Google has published a report on the safety of advertisements in 2023, which shows that 206.5 million fraudulent ads have been removed.
The report, which was released on Wednesday underscores highlights the prevalence of scams and frauds across online platforms in 2023.
The report states that bad actors continue to evolve their methods, taking advantage of digital advertising to scam people and legitimate businesses.
Google in the report, says It has rapidly adopted policies, deployed rapid response teams, and strengthened detection techniques to cope with this constantly changing threat.
Highlighting the efforts of the tech company in tackling the rising cases of fraud online, Google’s VP and GM of Ads Privacy and Safety, Duncan Lennox, in the report 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.”
“The fight against scam ads is an ongoing effort, as we see bad actors operating with more sophistication, at a greater scale, using new tactics such as deepfakes to deceive people.
“We’ll continue to dedicate extensive resources, making significant investments in detection technology and partnering with organizations like the Global Anti-Scam Alliance and Stop Scams UK to facilitate information sharing and protect consumers worldwide,” Lennox added.
Overall, in 2023, Google said it blocked or removed a total of 5.5 billion ads from its platform, buoyed by its deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
“AI is improving our enforcement on all fronts. 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,” the company stated in the report.
Google’s fight against fraud is helped by the introduction of new technologies, such as generative artificial intelligence, to new trends of abuse and global conflicts. However, the tech giant pointed out that the digital advertising sector needs to be agile and ready to respond to the threat in the same way.
