YouTube is banning ads for politics, alcohol, gambling, and prescription drugs from its highly visible homepage banner

• YouTube is banning a handful of topics from its main advertising space.
• The company in 2019 stopped letting advertisers reserve full-day ad spots on its homepage.
• Google and other tech platform have been fielding pushback over political ads in recent years.

YouTube is banning advertisements about a handful of topics from its highly visible masthead ad unit.

Political and election ads will no longer be accepted for placement in that unit, which is a banner running across the top of the video platform's homepage. The covetable - and pricey - spot is "the most prominent Google advertising placement available to advertisers," the company said.

Ads relating to alcohol sales, gambling - such as sports betting and casino games - and prescription drugs will also be banned, per the spokesperson. Axios first reported the change.

"We regularly review our advertising requirements to ensure they balance the needs of both advertisers and users," a spokesperson for Google, which owns YouTube, told Insider. "Today, we are updating those requirements to limit the categories of ads that are eligible to run on YouTube masthead inventory. We believe this update will build on changes we made last year to the masthead reservation process and will lead to a better experience for users."

The ban will go into effect on Monday.

In 2019, YouTube said it would stop letting brands run ads for a full day on its masthead unit. Instead, it started to charge a targeted, per impression rate to reach a broader range of advertisers and to more evenly distribute visibility to brands, according to Google.

Google, and other tech platforms, have faced scrutiny over their political advertising business in recent years, especially in regard to the 2020 presidential election and other events. The company blocked all political ads after the January 6 Capitol insurrection as a precaution to prevent any incitement of violence. The company maintained the ban until the day after President Joe Biden's inauguration.