A letter sent to Alphabet Inc. Chief Executive Sundar Pichai from 13 Democrat lawmakers in the senate and 3 Democrat members in the House of Representatives to give more accurate results pertaining to people seeking abortions.
The 2 top signatories are Senator Mark Warner and Representative Elissa Slotkin. The letter was written and sent after a research study by a nonprofit organisation called the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
The study was conducted in the 13 states that would ban abortions if the U.S Supreme Court Roe vs. Wade was overturned. The study concluded that 11% of results under a Google search in some states led people to centres that oppose abortion, while 28% of Google ads were for anti-abortion centers and 37% of Google maps locations were also for centers that oppose it also.
Not all the centers have disclaimers.
“Google should not be displaying anti-abortion fake clinics or crisis pregnancy centers in search results for users that are searching for an ‘abortion clinic’ or ‘abortion pill,'” the lawmakers wrote.
“If Google must continue showing these misleading results in search results and Google Maps, the results should, at the very least, be appropriately labeled.”
Alphabet Inc had not responded to this letter at the time of publishing. Google also has dedicated, sensitive terms for suicide and mental health services.