[9] This deal, while "transforming Google into a powerhouse", later attracted antitrust scrutiny, raising questions about its impact on market competition and digital advertising dominance.

These tools leverage first-party data, machine learning, and automated asset creation to enhance bidding, targeting, and audience reach.

From June 2007, Google banned AdWords adverts for student essay-writing services, a move which received positive feedback from universities.

[31][32] In March 2020, at the beginning of the Coronavirus crisis, Google blocked all face masks keywords from being eligible for ad targeting as part of a policy to prevent companies from attempting to capitalize on the pandemic.

[41] In 2018, Bloomberg News reported that Google had paid millions of dollars to Mastercard for its users' credit card data for offline conversion tracking purposes.

This feature, which allows advertisers on the Google Ads platform to adjust how cookies are utilized based on user consent, is a response to heightened privacy expectations and legal frameworks such as the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Critics argue that while the tool ostensibly supports compliance, it also allows Google to maintain its dominant position in the digital advertising market by providing a mechanism that superficially addresses privacy concerns without significantly altering the underlying data collection practices.

Moreover, the introduction of advanced features in Consent Mode V2 in late 2023, which includes more granular controls over data usage and conversion modeling based on artificial intelligence, raises further questions.

However, they also underscore the ongoing tension between user privacy and the business imperatives of digital advertising, highlighting the challenges in achieving a true balance between the two.

[45] In this context, Google Consent Mode can be seen both as a strategic adaptation to regulatory pressures and as part of a broader industry trend towards more nuanced data handling practices.

Nonetheless, the extent to which these changes genuinely benefit users, as opposed to primarily aiding advertisers and platforms like Google, remains a critical area for scrutiny.

[50] In May 2011, Google cancelled the AdWords advertisement purchased by a Dublin sex worker rights group named "Turn Off the Blue Light" (TOBL),[51] claiming that it represented an "egregious violation" of company ad policy by "selling adult sexual services".

[59] In 2004, Google started allowing advertisers to bid on a wide variety of search terms in the US and Canada, including trademarks of their competitors[60] and in May 2008 expanded this policy to the UK and Ireland.

[66] In August 2016, the Federal Trade Commission filed an administrative complaint against 1-800 Contacts alleging that its search advertising trademark enforcement practices have unreasonably restrained competition in violation of the FTC Act.

[71][72] Fossil fuel companies, funders and public relations agencies including ExxonMobil, Shell, Aramco, McKinsey, and Goldman Sachs are among the largest customers of Google Ads.

[73] One of the study's authors, InfluenceMap stated "Google is letting groups with a vested interest in the continued use of fossil fuels pay to influence the resources people receive when they are trying to educate themselves.

The oil and gas sector has moved away from contesting the science of climate change and now instead seeks to influence public discussions about decarbonization in its favor.

According to the results, Phoenix showed a 16% increase in crisis center recommendations from low to middle income, while there was a 49% difference when compared to high-income areas.

[75][76] A study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that The Gateway Pundit, an American far-right fake news website, had earned up to $1.1 million in Google Ad revenue between November 2020 and July 2021.

[77][78][79] The website was demonetized in September 2021;[80][81] the decision took place a few days ahead of the airing of a French documentary in which a Google representative was confronted with printouts of ads on the site.

[80] In October 2022, ProPublica reported that Google Ads was a major source of revenue for purveyors of disinformation in Africa, Europe and Latin America.

The websites funded by Google promoted Jair Bolsonaro's false claims about voting system integrity in Brazil and COVID-19 and climate change misinformation in French-, German- and Spanish-speaking countries.