Google’s political ad policy covers ads about federal elections, state-level elections, federal or state level political parties, or state-level ballot measure, initiative, or propositions. Google’s political ad policy does not extend to news content or ads for products or services, including promotional political merchandise like t-shirts.

In order to run political ads, Google requires that advertisers go through a simple verification process by filling out a form on their site, and they use that information to add a “paid for by” disclaimer onto an ad. The verification process takes 3-5 days.

Additionally, Google restricts the ways that political advertisers can target their ad campaigns. For more, see the targeting section.

Google also reserves and has exercised the right to restrict ads around certain topics they deem controversial. Previous examples of this include messaging around COVID-19 early in the pandemic and messaging around abortion rights after Roe v. Wade was overturned. In both instances, any restrictions were relatively short-lived.

All political ads and ad spending is publicly available in Google’s Transparency Report.