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In October 2025, the Google Ads misrepresentation policy concerning dishonest pricing practices will be updated to ensure greater transparency and prevent user deception. The following will be updated:
- Advertisers must clearly and conspicuously disclose the payment model or full expense that a user will bear before and after purchase.
- Pricing practices that create a false or misleading impression of the cost of a product or service, leading to inflated or unexpected charges, are prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Bait-and-switch tactics: Deceptively advertising a product or service at an enticing, often unrealistic, low price to lure customers in with no genuine intent to sell it, only to pressure them into buying a different, typically more expensive or inferior alternative once they’re engaged.
- Price exploitation: Exploiting individuals in vulnerable situations or under duress, leveraging their immediate need or lack of reasonable alternatives to demand a payment significantly higher than the prevailing market rate. For example, a locksmith threatening to leave the customer unless a cost above what was quoted is paid on the spot.
- Promoting apps as free when a user must pay to install the app.
- Promoting a free-of-cost trial without clearly stating the trial period or that the user will be automatically charged at the end of the trial.
We will begin enforcing the policy update on 28 October 2025, with full enforcement ramping up over approximately four weeks.
Violations of this policy will not lead to immediate account suspension without prior warning. A warning will be issued at least seven days before any suspension of your account.
Review this policy update to determine whether or not any of your ads fall within the scope of the policy and, if so, remove those ads before 28 October 2025.
(Posted on 23 September 2025)