Google Got More Than $10 Million for Ads That Misled People Seeking Abortions

This report demonstrates the scale of deceptive advertising by anti-choice groups, fake healthcare clinics and the marketing infrastructure that underpins the spread of their medical misinformation, in a post-Dobbs digital environment,” CCDH’s CEO Imran Ahmed said in the report’s introduction. Rise of crisis pregnancy centers Anti-abortion centers advertised as “crisis pregnancy centers” have long existed, but have continued to grow their reach in the U.S. following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade last year. In 2022, they outnumbered actual abortion clinics in the U.S. 3 to 1. Read more: The Fall of Roe v. Wade Has Permanently Changed the Doctor-Patient Relationship Americans make an estimated 102 million searches for queries related to abortion each year, but researchers say Google’s advertising has played a key part in misleading abortion seekers by directing users towards paid ads that appear at the top of the page and are nearly identical to organic search results. A separate study by Varn, a digital marketing agency, last year found that up to 68% of users are unable to distinguish ads from organic search results. The CCDH researchers noted that one marketing firm that helped anti-choice organizations misdirect “abortion-determined” people to fake clinics stated that Google was the top source of referrals. Crisis pregnancy centers pay the search engine to place ads with key search queries, such as &ldq...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized abortion biztech2030 healthscienceclimate News Source Type: news