NewsGuard: Google places top brand ads on fake sites and violates its own policy

Google’s automated media system shows ads from well-known companies on spammy, fake, and chatbot-created sites, which grossly violates Google’s own policies. This is stated in the June 2023 Misinformation Monitor report by NewsGuard Technologies, writes PCMag.

The report says that major global brands are supporting the proliferation of unreliable artificial intelligence-generated news and information websites (UAINs) with their advertising dollars.

“This programmatic approach thus funds low-quality and misinformation sites, while failing to protect ‘brand safety,’ with most of the ads placed by Google,” the report said.

NewsGuard evaluates news sites for credibility and integrity. The report did not name the companies, but indicated that they are a wide range of advertisers, including two of the world’s largest consumer technology companies, two leading US broadband providers and a Silicon Valley digital platform.

“More than 90% of the ads NewsGuard identified — 356 of 393 — were served to NewsGuard by Google Ads,” the report said.

The high figure shows that Google dominates the media business, a commanding share of the market that antitrust investigations in the US and the European Union say reflects Google’s anti-competitive behavior.

As you know, Google’s own advertising rules prohibit such low-quality and duplicated content.

We will remind that recently the European Commission filed an official antimonopoly complaint against Google and its advertising business. In a preliminary opinion, the regulator claims that the company is abusing its dominant position in the digital advertising market.