Google announces new rules prohibiting discriminatory housing and job ads

Google announced its new policy to tackle unlawful discrimination by barring targeted advertisements related to housing and employment based on users’ gender, age, parental status, or marital status. The latest policy decision, which will take effect by the end of the year, comes after the widespread protests against racial discrimination following the custodial death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

However, the tech giant said in a statement the new rules was not a reaction to the ongoing protests against discrimination. Google spokesperson Elijah Lawal reportedly said that the company had been working constructively with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on these issues since last year, and the decision timeline has not been driven by current events.

Last year, HUD charged Facebook for selling discriminatory housing ads after which the social media giant banned advertisers from using ZIP codes, age and gender to target their customers. HUD had earlier said that the department to looking into similar concerns about Google and Twitter.

'Surveillance-based' business model

An Amnesty International report had also said that the “surveillance-based” business model of Google and Facebook is a threat to human rights. The 60-page report claimed that the issues go beyond Google and Facebook and has become the core of many businesses such as advertisers, data brokers, start-ups and several non-tech companies looking to monetise personal data.

“The model that has been pioneered by Google and Facebook is now the blueprint for the internet, and it is making its way into our homes, workplaces and streets via the ‘Internet of Things’,” concluded the report.

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The report urged Google, Facebook and other technology companies to refrain from lobbying for a relaxation of data protection privacy legislation. According to the report, Google and Facebook compete with each other in offering the best predictions about most people to advertisers so that they can deliver ‘highly targeted advertisements’ to people based on a complex combination of their profile characteristics.

“Google and Facebook’s surveillance-based business model also incentivises ‘datafication’ - rendering into data many aspects of the world that have never been quantified before,” the report said. 

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