Changes to our Political Ads Policy

In recent months, regulators from states across the country have taken new steps to bring additional transparency and accountability to political advertising. We support these regulators and their crucial work on important issues. The regulatory environment for political candidate and ballot measure advertising is likely to continue to evolve rapidly in the coming months, making it complex to adhere with precision. As result, we have made the decision to disallow political candidate and ballot measure ads in the United States. These ads make up a very small percentage of Bing’s advertising volume. Beginning today, we will not accept any new ads in this space and will be working in the coming weeks to remove any ads already running.

We understand the importance in the democratic process for campaigns to be able to debate issues and put forward candidates in a way that is informative to voters. Across the company, Microsoft works in non-partisan ways to serve campaigns, campaign committees, party conventions and election systems in a variety of ways.  Our overall commitment to strongly support the democratic process will not change.

If you see an ad on our site that you think violates this updated policy, please notify us through the Bing Ads feedback portal.

UPDATE: APRIL 15, 2019
We continue to see shifts in the regulatory environment for political advertising around the world adding to the complexity to adhere with precision. For this reason, we have made the decision to disallow advertising for election related content, political parties, candidates, and ballot measures globally. This policy and enforcement will be rolled out globally in coming months, beginning first with France on April 15th.