Google's Striking Ad Cleanup: Millions of Ads Removed and Accounts Suspended in India

Significant Ad Removals and Suspensions in India

New Delhi: On Wednesday, Google announced that it had taken down 247.4 million advertisements in India during the previous year, alongside suspending 2.9 million advertiser accounts within the nation.

The primary reasons for these actions included violations related to financial services, trademark issues, misuse of the ad network, personalized advertising, and gambling or gaming content, as detailed in the company's '2024 Ads Safety Report'.

With 2024 being a pivotal year for elections globally, including in India, Google emphasized its commitment to enhancing identity verification and transparency for election advertisers across various countries.

In the last year, the tech giant verified over 8,900 new election advertisers and eliminated 10.7 million election ads from accounts that were not verified worldwide.

These initiatives, which feature disclosures like 'paid for by' and a public transparency report on all election ads, are designed to help users recognize election advertisements and understand who funded them.

Additionally, Google reported that it removed over 5.1 billion ads, restricted more than 9.1 billion ads, and suspended over 39.2 million advertiser accounts last year.

Ads on 1.3 billion publisher pages faced restrictions or blocks, and extensive enforcement actions were taken against over 220,000 publisher sites.

In the past year, Google released over 30 updates to its Ads and Publisher policies to refine its regulations.

The company also enhanced its defenses against the increasing threat of scams, particularly those involving AI-generated impersonation ads.

"To combat this issue, a specialized team of over 100 experts was formed to devise countermeasures, including updating the Misrepresentation policy to suspend advertisers promoting these scams," Google stated.

Consequently, more than 700,000 fraudulent advertiser accounts were permanently banned, resulting in a 90% reduction in reports of such scam ads last year.

With billions of users relying on Google for trustworthy information, including advertisements, the company reiterated its commitment to safeguarding the digital advertising landscape.