free ads to charities since 2003. Amnesty International, St. Jude and more than a dozen other major nonprofits declined to comment for this report. history.
Last fall, when the remnants of a hurricane devastated part of North Carolina, nonprofits like Samaritan's Purse, Americares and Convoy of Hope advertised on Google Search, trying to collect donations to help those affected by the hurricanes. storms. Info.com ran competing ads, as did Ask Media Group on domains including Search Online Info and Info to Discover.
System1 said its Info.com subsidiary had no intention of advertising against Samaritan's Purse and that it would cease any advertising that may have inadvertently increased 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 announcements persisted until December. On December 30, Discover Results Fast was the third sponsored link when users Googled Samaritan's Purse.
Nonprofits focused on hurricane relief efforts, conservation and medical research and care ads 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 identified for fear of retaliation, paid Google $200,000 for advertising, double what it paid on the same days in 2022, before the change came into effect. into 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, he lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations.
Other nonprofits are likely losing revenue from donors who never reach their websites after being redirected to Ask sites, said Arielle Garcia, director of intelligence at Check My Ads, an online advertising watchdog. .
Google's policy change “was another one of those sneaky little ways they can make money off of their products,” Garcia said.
