After deciding it doesn’t want to promote predatory lending practices that are harmful to consumers, Google decided to ban ads for payday loans on their ads systems. “Research has shown that these loans can result in unaffordable payment and high default rates for users so we will be updating our policies globally to reflect that,” Google’s product policy director, David Graff, writes in a blog post. Payday loans often come with extremely high interest rates if they aren’t paid back immediately, which can push people further in debt. Georgetown’s Center on Privacy and Technology notes in a statement, “Payday lenders profit from people’s weaknesses — particularly poor people and people of color. Every time someone clicks on those ads, search engines profit, too.” Of course Google will lose the revenue from the banned ads, but it will earn more trust from visitors for its other ads. Payday loans will be banned from Google globally starting June 13th.
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