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

Posted by BeauHD on from the search-and-destroy dept.

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.

1 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. Re:CNN? by bangular · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I heard a story on NPR categorizing misleading and untrue news into four categories (which I agree with). Each of these four are often called "fake news" these days but it's obvious only one is.

    (1) True fake news. News that has no basis at all and is created to be spread on social media to make ad dollars. These are things like pizza-gate and "pope endorsing trump."

    (2) Click bait. The story may be true or somewhat true but headline extremely misleading.

    (3) Satire. The onion.

    (4) News that contains facts but they are out of context and many other important facts are omitted to promote a narrative.