# Pulse ยท July 15, 2026 > Google restricts Prediction Markets ads in four states and opens Shopping to 14 new countries. OpenAI adds exclusion controls to ChatGPT Ads. Canonical: https://brandonlazovic.dev/pulse/2026-07-15/ Author: Brandon Lazovic Published: 2026-07-15 Note: Compiled retrospectively on July 16, 2026, from sources published on the date this page covers. ## Google Expands Shopping Ads And Free Listings To 14 New Countries Status: Confirmed | Topics: product-feeds-shopping, platform-ecommerce Google's Merchant Center changelog confirms Shopping ads and free listings now cover 14 additional countries starting in July: Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Malta, and Serbia. Google frames this as new country eligibility for both ad formats, letting merchants target these markets for the first time and reach new audiences across the regions. In plain terms: Free listings are unpaid product results in Google Shopping, distinct from paid Shopping ads, and either way a merchant only shows up in these 14 new countries once their feed has prices, shipping costs, and tax rules filled in for each specific market. Why it matters: Merchants selling into Southeastern Europe and the Baltics now have a legitimate new distribution channel to test before committing full catalog and feed investment there. Our take: Eligibility is not distribution. Actually reaching shoppers in these 14 markets depends on feed data carrying per-country shipping, tax, and language settings that eligibility alone doesn't supply, so expect uptake to lag the announcement by however long that regional feed work takes. - [Google Merchant Center announcements](https://support.google.com/merchants/announcements/6192467?hl=en) ## Google's Prediction Markets Ad Policy Now Excludes Four US States Status: Confirmed | Topics: ads-paid Google's Prediction Markets advertising policy currently excludes Michigan, Nevada, New York, and Ohio from its approved locations list, meaning advertisers cannot run ads for exchange-listed event contracts and related products in those four states. Even in approved US locations, advertisers must hold certification as a CFTC-authorized Designated Contract Market or an NFA-authorized brokerage before Google will approve the ads. In plain terms: A CFTC-authorized Designated Contract Market is a federally licensed exchange for trading these event contracts, and an NFA-authorized brokerage is a similarly licensed broker, so the four-state block sits on top of a second, separate certification requirement that applies everywhere else in the US. Why it matters: Advertisers running prediction-market-adjacent campaigns in Michigan or New York need to pull or geo-fence those campaigns now, since Google will reject them regardless of federal registration status. Our take: State-by-state ad carve-outs are becoming the default posture for prediction markets, not a temporary patch, since the underlying legal status of event contracts is still being litigated market by market. Advertisers running national campaigns should expect this exclusion list to grow before it shrinks, and should build state-level geo-fencing into the campaign structure now rather than patching it in after the next state gets added. - [Google Ads Help - Prediction markets policy](https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/16757872?hl=en) ## ChatGPT Ads Manager Gains Location And Audience Exclusion Controls Status: Observed | Topics: ads-paid, chatgpt-assistants Search Engine Roundtable spotted two new controls in ChatGPT Ads Manager: a location-exclusion setting that stops a campaign from serving to users in specified places, and an audience-exclusion setting that filters out selected custom audiences. OpenAI's own Help Center separately documents the audience-exclusion mechanism, requiring each excluded list to include at least 25,000 matched users. OpenAI has not yet published help documentation specifically describing the location-exclusion control. In plain terms: A custom audience is a list of an advertiser's own customers uploaded so ChatGPT can target or exclude them, and OpenAI requires each list to match at least 25,000 people before it can be used that way. Why it matters: Brands running ChatGPT Ads campaigns can now suppress delivery to existing customers or ineligible regions, a targeting precision paid search teams have had on Google and Meta for years. Our take: This is a campaign-side knob, not the actual bottleneck. The model still writes ad copy from the product feed those exclusions filter around, so feed quality is still the ceiling on what these ads can say. - [Spotted by Search Engine Roundtable](https://www.seroundtable.com/chatgpt-ads-location-audience-exclusion-41693.html) - [OpenAI Help Center - Custom Audiences](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001346-set-up-custom-audiences-for-your-campaign) ## Google Tests Hiding Sponsored Labels Inside Google Shopping Results Status: Observed | Topics: product-feeds-shopping, platform-ecommerce Google's Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin confirmed the company is testing a hide and show sponsored results toggle inside Google Shopping, after a screenshot from Sachin Patel surfaced the option on X. Marvin said the test is about making ad labeling more consistent across search and shopping surfaces. Google shipped the equivalent hide and show toggle for standard search ads last October. This test extends the same interaction to Shopping listings. In plain terms: The toggle would let shoppers manually collapse every sponsored Shopping listing out of view with one click, similar to an ad-blocker's hide function, without Google actually removing those ads from the auction or the page. Why it matters: If this ships, sponsored Shopping listings could become easier for shoppers to collapse or hide, changing how much visibility paid placements get against organic results. Our take: If this ships to Shopping the way it did to search, expect toggle usage itself to become a data point Google discloses selectively, since it doubles as evidence for how much shoppers value organic results over paid ones. Retailers whose organic and paid Shopping presence both lean on the same feed should watch this test closely, because a widely used hide button quietly raises the value of ranking organically instead of just buying placement. - [Spotted by Search Engine Roundtable](https://www.seroundtable.com/google-tests-hide-sponsored-products-41689.html)