Data · Ad-platform policies
The ad-platform rules that affect law firms
What Google Ads, Google Local Services, YouTube, Microsoft Ads, Meta, LinkedIn and ChatGPT ads let law firms do, in plain English, with what to do about each rule and a dated log of changes.
What is in this dataset?
The ad-platform policies that affect US law-firm advertising on Google Ads, Google Local Services, YouTube, Microsoft Ads, Meta, LinkedIn and ChatGPT ads: what each rule says in plain English, what a firm should do about it, which practice areas it touches, when it took effect, and a dated log of changes. Each record quotes the platform's own policy or help page and gives the date it was read.
Use it before a campaign goes live, or when an ad is suddenly disapproved. Look up the platform and your practice area: the record says what the policy asks in plain English, what to change in your account or your ads, and the date the rule began. The change log shows what moved since you last checked, so a rejection is easier to trace to the rule behind it. Every record links to the platform's own page, which is the wording that counts. Typical questions it answers: what Google Local Services Ads checks before the 'Google Verified' badge shows; which legal services need Google's legal-services certification; what Meta allows for lead forms and special ad categories; how Microsoft Advertising treats bail bonds or debt relief; and what the newer ChatGPT and AI-answer ad programs say about legal advertisers. Each record says which practice areas it touches, so a family-law or immigration firm can skip the rules that only bind injury firms.
- Records
- 64
- Look up by
- 7
- ad platform
- Primary source
- 58
- Open or withheld
- 6
The letters are explained in what P, S, D and U mean.
What does a record look like?
-
Google Ads has no policy written just for lawyers. Law-firm ads follow the general policies, and Google expects you to follow the law in every place your ads show, which includes your state bar's ad rules.
Status P · checked October 25, 2026 · source: Google Ads policy: Legal requirements
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Google's US list has 17 lawyer categories: bankruptcy, business, contract, criminal, disability, DUI, estate, family, immigration, IP, labor, litigation, malpractice, personal injury, real estate, traffic, and a general 'Lawyers' category. Unlike some other categories, none of the lawyer categories is limited to certain states.
Status P · checked October 25, 2026 · source: Google Local Services: Getting started (service categories)
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Meta's Advertising Standards have no restricted category for legal services, and legal is not a special ad category. Special ad categories cover housing, employment, financial products and services, and social issues, elections or politics.
Status P · checked October 25, 2026 · source: Meta Advertising Standards: Introduction
-
ChatGPT ads are live. Testing started in the US on February 9, 2026, for Free and Go users only. Ads are not shown to users under 18, in Temporary Chats, or near sensitive topics such as personal health, mental health or politics. Advertisers get aggregated reports only.
Status P · checked October 25, 2026 · source: OpenAI Help Center: Ads in ChatGPT
The full records add the dates, the quoted source text and every field in the CSV and JSON files below.
How to cite this dataset
You can reuse, adapt and republish this data, including commercially, under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (CC BY 4.0). The only condition is that you credit Probative and link to the source.
- Version
- 1.0.0, released October 26, 2026
- Every version
- 10.5281/zenodo.23656752 (always points to the newest)
- License
- CC BY 4.0
Download the data
- CSV: platforms.csv 46 KB · one row per record (columns in README.txt)
- JSON: platforms.json 110 KB · every record with its sources
Free, no email or login. The files are hosted on this site and Zenodo, a public research archive.
Suggested citation
Probative. (2026). Legal ad-platform policy tracker (Version 1.0.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23656753
Credit line for a chart, table or article
Source: Probative, Legal ad-platform policy tracker, version 1.0.0, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23656753, licensed CC BY 4.0.
Not legal advice. This is a plain-English summary of the platforms' public policy pages, kept for marketing planning, and platforms change their rules often. Check the platform's live page, your state bar's rules and your own counsel before you run an ad.
How do I use it in my own tools?
Ask an AI assistant: add https://probativegrowth.com/mcp/platforms as an MCP connector (no sign-in), or the main server https://probativegrowth.com/mcp for every dataset. Setup for each app is on the API and MCP page.
platforms_lookup- Every tracked policy for one ad platform (google-ads, google-lsa, youtube, microsoft-ads, meta, linkedin-ads or chatgpt-ads): the rule in plain English, what to do, the practice areas it touches, its dates and the quoted policy page.
platforms_compare- The tracked policies of up to 10 ad platforms side by side.
platforms_search- Ad-platform policy records whose text matches the words given, such as "bail bonds", "debt services", "missed call" or "Spanish ads".
Or read the static files, with no key and no usage cap:
- Index and endpoints
/data/v1/platforms/index.json - One ad platform (CHATGPT-ADS shown)
/data/v1/platforms/platforms/{platform}.json - Confirmed changes
/data/v1/platforms/changes.json - OpenAPI description
/data/v1/platforms/openapi.json
What changed recently?
- 2026-10-05 · Government documents and services: only governments and authorized providers named on a government website may advertise. (source)
- 2026-10-05 · Microsoft Financial Services and Government Services pages last updated. (source)
- 2026-10-01 · Missed business-hours calls where the caller stays on more than 20 seconds became charged leads. (source)
- 2026-10 · Business name may differ from the destination domain in limited verified cases. (source)
- 2026-09-22 · List of self-regulatory advertising codes expanded (Argentina, Australia, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, South Africa). No US effect. (source)
- 2026-09-10 · OpenAI ad policies updated (legal services: licensed in the jurisdiction shown, case-by-case approval). (source)
- 2026-09 · Search campaigns lose the campaign language setting; ads match the language of the search and the ad. (source)
- 2026-08-11 · YouTube and Discover Feed ad requirements rewritten for readability; no enforcement change. (source)
The full log is in changes.json.
What are the limits?
- Platforms change their rules often and without notice. Each record gives the date we read the page; check the live page before you launch.
- A platform approving an ad does not mean your state bar would. State rules are in our state rules library.
- A record marked U means the platform’s own pages are silent or disagree, so we state no answer.
- Records older than 45 days since their last check are marked
stalein the files until we re-check them, and we say on this page when we fix a confirmed error.
Other open datasets: Legal-marketing ethics opinions, 2015 to 2026 (data), Spanish-speaking clients per Spanish-speaking lawyer (data), California court filings by county, by case type (data). The full list is in the data catalog.
Running a firm? You don’t need the raw data: we handle your state’s ad rules for you. See where your firm stands first.
Where do I start?
See where your firm stands.
Tick what your firm already has: 7 questions, about 2 minutes. You’ll see your stage, what we’d change first, and one place to start, with its price.
Or get a free review: Probative Growth records a 90-second video of what clients see when they look you up, and emails it within 2 business days.