As the furor caused by the role of online ads in the 2016 US presidential elections continues, Google is the latest tech company taking measures to make sure that all political ads run on its ad network will be transparent.
The last thing any of the big tech companies wants is to be implicated in another scandal related to the involvement of bad actors in elections – in the US or elsewhere. As a result, ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, Google is following Facebook in the transparency of political ads on its ads network. In a blog post late last week, Google’s senior vice president Kent Walker clarified Google’s efforts to verify buyers of political ads and to be transparent about who they are and how much they spend.
With regards to the US midterms coming up soon, Walker explained that in order to publish political ads, Google will now be requiring an advertiser to “confirm they are a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, as required by law.” They can do this either with a government ID, or “other key information.” What the latter actually means, is unclear at this time.
Further to these measures, Google will be creating Transparency Reports that will tell interested parties who actually bought political ads and how much they spend on them. The reports will be published and made accessible to anyone who wants to find it.
This is not the first time Google does something to counter election interference. The Jigsaw Protect Your Elections toolkit is another.
You might also like
More from Google
Google Product Studio Lets Merchants Create Product Imagery With Generative AI
Google is launching Product Studio, a new tool that lets merchants create product imagery for free, using generative AI. Google Product …
Google Will Delete Accounts That Have Been Inactive For Two Years
Google said it plans to delete account that have not accessed any of its services for two years, as part …
Google I/O Keynote Round-Up: All-In On AI
During its I/O keynote, Google showed off its latest advances in AI, across search, photo editor and Bard, its own …
No More Passwords, Google Is Rolling Out Passkeys Globally
You no longer require a password to sign in on to your Google account, with passkeys rolling out to all …
You Can Now Create Custom Voices With Google Cloud Text-to-Speech API
Google Cloud has announced a new feature within its TTS API that lets users generate a unique, new synthetic voice …
Google Replaces Classic Hangouts With Chat On Workspace
On March 22, users attempting to access Google's Hangouts chat services will automatically be redirected to Google Chat instead.
Google Rolls Out New Search Filters To All Users On Drive
Almost two years after introducing search chips into Gmail, Google has now announced the rollout of supportive filters to Google …
Google Unveils Early Access To Chrome OS Flex For PCs And Macs
Google has announced early access to Chrome OS Flex, a new version of Chrome OS that will bring the benefits …
Google Releases Free ‘Workspace Essentials Starter’ Plan
Google has announced that it is releasing a new free plan to allow users on other services to access basic …
