Google Will Offer Access to Advertiser's Recent History

Google today announced a change to its online ads that will now show new descriptions that allow web searchers to not only see who the advertiser is and why the ad was served to you, but also what other ads the advertiser has served with Google. with the latest. The changes are part of Google's broader overhaul of its advertising business in the face of increased regulatory scrutiny and a broader shift to technologies that support transparency and consumer privacy in the tech industry.

In this case, Google builds on last year's launch of its advertiser identification program, which requires advertisers to disclose their personal information – including documents proving they are who they say they are and documents confirming which country they work from. These disclosures began being served to advertisers who purchased ads from the Google network last year. So far, Google says it has begun verifying advertisers in more than 90 countries around the world.

It now also adds expanded descriptions to the "About This Ad" product.

On these new advertiser pages, anyone will have access to a menu where they can click to learn more about the advertiser and view all the ads that a particular advertiser has posted in the last 30 days.

Google presents it as a useful tool from a consumer perspective, noting how a consumer who sees an item for sale, such as a jacket, can use the tool to learn more about a brand and its other products. But it's also clearly useful as a way to identify potential bad actors in the advertising ecosystem, as it will showcase the history of advertisers' ads on a public target.

Users will also be able to more easily report an ad that violates Google policies on issues such as counterfeit products, dangerous products, inappropriate content, abuse, violation of interest-based advertising policies, prohibited or restricted content such as deceptive ads.

The changes come at a time when Google's approach to online advertising has changed. Google points to its broader strategy today, saying its new ad disclosures are "based on our efforts to create a clear and intuitive experience for users interacting with ads across Google products." It also noted that more than 30 million users interact with the ad transparency and control menus on a daily basis. For a feature that's relatively embedded in the product - you have to click the little "i" icon to access these menus - this speaks to Google's massive global scale.

So far, Google has announced a number of major moves in the ad space, including the addition of integrated ad-blocking in Chrome, new limits to political ad targeting and announced plans to move away from third-party cookies but these have been delayed.

Google states that election ads will continue to be included in the political transparency report. With these ads, the company also displays the "payer" description to let users understand who's paying for the ad. However, it says all non-political content will appear on advertiser pages.

Source: techcrunch.com