Like many companies have done for Pride Month, Google has announced a number of new features aimed at assisting marginalised LGBTQ+ communities.

The latest feature is available to verified businesses in the US, allowing them to add LGBTQ+ owned labels to appear in Search and Maps results.

The purpose of which is to help users find businesses that cater to LGBTQ+ customers, as well as make it easier to support stores that are owned by LGBTQ+ people.

“Starting today, merchants in the U.S. with a verified Business Profile on Google can add an LGBTQ+ owned attribute to their profile, making it easier for customers to find and support them through Search and Maps. This new offering joins the Black-owned, Latino-owned, veteran-owned and women-owned business attributes we already offer, and is yet another way people can support diverse businesses,” highlighted Mackenzie Thomas, Product & Marketing Inclusion lead, in a blog post.

“This builds on our previous work with the globally available LGBTQ+ friendly and transgender safespace attributes, and offers a more objective attribute that only businesses can add to their profiles,” she adds.

While it is indeed pleasing to see Google adding this functionality, we hope that this feature is not used to target or further marginalise LGBTQ+ owned businesses.

Should it indeed work as intended by helping to highlight businesses worthy of supporting, hopefully Google plans to roll out this feature to other countries and not wait until next year’s Pride Month to do so.