Cleaning Up Illegal Advertisements!Google Blocks Or Removes More Than 3 Billion Ads Throughout The Year

Recently, Google revealed in its annual ad safety report that it blocked or removed approximately 3.1 billion ads last year. Among them, approximately 867 million ads were blocked or removed for abusing ad networks, and 91 million ads were removed for violating legal requirements.

Google also blocked more than 99 million COVID-19-related ads throughout the year, including ads related to miracle cures, N95 masks, fake vaccine reagents, etc.

In addition, Google restricted 6.4 billion ads last year that were deemed "legally or culturally sensitive." There were 550 million restricted ads that breached legal requirements relating to regulated industries, 80 million of which were by alcoholic beverage brands.

These restricted ads will not be removed from the platform but will be "allowed only on a limited basis." In the words of Scott Spencer, Vice President of Advertising Privacy & Safety: “Restricting ads allows us to tailor our approach based on geography, local laws and our certification program so that approved ads are only used where appropriate, regulated and legal. Shown below.”

In terms of content moderation, Google added or updated 40 policies for advertisers and publishers in 2020, and removed ads from 1.3 billion publisher webpages, up from only 21 million in 2019.

Google has also cracked down on fraud and introduced an advertiser identity verification program and a business operations verification program to detect the promotion of non-existent businesses, fraudulent advertising and other behaviors.

As a result of these new policies, the number of ad accounts suspended for policy violations increased from 1 million to 1.7 million last year. Of the approximately 3.1 billion ads blocked or removed, 101 million of them violated Google’s misrepresentation policy.

Not only Google, major platforms are also actively controlling false information on their platforms, such as Facebook.

Facebook said recently that it shut down 1.3 billion fake accounts between October and December and had more than 35,000 staff to deal with misinformation on the platform.

The company also said in a blog post that it had removed more than 12 million pieces of content related to COVID-19 and vaccines that had been flagged as misinformation by global health experts.

In summary, sellers need to pay attention to abide by platform policies when placing advertisements, and be careful when placing advertisements involving sensitive topics.