This story is from NBC News by Kevin Collier:

Google says it has removed ads for companies that charged exorbitant fees or that mined the personal data of people who used the search engine to learn how to vote.

A study by the Tech Transparency Project, a nonprofit watchdog for the tech industry, searched on Google for information such as “register to vote” and “where is my polling place.” Nearly a third of the more than 600 ads from those searches charged users to register to vote, mined their data for third-party voter registration services, signed them up for marketing emails or misleadingly took them to sites unrelated to voting.

One such site, hosted by a company called PrivacyWall, charges users $129 for “same-day processing” to register to vote. Eligible American voters can register to vote directly with their states or territories for free, and most states offer online registration.

Read the full article here.