Google’s sales representatives are being accused of breaking their own policies regarding minors.
A new set of allegations has accused the search engine giant’s sales team of advising advertisers to target young audiences on the YouTube app. This is a clear violation of the platform’s own terms and conditions.
More details spoke about how reps informed several buyers about hitting the unknown category for users that mostly comprised youngsters. It’s not something new and was outlined to have taken place a while back, only to be found now.
Google and Meta were called out in the past for their controversial agreement of targeting users who fell in the 13 to 17-year age bracket. What’s even more shocking is how Google confirmed in 2021 that wouldn’t permit advertisers to target anyone below 18.
The unknown category being discussed includes those having demographics that are not familiar to Google. It’s a simple way for the company to target minors. Meanwhile, one advertiser did reveal how the sales rep from Google spoke about targeting those who were 16 years old and had a disposable income. Again, they fell into this unknown category.
One buyer shed light on the huge entertainment brand which convinced the company to upload information about teenagers so that targeting would become easier. Knowing that this was a violation of the policy, they still went ahead.
This is a very serious matter. It similarly raises a lot of questions about the Android maker and how it fails in terms of enforcing its own policies related to minor user targeting. We already have laws such as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection that are designed to restrict online ads to teens.
Advertisers really just want to make money at the end of the day. And if that comes at the cost of targeting minors, then so be it. With Google making their lives simpler by breaking policies, not a lot can be done here.
This is why Google is now being asked to justify the act after the allegations took center stage. On that note, the company says that it has always prohibited ad personalization for users below 18. After hearing the news, they vow to take strict and swift action. Similarly, they will be working closely with sales reps to investigate what went wrong here.
Image: DIW-Aigen
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