Google Bans 200 Publishers From Its Ad Network (recode.net)

Since it passed a new policy against fake news, Google has banned 200 publishers from its AdSense network, an ad placement service that automatically serves text and display ads on participating sites based on its audience. "The ban was part of an update to an existing policy that prohibits sites that mislead users with their content," reports Recode. From the report: Not all 200 publishers were swept up as part of the effort to root out fake news sites. Publishers were banned in November and December and included sites that impersonate real news organizations through shortened top-level domains, according to Google's 2016 "bad ads" report, normally released at the beginning of each year. So-called fake news publishers will sometimes take advantage of ".co" domains by appearing similar to legitimate news sites that would normally end in ".com." Google declined to provide a listing of the banned sites. Separately, the annual report on violations of advertising policy also included data on ads removed by Google. The company reported that in 2016 it took down 1.7 billion ads for violations, compared to 780 million in 2015. Google attributes the increase in ad removals to a combination of advertiser behavior and improvements in technology to detect offending ads. Also among those the removed ads were what Google calls "tabloid cloakers." These advertisers run what look like links to news headlines, but when the user clicks, an ad for a product such as a weight loss supplement pops up. Google suspended 1,300 accounts engaged in tabloid cloaking in 2016.

Comments

Re:CNN?

[lewistown]

Non of those are quite as bad or bias as Breitbart, and it comes up in Google news results...

I don't agree

[rsilvergun]

is not "Fake News". Fox I'll give you, but then again, Fox is literally not news. They were sued for disguising editorial content as news and (successfully) made the argument that they were an entertainment network so as to skirt laws regulating news sources. But CNN? NBC? Hell, even with HuffPo I challenge you to give me a bonafide fake news story they didn't later retract in embarrassment.

I'm not sure what's worse, the fact that this nonsense gets modded up +5 or that real news sources have been dragged through the mud by the deluge of fake news.

nope

[publiclurker]

Trump has admitted to assaulting women, so let's not pretend that claims against him are anywhere in the same league.