Spy Cameras? Tracking Devices? Check What Soon Will Be Banned From Google Ads
Are you selling tracking devices or monitoring devices? From August it may get harder to advertise your services and products in Google Ads. Learn more about the upcoming Google Security Policy update.
On the 11th of August Google will implement new update regarding blocking the unfair proceedings. Advertising of espionage products and services, as well as monitoring ones, will become prohibited. What’s the result? With the upcoming update forbidden will be to advertise products like:
- Software monitoring text messages, calls or the browser history,
- GPS devices designed to monitor or track people without their permission,
- Monitoring devices (car cameras, hidden house surveillance cameras, and so on) as espionage products.
Here are some examples of ads that will be banned after August, 11:
1. Ads under the phrase “spy camera nanny”
2. Ads after entering a query “wiretapping device”
The restriction will not apply to:
- Private detective services,
- Parental control devices.
What Are The Consequences Of Policy Violations?
If you’re currently promoting products that will become forbidden by Google Ads, make sure to remove them from your product feed and change their settings. Otherwise, you may face one of Google’s penalties:
- Ad or extension rejection
- Account suspension
- Remarketing list turn off
It’s worth mentioning that your account won’t be suspended immediately – you’ll be warned about this fact 7 days before it’ll be suspended.
Other Restrictions
Espionage products and services are not the first ones to be banned from Google Ads for enabling unfair proceedings. Other prohibited ads relate to:
- Products or services with the purpose to mislead someone, for example: forgery of documents, writing a thesis, or selling positive online reviews.
- Products or services that enable people to get unauthorized access to systems, devices, or services like: radar detectors, hacking services.
Interesting, wondering if this really will have any impact on safety.
For sure it will make selling such devices a bit harder – we can hope that difficult access to these goods will influence the number of buys, but to be honest I wouldn’t hope for decrease in demand.