Google has added a ‘parental status’ tab to its AdWords dashboard, letting advertisers use that as a criteria for ad campaigns.
Google has yet to make an official announcement on the feature, but it was spotted by a Larry Kim CEO of marketing software firm WordStream.
WordStream helps businesses manage their Google advertising campaigns, so it watches for every change that Google makes.
The feature appears to have been rolled out to a small fraction of AdWords accounts according to Kim.
“How far will it go? Political ideologies, maybe,” he suggested, “I mean there’s no limit really to what they could potentially be using.”
Google already has a list of categories that it does not allow to be targeted for advertising, including political affiliation, sexuality, race and health status.
Targeting parents, particularly pregnant mothers, has long been of interest to marketers.
Facebook already allows businesses to distribute advertising content to parents based on the age of their child or children.
In a statement on the new feature, Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group said, “People may well feel rather freaked out, and certainly stereotyped, to be targeted as a parent. While people are often comfortable to be shown things they are interested in, it’s a whole different matter to be judged on what you are.”