Google has stopped selling online advertising in Russia, a decision that spans search, YouTube and external publishing partners. The decision comes in the wake of numerous economic sanctions on the country, motivated by the invasion of Ukraine that started a war nine days ago.
“In light of the extraordinary circumstances, we are pausing Google ads in Russia,” the company said in a statement. “The situation is rapidly evolving and we will continue to share updates as appropriate.”
Previously, Google had banned Russian state media from buying or selling ads through its technology. It also invoked its sensitive events policy, which prohibits marketing that seeks to take advantage of the war, with the exception of anti-war protests or advertisements.
On Thursday, Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor told Google to stop running YouTube ads with “false political information” about Ukraine that were intended to “disinform the Russian public” about current events, it said. the Wall Street Journal.
The Spark business database last year showed that Google’s turnover in Russia in 2020 was 85.5 billion rubles.
Last Saturday (26), Facebook took the same measure. “We are banning Russian state media from running ads or monetizing on our platform anywhere in the world,” the social network’s director of security policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, said on Twitter.
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