…Removes 5.2 b ads, suspends 6.7 million accounts

…Updates 29 policies

By Prince Osuagwu, Hi-Tech Editor

Google is making life tough for advertisers who think the internet is where to dump fraudulent and ill-conceived advertisements. At least it is making sure such advertisements do not pass through its platform.

In 2022 alone, just to ensure a safe internet where people will believe what they see, the Search engine giant, introduced 29 policies with strict and definite rules on how advertisers should tailor their adverts.

It didn’t stop at that; it also removed 5.2 billion advertisers, suspended over 6.7 million advertisers account and restricted over 4.3 billion ads.

All were in apparent bid to keep the internet safe and protect people from accessing unwholesome advert materials.

Google’s Director, Product Management, Ads Safety, Alejandro Borgia, while disclosing processes the company employs to ensure a safe internet said: “In 2022, we added or updated 29 policies for advertisers and publishers. This included expanding our financial services verification program to 10 new countries, expanding protections for teens and strengthening our elections ads policies.

“These policies help protect people. In 2022, we removed over 5.2 billion ads, restricted over 4.3 billion ads and suspended over 6.7 million advertiser accounts.

“This represents an increase of 2 billion more ads removed in 2022 from the previous year.

“We also blocked or restricted ads from serving on over 1.5 billion publisher pages and took broader site-level enforcement action on over143, 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 which also helps sort through content and better detect violations across the globe,” Borgia said.

According to him, highlight of the key themes Google tackled in 2022: protecting users from fraud and scams.

“For example, at the end of 2022 and into the new year, we faced a targeted campaign of scammers creating thousands of accounts to spread malware by impersonating popular software brands.

“When we identify these coordinated threats, we urgently assess the situation and took action. In this example, we quickly identified how scammers were spreading their malware and put additional restrictions to block their ability to harm consumers. Over a one-month period, we blocked and removed tens of thousands of malicious advertisements and took action against the accounts associated with the bad ads.

“Overall, in 2022, we blocked or removed 142 million advertisements for violating our misrepresentation policy and 198 million advertisements for violating our financial services policy.

Also on blocking and removing of harmful content and combating misinformation, he said: “In recent years, we’ve developed extensive measures to tackle misinformation and unreliable claims in our advertising ecosystem. This includes our policies against harmful health claims and demonstrably false claims that could undermine trust and participation in elections.

“We’ve also developed an industry-leading policy against climate change denial. In 2022, we blocked ads from running on over 300,000 publisher pages that violated these policies and blocked over 24 million policy-violating ads from serving.

“In addition, we blocked and removed over 51.2 million ads for inappropriate content including hate speech, violence and harmful health claims and 20.6 million ads for dangerous products or services such as weapons and explosives among others, ” he explained