According to Google, millions of corona virus-related ads have been blocked and removed for policy violations in the past few months.
Angela Lang / CNET
Google blocked and removed 2.7 billion bad ads In 2019, around 1 million advertisers accounts were blocked for policy violations, the company said in a blog post on Thursday. The search giant noted that its efforts to combat fraudulent behavior were particularly critical during the reporting period Covid-19 pandemic.
“We closely monitored advertiser behavior to protect users from ads who want to take advantage of the crisis,” wrote Scott Spencer, vice president of privacy and security for ads at Google, in the blog post. “As the situation evolved, we saw a sharp increase in fraudulent ads for in-demand products such as face masks. These ads advertised products that were well above the market price, misrepresented product quality to tempt people to buy, or were sold by retailers placed that never fulfilled the orders. “
According to Google, there is a COVID-19 task force that has developed new detection technology to stop bad actors. The company has blocked and removed tens of millions of corona virus ads over the past few months for violations of policies such as price cuts and misleading claims.
On the publisher side, Google has also taken more than 1.2 million accounts out of circulation and removed ads from over 21 million websites from its publisher network for violating its policies.
Last year’s numbers are from 2.3 billion bad ads Google announced that it was blocked in 2018. As the ability to detect trends and patterns among fraudsters has improved, the company has been able to respond with new technologies to stop threats. Google blocked more than 35 million phishing ads last year.
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Google against the corona virus
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