The program policies below apply to “Business Website Builder.” The policies play an important role in maintaining a positive experience for everyone using Google products.
We need to curb abuses that threaten our ability to provide these services and we ask that everyone abide by the policies below to help us achieve this goal. After we are notified of a potential policy violation, we may review the content and take action, including restricting access to the content, removing the content, and limiting or terminating a user’s access to Google products.
When applying these policies, we may make exceptions based on artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific considerations, or where there are other substantial benefits to the public from not taking action on the content.
Be sure to check back from time to time, as these policies may change. Please also refer to Google's Terms of Service for more information.
Program policies
Account hijackingDo not access another user’s account without their permission. We may take appropriate action if we're notified of account hijacking, which may include removing access to some of our products or disabling your Google Account.
Do not create, upload, or distribute content that exploits or abuses children. This includes all child sexual abuse materials. To report content on a Google product that may exploit a child, click Report abuse. If you find content elsewhere on the internet, please contact the appropriate agency in your country directly.
More broadly, Google prohibits the use of our products to endanger children. This includes but isn't limited to predatory behavior towards children such as:
- "Child grooming" (for example, befriending a child online to facilitate, either online or offline, sexual contact and/or exchanging sexual imagery with that child);
- "Sextortion" (for example, threatening or blackmailing a child by using real or alleged access to a child’s intimate images);
- Sexualization of a minor (for example, imagery that depicts, encourages, or promotes the sexual abuse of children or the portrayal of children in a manner that could result in the sexual exploitation of children); and
- Trafficking of a child (for example, advertising or solicitation of a child for commercial sexual exploitation).
We'll remove such content and take appropriate action, which may include reporting to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, limiting access to product features, and disabling accounts. If you believe a child is in danger of or has been subject to abuse, exploitation, or trafficking, contact the police immediately. If you have already made a report to the police and still need help, or you have concerns a child is being or was being endangered on our products, you can report the behavior to Google.
Do not engage in actions intended to bypass our policies, subvert restrictions placed on your account, or distribute content removed in other Google products.
This includes but is not limited to creating or using multiple accounts or other methods intended to engage in a behavior that was previously prohibited.
Do not use this product to engage in illegal activities or to promote activities, goods, services, or information that cause serious and immediate harm to people or animals. While we permit general information for educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic purposes about this content, we draw the line when the content directly facilitates harm or encourages illegal activity. We'll take appropriate action if we're notified of unlawful activities, which may include reporting you to the relevant authorities.
Do not harass, bully, or threaten others. We also don’t allow this product to be used to engage or incite others in these activities. This includes singling someone out for malicious abuse, threatening someone with serious harm, sexualizing someone in an unwanted way, exposing private information of someone else that could be used to carry out threats, disparaging or belittling targets of violence or tragedy, inciting others to carry out these activities, or harassing someone in other ways. Keep in mind that online harassment is illegal in many places and can have serious offline consequences for both the harasser and the target. We may take appropriate action if we're notified of threats of harm or other dangerous situations, which may include reporting you to the relevant authorities.
Do not engage in hate speech. Hate speech is content that promotes or condones violence against or has the primary purpose of inciting hatred against an individual or group on the basis of their race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, age, nationality, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or any other characteristic that's associated with systemic discrimination or marginalization.
Do not impersonate a person or organization or misrepresent yourself. This includes impersonating any person or organizations you don’t represent or providing misleading information about a user or site’s identity, qualifications, ownership, purpose, products, services, or business. This also includes content or accounts misrepresenting or concealing their ownership or primary purpose, such as misrepresenting or intentionally concealing your country of origin or other material details about yourself when directing content about politics, social issues, or matters of public concern to users in a country other than your own. We do allow parody, satire, and the use of pseudonyms or pen names. Just avoid content that's likely to mislead your audience about your true identity.
Do not transmit malware or any content that harms or interferes with the operation of the networks, servers, end user devices, or other infrastructure. This includes the direct hosting, embedding, or transmission of malware, viruses, destructive code, or other harmful or unwanted software or similar content. This also includes content that transmits viruses, causes pop-ups, attempts to install software without the user’s consent, or otherwise impacts users with malicious code. See our Safe Browsing Policies for more information.
Do not distribute content that deceives, misleads, or confuses users. This includes:
Misleading content related to civic and democratic processes: Content that's demonstrably false and could significantly undermine participation or trust in civic or democratic processes. This includes information about public voting procedures, political candidate eligibility based on age or birthplace, election results, or census participation that contradicts official government records. It also includes incorrect claims that a political figure or government official has died, been involved in an accident, or is suffering from a sudden serious illness.
Misleading content related to harmful conspiracy theories: Content that promotes or lends credibility to beliefs that individuals or groups are systematically committing acts that cause widespread harm. This content is contradicted by substantial evidence and has resulted in or incites violence.
Misleading content related to harmful health practices: Misleading health or medical content that promotes or encourages others to engage in practices that may lead to serious physical or emotional harm to individuals, or serious public health harm.
Manipulated media: Media that has been technically manipulated or doctored in a way that misleads users and may pose a serious risk of egregious harm.
Misleading content may be allowed in an educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic context, but please be mindful to provide enough information to help people understand this context. In some cases, no amount of context will allow this content to remain on our platforms.
Do not store or distribute private nude, sexually explicit, or non-explicit intimate and sexual images or videos without the subject’s consent. If someone has sent a private nude, sexually explicit, or non-explicit intimate and sexually explicit image or video of you, please report it to us here.
Do not store or distribute other people’s personal or confidential information without authorization. This includes the use of sensitive information, such as US Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, images of signatures, and personal health documents. In most cases where this information is broadly available elsewhere on the internet or in public records, like national ID numbers listed on a government website, we generally don’t process enforcement actions.
Do not use this product for phishing. This includes soliciting or collecting sensitive data such as passwords, financial details, and social security numbers. See our Safe Browsing Policies for more information.
Do not sell, advertise, or facilitate the sale of regulated goods and services. Regulated goods and services include alcohol, gambling, pharmaceuticals, unapproved supplements, tobacco, fireworks, weapons, or health/medical devices.
Do not store or distribute content that contains sexually explicit material, such as nudity, graphic sex acts, and pornographic content, or non-explicit sexual material, such as partial nudity or other sexualized content. This includes driving traffic to commercial pornography sites. We allow nudity for educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic purposes.
Do not spam. This may include unwanted promotional or commercial content, unwanted content that's created by an automated program, unwanted repetitive content, nonsensical content, or anything that appears to be a mass solicitation.
Do not abuse this product and do not harm, degrade, or negatively affect the operation of networks, devices, or other infrastructure of Google or others. This includes degrading, disabling, or negatively interfering with any aspect of the product or its services. We may take appropriate action if we're notified of system interference and abuse, which may include removing access to some of our products or disabling your Google Account.
Do not send or store images of minors without explicit consent from the child's parent, guardian, or legal representative. If someone has sent or stored an image of a minor without necessary consent, please report it to us here.
Known violent non-state organizations and movements are not permitted to use this product for any purpose. Do not distribute content that facilitates or promotes the activities of these groups, such as recruiting, coordinating online or offline activities, sharing manuals or other materials that could facilitate harm, promoting ideologies of violent non-state organizations, promoting terrorist acts, inciting violence, or celebrating attacks by violent non-state organizations. Depending upon the content, we may also take action against the user. Content related to violent non-state organizations may be allowed in an educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic context, but please be mindful to provide enough information to help people understand the context.
Do not use obscene, profane, or vulgar language.
Do not store or distribute violent or gory content involving realistic people or animals that’s primarily intended to be shocking, sensational, or gratuitous. This includes ultra-graphic material, such as dismemberment or close-up footage of mutilated corpses. Graphic material, such as content containing significant amounts of blood, may be allowed in an educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic context, but please be mindful to provide enough information to help people understand the context. In some cases, content may be so violent or shocking that no amount of context will allow that content to remain on our platforms. Lastly, do not encourage others to commit specific acts of violence.
Respect copyright laws. Do not share copyrighted content without authorization or provide links to sites where your readers can obtain unauthorized downloads of copyrighted content. It's our policy to respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement. Repeated infringement of intellectual property rights, including copyright, may result in Google Business Website Builder suspension. If you find a violation of Google's copyright policies, report copyright infringement.
Google Business Website Builder prohibits the sale or promotion for sale of counterfeit goods. Counterfeit goods contain a trademark or logo that's identical to or substantially indistinguishable from the trademark of another. They mimic the brand features of the product in an attempt to pass themselves off as a genuine product of the brand owner. This policy applies to the content of your product listings, ads, and your website. If you're concerned about ads facilitating the sale of counterfeit products, please file a complaint.
Counterfeit goods
- The following is not allowed:
- Products described as knock off, replica, imitation, clone, faux, fake, mirror image, or similar terms when referring to a brand name in an attempt to pass themselves off as genuine products of the brand owner
- Non-genuine products that mimic brand features in an attempt to pass themselves off as the genuine product
- Examples (non-exhaustive): Non-authentic products that have brand name labels or logos
Contact Forms are online forms connected to Google Business Website Builder. They provide a flexible platform for the first interaction between a customer and merchant. Customers can use Contact Forms to ask for a quote or for more information on the services a business offers. To ensure the best experience, Contact Forms users must follow the guidelines below.
- Contact form policies for merchants
- Data collection & use
- Respect and handle information provided by customers with appropriate care.
- Any use of customer data must be relevant to the services your business provides. Do not misuse this information, or collect it for undisclosed purposes or without appropriate security measures.
- You may not expose customer data to other users or third parties without explicit consent from the customer providing the data.
- Do not impersonate an organization or individual when requesting information through the platform.
- Do not solicit private and confidential information, including passwords, financial details, and social security numbers.
- Merchants using Contact Forms must obey all applicable privacy laws and regulations.
- Policies for customers
- Sensitive content
- Do not provide financial or other sensitive information outside of the information requested on the form, namely your name, phone number, and email address.
- Sensitive content
- Policies for both merchants and customers
- Spam and malware
- Google does not allow the transmission of malware, viruses, destructive code, or anything that may harm or interfere with the operation of the networks, servers, or other infrastructure of Google or others.
- Do not send unsolicited mass mailings using Contact Forms. Customers will be contacted only in reference to the submitted request or to other services related to the business. For example, do not send commercial spam or communication about other unrelated services.
- Inappropriate content
- Communication between merchants and customers should focus on the business and services offered, avoiding:
- Content that promotes or condones hatred or violence against individuals or groups based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, nationality, veteran status, or sexual orientation or gender identity
- Harassing, bullying, or threatening content towards individuals or groups
- Graphic or violent materials for the sake of disgusting others
- Sexually explicit or pornographic images or videos
- Content that exploits or abuses children
- Communication between merchants and customers should focus on the business and services offered, avoiding:
- Illegal activities
- Keep it legal. Do not use our service to engage in illegal activities or promote dangerous and illegal acts. If we're notified of unlawful activities, we'll take appropriate action. This may include removing access to some of our products or to your Google Account, or reporting you to the relevant authorities.
- Spam and malware
Actions we may take on abusive material
- Hide or remove the business website.
- Disable access to one or more Google products.
- Delete the Google account.
- Report illegal materials to appropriate law enforcement authorities.
Appeal a violation
If a business website you own has a violation notice, you will be sent an email to the email address registered with Business Website Builder. You can request a review of the violation by responding to the email.