4.3 billion adverts restricted in 2022, says Google
Four billion, three hundred million online advertisements were restricted on Google in 2022, a report from the firm has revealed.
According to Google, these adverts were legally or culturally sensitive. It said, “Online advertising can be a powerful way to reach customers, but in sensitive areas, we also work hard to avoid showing ads when and where they might be inappropriate.”
It stated that while these adverts were still allowed to be promoted, it was on a limited basis, and was not available to every user in every location. It added that advertisers also had to meet additional requirements before their ads were eligible to run.
Breaking down its adverts activities, the firm stated that it removed over 5.2 billion ads and suspended over 6.7 million advertiser accounts in 2022. It said this represented an increase of two billion more ads removed in 2022 from the previous year.
Google noted, “We also blocked or restricted ads from serving on over 1.5 billion publisher pages and took broader site-level enforcement action on over 143,000 publisher sites.
“To enforce our policies at this scale, we rely on a combination of human reviews and automated systems powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning. This helps sot through content and better detect violations across the globe.”
The firm revealed that it added or updated 29 policies for advertisers and publishers in the year, which included expanding its financial services verification programme to 10 new countries, expanding protections for teens, and strengthening its elections ads policies.
It added that it had developed extensive measures to tackle misinformation and unreliable claims in its advertising ecosystem which includes its policies against harmful health claims, and demonstrably false claims that could undermine trust and participation in elections.
“In addition to our policies and enforcement, we’re committed to leading the industry in giving users more information about the ads they see and putting them in control of their ads experience,” it stated.
To better improve the transparency of ads on its platform, the firm also announced the launch of its Ads Transparency Center.
According to the Director, Product Management, Ads Safety, Alejandro Borgia, the center would serve as a database of verified advertisers across all its platforms.
He said, “Today I’m pleased to announce we are launching a new transparency tool, the Ads Transparency Center, a searchable repository of verified advertisers across all of our platforms, including Search, Display, And Youtube, that lets people search for a particular advertiser and view the advertiser page.”
