The tech giant Google blocked and removed 2.7 billion bad ads last year and suspended nearly 1 million advertiser accounts for policy violations, the company announced in a Thursday blog post.
“Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, we’ve closely monitored advertiser behavior to protect users from ads looking to take advantage of the crisis,” Scott Spencer, Vice President of Product Management, Ads Privacy and Safety said in the blogpost adding that as the situation developed the company saw a sharp spike in fraudulent ads for in-demand products like face masks.
“These ads promoted products listed significantly above market price, misrepresented the product quality to trick people into making a purchase or were placed by merchants who never fulfilled the orders,” Spencer added.
Google said that they have built new detection technology and have also improved our existing enforcement systems to stop bad actors.
“These concerted efforts are working. We’ve blocked and removed tens of millions of coronavirus-related ads over the past few months for policy violations including price-gouging, capitalizing on global medical supply shortages, making misleading claims about cures and promoting illegitimate unemployment benefits.”
On the publisher side, Google terminated over 1.2 million accounts and removed ads from over 21 million web pages that are part of its publisher network for violating our policies.
It said, terminating accounts is an especially effective enforcement tool that it used if advertisers or publishers engage in egregious policy violations or have a history of violating policy.
The tech giant noted as more consumers turn to online financial services over brick and mortar locations, advertisements related to personal loan with misleading information on lending terms increased drastically.
To combat this, the company broadened its “policy to only allow loan-related ads to run if the advertiser clearly states all fees, risks and benefits on their website or app so that users can make informed decisions.”
This updated policy enabled Google to take down 9.6 million of such bad ads in 2019, doubling company’s number from 2018.
At the end of last year, Google also introduced a certification program for debt management advertisers in select countries that offer to negotiate with creditors to remedy debt or credit problems.
“We know users looking for help with this are often at their most vulnerable and we want to create a safe experience for them. This new program ensures we’re only allowing advertisers who are registered by the local regulatory agencies to serve ads for this type of service. We’re continuing to explore ways to scale this program to more countries to match local finance regulations,” said Spencer.