The letter, written to Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai, was signed by 14 senators and seven members of the US House of Representatives.
The letter, written to Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai, was signed by 14 senators and seven members of the US House of Representatives.
US lawmakers are urging Alphabet Inc’s flagship Google search engine to give accurate results to people seeking abortions, rather than sometimes sending them to “crisis pregnancy centres” that turn women away from procedures .
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The request came in a letter whose top signatories were Senator Mark Warner and Representative Alyssa Slotkin, sent to Google on Friday and first reported by Reuters.
The letter was inspired by a study released last week by the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate. The study found that in some states 11% of results for a search for “abortion clinic near me” or “abortion pill” were for centers opposing abortion.
The research was conducted in 13 states with laws that would ban abortion, if expected, as the US Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized it nationwide as soon as this month. .
The letter, written to Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai, was signed by 14 senators and seven members of the US House of Representatives. All are Democrats.
Crisis pregnancy centers, which have existed in some form for years, reflect disagreements over the right to terminate a pregnancy in the United States. Some centers have been accused of giving women false information about their pregnancies, which could jeopardize their access to abortion.
“Google must not display counterfeit anti-abortion clinics or crisis pregnancy centers in search results for users who are searching for ‘abortion clinic’ or ‘abortion pill’,” the lawmakers wrote.
“If Google must continue to show these misleading results in search results and Google Maps, the results should, at the very least, be appropriately labeled,” he wrote.
Google, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, has handled other health concerns differently. A carefully curated list of resources and reliable sources is at the top of searches related to suicide or sexual assault.
The research group also found that in the states where this study was conducted, 28% of Google ads were for anti-abortion centers, as were 37% of results on Google Maps. The letter said some centers had disclaimers but not all.
