How has Google responded?

President of Google EMEA, Matt Brittin, spoke about the issue at Advertising Week Europe on the 20th March - whilst he was apologetic, he downplayed the scale of the problems, saying “when I’ve had conversations with some of the advertisers, generally I’ve found it’s only a handful of impressions and pennies, not pounds”. He did concede that “however small or big the issue, we need to improve and get better” and stated that they want to “raise the bar” for safe advertising. In order to do this, Google is planning to improve three aspects of their advertising business.

Firstly, they plan to review their policies in order to [more] clearly define what constitutes hate speech. The benefits of this are clear - if there is less ambiguity, advertisers can have greater confidence, as Google will need to invest more in moderating and categorising content in order to police their own policies.

The second aspect Google is going to review is the control that advertisers have affecting the placement of their ads. Brittin said that Google had found that in some cases where advertisers had appeared next to extremist content, they had the controls and the ability to prevent it. He did say however, that if the users have the right controls but they’re simply too complex to be effective, that’s Google’s problem, rather than the advertisers’. To remedy this, Google plans to simplify the controls, and set defaults to deliver a higher level of safety.

Finally, Google are going to commit resources to improving their enforcement of policy and removal of extremist content. Britten claims that millions of dollars are being spent to ensure that bad advertising doesn’t slip through the net and that 98% of flagged content is reviewed within 24 hours, he said that Google can “go further and faster.”

How does this affect advertisers?

It’s likely that the furore will mean that in the not-too-distant future, those who advertise with Google will be less likely to appear next to hate speech and extremist content. In the meantime, if you are currently advertising with Google, you need to decide whether or not to follow suit with the brands that are pulling their advertising with them - Ultimately, you’ll need to consider whether or not the reach that you can achieve using Google’s advertising products and network is worth the current risk to your brand safety. It is not completely clear how long it will take Google to implement the promised changes.

Due to the nature of the internet, it’s unlikely that a 100% foolproof system will ever be possible when it comes to identifying inappropriate content. With that in mind, it’s important for brands to stay aware and use programmatic advertising with caution. Advertisers can focus on safety by keeping up to date with available safety tools, knowing what options they have for ad placement and regularly and robustly auditing their own advertising.