It looks like Google gave $6 million in free advertising to the Church of Scientology
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Actor Tom Cruise gives a speech at the inauguration of a Scientology church in Madrid September 18, 2004.
In 2014, Google gave about $6 million in free advertising to the Church of Scientology, an activist for the church has claimed. Few people noticed the move at the time: The information resurfaced a few days ago on Hacker News, a technology news aggregator, under a headline that said, “Scientology says it’s received $5.7M from Google in ad grants.”
That headline referred to a story from September 2014 by Tony Ortega, the independent journalist and former editor of the Village Voice. Ortega wrote:
At a $100 per person event held in the San Fernando Valley on September 6, about 500 Scientologists were told, among other things, that Google has approved advertising grants totaling $5.7 million for Scientology churches around the country.
Google was not able to comment when reached by Business Insider, due to staff being away on seasonal holidays.
A spokesperson for Scientology told us, “According to its website, Google works with more than 20,000 nonprofits in over 50 countries. Unlike Tony Ortega and others pushing this story, Google is not bigoted or prejudiced against any religion.”
It is likely that the free advertising came from the Google Ad Grant programme, which provides free advertising for non-profit organisations and charities. You can see more about Google’s ad programme for non-profits here and the criteria for eligibility here.
Content retrieved from: https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/looks-google-gave-6-million-101525008.html.
