‘In an effort to beef up users’ experiences with AdWords’, Google has extended its ban on porn and sexual imagery from appearing in its AdWords advertisements across its network, a year after elimination of blogs from its Blogger network featuring ads for online porn sites.
With the new rules turned effective this week, Google notified porn site advertisers in June that it will no longer allow ads featuring ‘graphic sexual acts with intent to arouse including sex acts such as masturbation’.
Google noted in the email spotted by Morality in Media,: "Beginning in the coming weeks, we’ll no longer accept ads that promote graphic depictions of sexual acts including, but not limited to, hardcore pornography; graphic sexual acts including sex acts such as masturbation; genital, anal, and oral sexual activity.
"When we make this change, Google will disapprove all ads and sites that are identified as being in violation of our revised policy," the search major added.
"Our system identified your account as potentially affected by this policy change. We ask that you make any necessary changes to your ads and sites to comply so that your campaigns can continue to run."
‘Porn’ turned out to one of the common searches on Google and in May alone, there were about 351 million searches for ‘sex’, ‘porn’, ‘free porn’ and ‘porno’.
The latest policy will also ban AdWords advertisers from promoting prostitution services, erotic massages and ‘intimate companionship services’, while ads of strip clubs, lap dancing, and adult and sexual dating sites are still allowed.
Google generated $13.8bn (£8bn) in ad revenue during the last quarter, accounting for about 90% of the search major’s overall revenue.
