With mounting calls for companies to take action against systemic racism, Google has announced they are updating their advertising policies around housing, employment, and credit opportunities.  The new policy, which will roll out in the United States and Canada this year, will mean that employment, housing and credit advertisers will no longer be permitted to target or exclude their ads from being shown based on demographic signals like gender, age, parental status and marital status. Zip code targeting will also not be available to these advertisers.  The new policy is in addition to an existing policy that already prohibits targeting based on race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, national origin, or disability.  Facebook implemented a similar policy in March of last year, prohibiting age, gender and zip code targeting for housing, employment, and credit advertisers.

Google has stated that the policy will roll out “as soon as possible,” but by the end of the year at the latest. Advertisers affected by the policy change will be notified in the coming weeks.