  A Google search for a person's name, such as "Trevon Jones", may yield a
personalized ad for public records about Trevon that may be neutral, such as
"Looking for Trevon Jones?", or may be suggestive of an arrest record, such as
"Trevon Jones, Arrested?". This writing investigates the delivery of these
kinds of ads by Google AdSense using a sample of racially associated names and
finds statistically significant discrimination in ad delivery based on searches
of 2184 racially associated personal names across two websites. First names,
assigned at birth to more black or white babies, are found predictive of race
(88% black, 96% white), and those assigned primarily to black babies, such as
DeShawn, Darnell and Jermaine, generated ads suggestive of an arrest in 81 to
86 percent of name searches on one website and 92 to 95 percent on the other,
while those assigned at birth primarily to whites, such as Geoffrey, Jill and
Emma, generated more neutral copy: the word "arrest" appeared in 23 to 29
percent of name searches on one site and 0 to 60 percent on the other. On the
more ad trafficked website, a black-identifying name was 25% more likely to get
an ad suggestive of an arrest record. A few names did not follow these
patterns. All ads return results for actual individuals and ads appear
regardless of whether the name has an arrest record in the company's database.
The company maintains Google received the same ad text for groups of last names
(not first names), raising questions as to whether Google's technology exposes
racial bias.
