Google has earned more than $10 million over the last two years from advertisements misdirecting users who were seeking abortion services to “pregnancy crisis centres” that do not actually provide care, according to a new study.
The study revealed through enterprise analytics tool Semrush that a new report from the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) revealed that fake abortion clinics have spent a combined $10.2 million on Google search ads over the last two years.
The CCDH revealed in its findings published on June 15, that these fake reproductive health clinics that are also called Crisis Pregnancy Centres, appear to offer independent advice on reproductive healthcare but are actually run by ideological anti-choice organisations that try to shame those seeking abortions and employ scare tactics based on medical misinformation,”
The report also showed that the number of Crisis pregnancy centres that had placed these ads on Google were worth about a total of more than $10 million over two years. Also, it revealed that over 2600 of these so-called Crisis Pregnancy Centres operating across the U.S., outnumbered genuine clinics by a factor of three to one.
These allegations come shortly after a separate study from the CCDH in June 2022 was released, which found one in 10 Google searches for abortion services in US “trigger states”. The abortion was targeted immediately after the reversal of Roe v Wade – led to crisis pregnancy clinics according to the study.
A spokesperson from Google, Michael Aciman, said that the company policy requires any organization that wants to advertise to people seeking information about abortion services “to be certified and clearly disclose whether they do or do not offer abortions.”
