Google to restrict political adverts worldwide

Google will no longer allow political campaigns to target advertising at people based on their supposed political leanings.

Campaigns will also be unable to match their own database of prospective voters against Google's user base, to target individuals across platforms such as YouTube and Google search.

The policy will begin in the UK "within a week", with other regions later.

Campaigns will still be able to target based on age, gender and location.

Google added it would also take action on obviously misleading statements in ads, putting it at odds with Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg said his social network would not fact-check advertising from political candidates or campaigns.

Twitter, meanwhile, said it would disallow political advertising altogether.

Google’s new policy puts it somewhere roughly in the middle, suggesting a hands-off approach, with only the the most obvious misinformation being acted upon.

“We recognize that robust political dialogue is an important part of democracy, and no one can sensibly adjudicate every political claim, counterclaim, and insinuation,” said Scott Spencer, Google’s head of product management for Google Ads, in a blog post published on Wednesday.

"So we expect that the number of political ads on which we take action will be very limited - but we will continue to do so for clear violations.”