Google Asserting Ownership of LSA Client Intake Recordings…

Conrad Saam | April 22, 2025

I’ve been around Google for a long time… this is one of the Top 3 most concerning things I’ve ever seen coming out of Mountainview.

In a quiet email announcement sent out to LSA advertisers, Google asserts that they have full access to use at their own discretion any content contained in a Local Services profile in both LSA advertising and across all other “products and services”.  Alarmingly, they assert full creative license over these assets….

New provisions allowing Google to select, modify, display, and use rich content (including but not limited to photos, provider bios, service descriptions, special offers, pricing information and discounts)

The announcement specifically called out communications with prospective clients across multiple formats:

(a)your phone call and message conversations with Local Services end users that are routed through Google;

Other minor (or at least relatively minor compared to the rest of the announcements) concerns included announcing that agencies can accept these terms on behalf of their clients (presumably waiving the need to notify end clients at all).

Now, to their credit, this is an opt-in (i.e. they didn’t automagically auto-opt clients in like they did with Direct Brand Search in LSAs), but…  the ultimatum requires a proactive acceptance of the new terms by 6/5/2025 or “your ads will no longer be eligible to serve.”  It’s unclear if those ads that are no longer eligible to serve are just LSAs, or advertising across the entire platform (including PPC, display etc.)

Analyzing Pricing?

Connecting a few of the dots from their email…  it looks like Google enabled themselves to use these intake recordings to develop pricing information on their advertisers – including law firms.  Imagine how that data may flow into their algo’s or…. automated PPC bidding strategies, or display advertising budgets.

The black box is getting more data and getting darker.

At this point, I can’t imagine anyone in the legal industry deliberately opting in to this.  Would love some feedback from the ABA, John Henson or some state bars…