Google says it removed 5.5 billion violating adverts, 206.5 million scam adverts in 2023

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Google says it removed 5.5 billion violating adverts, 206.5 million scam adverts in 2023

Chigozie Amadi

Search engine hub, Google has revealed that it removed over 5.5 billion adverts from its platform in 2023 over violation while 206.5 million adverts were blocked over detected scam.

Google hinted that it leveraged on artificial intelligence for detection of violators and the removal process.

The search engine’s 2023 Ads Safety Report disclosed the significant roles displayed by the AI and how it fostered its enforcement.

The report also stated that Google blocked or restricted ads from serving on more than 2.1 billion publisher pages, up slightly from 2022.

“In 2023, we blocked or removed over 5.5 billion ads, slightly up from the prior year, and 12.7 million advertiser accounts, nearly double from the previous year.

“Similarly, we work to protect advertisers and people by removing our ads from publisher pages and sites that violate our policies, such as sexually explicit content or dangerous products.

“To put the impact of AI on this work into perspective: last year more than 90 per cent of our publisher page-level enforcement started with the use of machine learning models, including our latest LLMs.

“Of course, any advertiser or publisher can still appeal an enforcement action if they think we got it wrong. Our teams will review it and, in the cases where we find errors, use it to improve our systems,” Google stated.

The report pointed out that the introduction of new technology, like generative AI will monitor abuse trends and global conflicts as well as fight against fraud.

The tech giant, however, noted that the digital advertising space had to be nimble and ready to react to the threat in the same way.

According to the report, bad actors are constantly evolving their tactics to manipulate digital advertising to scam people and legitimate businesses, hence the removal of 206.5 million advertisements.

Google’s VP and GM of Ads Privacy and Safety, Duncan Lennox, said, “Overall, we blocked or removed 206.5 million advertisements for violating our misrepresentation policy, which includes many scam tactics, and 273.4 million advertisements for violating our financial services policy.

“We also blocked or removed over 1 billion advertisements for violating our policy against abusing the ad network, which includes promoting malware.”

According to Lennox, the fight against scam ads is an ongoing effort, as Google sees bad actors operating with more sophistication, at a greater scale, using new tactics such as deepfakes to deceive people.