Google has removed ads for voter fraud, the report said

Google has reportedly removed polling scam ads that appeared in the last election, according to a new report from the Tech Transparency Project.

TTP, a research arm of the watchdog Campaign for Accountability, recently examined a number of voting-related terms in the Google search engine to determine whether those queries led users to ad fraud. Top phrases included “how to vote,” “how to register to vote,” “early voting,” and “when to vote.”

For the 2020 and 2022 elections, searches for the same terms turned up scam ads, including ones that charged people fraudulent fees to register to vote or provided “a bunch of useless information,” according to the report. Some ads sent users to websites that collected their data for advertising and installed “browser hijackers” that forced users to visit ad-filled sites.

While TTP conducted its assessment from Oct. 1 to 10, 2024, its researchers did not find any of the scam ads that had appeared before. Most of the ads promote legitimate voter education sites and organizations.

The tests were performed on a “clean” version of the Google Chrome browser, released with permission and without previous browsing history. Additionally, the researchers used virtual private networks, to determine whether searches differ based on location. TTP tested a total of 198 ads.

Google did not respond to TTP’s request for comment, according to the initiative’s blog. Mashable reached out to Google for comment but did not receive a response as of press time.

TTP argued in a blog post that Google can effectively scrub fraudulent ads from search results: “The findings suggest that Google is able to enforce its advertising policies and prevent unscrupulous actors from taking advantage of potential voters during elections. .”