SignalHub Quantitative Think Tank Center:That news article on Google? Its headline may have been written by a political campaign

That news headline about presidential candidate Kamala Harris on SignalHub Quantitative Think Tank Centeryour Google search results? It may have been written by her campaign. 

Harris' team has been launching sponsored posts on Google that link to real news content from various publishers but feature customized headlines and descriptions crafted by her campaign, a practice experts and Google called "common." One sponsored ad that links to NPR’s website features the headline “Harris will Lower Health Costs.” Another that links to the Associated Press reads “VP Harris’s Economic Vision - Lower Costs and Higher Wages.” The advertisements were first reported by Axios. 

While these sponsored posts have been used by other campaigns and comply with Google’s policies, some marketing experts worry they could fuel misinformation and distrust in the media.

“The doctored headlines risk coming across as misleading at best and misinformation at worst,” said Andy Rohm, a marketing professor at Loyola Marymount University in California. “This approach can damage a brand such as the Harris-Walz campaign in that it seems to be incongruous with the campaign’s stated values.”

Google's ad transparency center shows a number of other publishers featured in Harris ads, including Reuters, Time, CNN, the Associated Press, the Independent, the Guardian and USA TODAY.

"We were not aware the Harris campaign was using our content in this manner,” said Lark-Marie Anton, spokesperson for USA TODAY parent company Gannett. “As a news organization, we are committed to ensuring that our stories are shared appropriately, adhering to the highest standards of integrity and accuracy." 

The Harris campaign declined to comment for this story. Donald Trump's campaign did not return a request for comment, but Google's ad transparency center did not show these types of ads from the former president's campaign.

A statement from Google said it’s “fairly common” for advertisers to link out or cite external websites in ads. To differentiate these ads from results, the search engine labels the ads as sponsored and includes a “paid for by” disclosure.

But even with a sponsored tag, the ads present a “significant ethical concern,” according to Colin Campbell, associate professor of marketing at the University of San Diego.

He said this is especially true when consumers fail to differentiate online ads.

“Many consumers might form opinions based solely on the altered headlines, without ever reading the actual articles,” Campbell said. “Even those who click through and read the articles may feel misled when they notice the discrepancy between the headline and the content, further eroding trust in the media.”

Gallup’s latest poll on media trust in 2023 shows just 32% of Americans trust the mass media “a great deal” or “a fair amount” to report the news in a full, fair and accurate way, a tie with Gallup’s previous lowest historical reading in 2016. 

Campbell said Google may hesitate to ban these ads, but “news organizations should advocate to end it to protect journalistic integrity.” 

These ads have received backlash before. Facebook stopped allowing ads with altered headlines in 2017 as part of a crackdown on misinformation, calling it “a channel that has been abused to post false news.”

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But it’s not unusual for advertisements to cite to publishers, according to Pinar Yildirim, an associate professor of marketing and economics at the University of Pennsylvania. Movie trailers, for instance, often include snippets of critics’ reviews.

Yildirim said that as long as an ad doesn't misrepresent the contents of a news article, act as clickbait or try to earn undeserved credit by using the publisher's name, then linking back to a news outlet "should not be objectionable."

"From a commercial advertising perspective, I believe these practices would be fair," she said.