11 ms·

Political advertising on Google

65 points by tareqak 8y ago

tareqak 8y ago
Axios has good summary of what this is: https://www.axios.com/google-releases-political-ad-directory-7e9dfe79-7b3f-4837-a656-0dbf32480933.html https://www.axios.com/google-releases-political-ad-directory... - It mentions an API to access this information. I don't want to paste the Axios text because their entire article is pretty short, and I would feel bad about them not getting fair compensation for this kind of short, succinct journalism that I would like to see in the world.
- kingbirdy 8y ago
  I like the idea of Axios, but I've found their sourcing to be very bad, with the linked sources sometimes being wholly irrelevant to the article.
  - wolco 8y ago
    A few years back Axios was attempting to purchase a startup I was employed with. Very interesting company. They have data on 5 billion people that sits in an airport hanger sized building.
    - badrequest 8y ago
      Is this really the same Axios? Crunchbase says they were founded in 2016, and while it may actually be possible, I'd hate to think that a company could get data worth housing on 5 billion people in like two years.
      - howard941 8y ago
        Politico's founders left and created Axios. They say you can't take it with you when you go, but maybe you can?
    - web007 8y ago
      Are you thinking of Acxiom, which is a marketing data company, or Axios which is a media / journalism company?
      - wolco 8y ago
        My mistake it must have been Acxiom.
    - rwc 8y ago
      You're thinking of these guys: http://acxiom.com/ http://acxiom.com/
mscasts 8y ago
I find it interesting that it's translated to Swedish but is only about the US. Are they using Google translate behind the scenes perhaps?
- skybrian 8y ago
  I don't know, but it seems likely that getting translation work done by human translators just wasn't all that hard for whoever worked on this. Big companies have a lot of resources and Google already has to translate all their UI text.
gremlinsinc 8y ago
Why doesn't google/fb (other than money) just ban ads from non-political campaigns.. i.e. Pacs, etc.. if you're Bernie Sanders you can run an ad, if you're a super pac or political agency you cannot run campaigns for a politician, only the verified politician and designated politician workers can access adwords/fb ads for that campaign. This would essentially help make citizens united null/void at least so far as social media/search engine ad buys are considered...
- kingbirdy 8y ago
  Because that would cost them money, and some competitor would show up who is willing to sell ads to pacs.
  - devoply 8y ago
    > some competitor would show up fb and goog have a captive market. no competitor is going to sell ads to their customers. they would lose money and that's it.
    - hirsin 8y ago
      Or force the politician to put more of their money on Facebook and let the PACs backfill the TV and other spending where the rules don't exist.
  - canadianwriter 8y ago
    Competitor will show up to take on... Google? People aren't switching away from Google any time soon.
    - ma2rten 8y ago
      People are going to switch away from Google search, but Google's ad networks (DoubleClick, GDN/AdSense, Admob, AdX) actually compete with other ad networks (like OpenX, Rubicon Project, Criteo, AppNexus). Many publishers use more than one ad network to maximize their income, so advertisers can just move to the other networks.
shiburizu 8y ago
Something about seeing florida lit up on the map for such convoluted amounts of money on Google ads got me to laugh.
sv123 8y ago
This is a step in the right direction. I like the top targeted keywords, but would be even better to see which ads and organizations bought the keywords. Is Trump or Beto spending more on people searching for aclu?
nyxtom 8y ago
Their policies are fascinating: Take this one in not allowing certain kinds of inappropriate content: " Content that harasses, intimidates, or bullies an individual or group of individuals Example: Content that singles out someone for abuse or harassment; content that suggests a tragic event did not happen, or that victims or their families are actors, or complicit in a cover-up of the event." Do other networks have similar policies?
- nyxtom 8y ago
  These two alone would cancel out most of the political ads I've seen. " Promotions that are likely to shock or scare Examples: Promotions that suggest you may be in danger, be infected with a disease, or be the victim of a conspiracy" " Promotions containing obscene or profane language Examples: Swear or curse words, slurs relating to race or sexuality, variations and misspellings of profane language"
- scarmig 8y ago
  > Example: Content that singles out someone for abuse or harassment; content that suggests a tragic event did not happen, or that victims or their families are actors, or complicit in a cover-up of the event. Cue the rending of garments--how dare Google claim that some events definitively did or didn't happen! 9/11 is a myth! Obama wasn't born in Hawaii! Sandy Hook was put on by crisis actors! Fake news!
- deadmik3 8y ago
  that's a real specific Alex Jones policy
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  I've been getting a lot of these extremely hateful & racist CRTV ads on Youtube that I guess they don't care about.
caublestone 8y ago
I’ve been thinking about a crowdsourced superpac. Anyone can create an ad and then donated money funds its distribution on Google and Facebook ad networks. Kind of like digital picketing. Does anything like this exist already?
- ISL 8y ago
  One need not form a PAC -- it would be sufficient to buy ads yourself, and encourage others to do so, too.
ameister14 8y ago
The budgets are smaller than I thought they'd be over a 2-3 month period. Also, not surprisingly, a lot of these ads are really, really badly done. Misspelled words, bad contrast of text color to background, just unprofessional.
sdinsn 8y ago
Clicking any advertiser name shows "There was an error loading content." for me.
kodablah 8y ago
Many of the video ads are "no longer available" for viewing (e.g. OneNation [0]) and I see no information about target selectors that they used. Is Google not releasing this selectors or were the ads not targeted? EDIT: Ok, you have to select a specific campaign to see the targets. Unfortunately I can't see where to go from the non-specific-campaign-filter video I select to the campaign it was on. Also there is campaign ambiguity since they are identified by date ranges...ideally a better presentation should be done. A general FAQ can be found at [1]. Note how it doesn't include political ads that don't mention a federal candidate so, e.g. ads similar to the recent brexit ad disclosures would not even appear here if they happened domestically. Similarly, gubernatorial ads would also not appear. I can understand that what is and isn't a political ad when its about an issue and not a candidate is hard to determine (especially w/out FEC ID), but we have to assume the ads are at least viewed and categorized internally before deployed and it is at that point it would be reasonable to mark them. 0 - https://transparencyreport.google.com/political-ads/library/advertiser/AR544601303376986112 https://transparencyreport.google.com/political-ads/library/... 1 - https://support.google.com/transparencyreport/answer/9052272 https://support.google.com/transparencyreport/answer/9052272
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
prolikewh0a 8y ago
"Must be approved by Google" What prevents Google from shutting out legitimate campaigns that aren't racist or hateful, but doesn't align with how Google sees the future of the USA?

65 points by tareqak 8y ago

Axios has good summary of what this is: https://www.axios.com/google-releases-political-ad-directory-7e9dfe79-7b3f-4837-a656-0dbf32480933.html https://www.axios.com/google-releases-political-ad-directory... - It mentions an API to access this information. I don't want to paste the Axios text because their entire article is pretty short, and I would feel bad about them not getting fair compensation for this kind of short, succinct journalism that I would like to see in the world.

kingbirdy 8y ago
I like the idea of Axios, but I've found their sourcing to be very bad, with the linked sources sometimes being wholly irrelevant to the article.
- wolco 8y ago
  A few years back Axios was attempting to purchase a startup I was employed with. Very interesting company. They have data on 5 billion people that sits in an airport hanger sized building.
  - badrequest 8y ago
    Is this really the same Axios? Crunchbase says they were founded in 2016, and while it may actually be possible, I'd hate to think that a company could get data worth housing on 5 billion people in like two years.
    - howard941 8y ago
      Politico's founders left and created Axios. They say you can't take it with you when you go, but maybe you can?
  - web007 8y ago
    Are you thinking of Acxiom, which is a marketing data company, or Axios which is a media / journalism company?
    - wolco 8y ago
      My mistake it must have been Acxiom.
  - rwc 8y ago
    You're thinking of these guys: http://acxiom.com/ http://acxiom.com/

mscasts 8y ago

I find it interesting that it's translated to Swedish but is only about the US. Are they using Google translate behind the scenes perhaps?

skybrian 8y ago
I don't know, but it seems likely that getting translation work done by human translators just wasn't all that hard for whoever worked on this. Big companies have a lot of resources and Google already has to translate all their UI text.

gremlinsinc 8y ago

Why doesn't google/fb (other than money) just ban ads from non-political campaigns.. i.e. Pacs, etc.. if you're Bernie Sanders you can run an ad, if you're a super pac or political agency you cannot run campaigns for a politician, only the verified politician and designated politician workers can access adwords/fb ads for that campaign. This would essentially help make citizens united null/void at least so far as social media/search engine ad buys are considered...

kingbirdy 8y ago
Because that would cost them money, and some competitor would show up who is willing to sell ads to pacs.
- devoply 8y ago
  > some competitor would show up fb and goog have a captive market. no competitor is going to sell ads to their customers. they would lose money and that's it.
  - hirsin 8y ago
    Or force the politician to put more of their money on Facebook and let the PACs backfill the TV and other spending where the rules don't exist.
- canadianwriter 8y ago
  Competitor will show up to take on... Google? People aren't switching away from Google any time soon.
  - ma2rten 8y ago
    People are going to switch away from Google search, but Google's ad networks (DoubleClick, GDN/AdSense, Admob, AdX) actually compete with other ad networks (like OpenX, Rubicon Project, Criteo, AppNexus). Many publishers use more than one ad network to maximize their income, so advertisers can just move to the other networks.

shiburizu 8y ago

Something about seeing florida lit up on the map for such convoluted amounts of money on Google ads got me to laugh.

sv123 8y ago

This is a step in the right direction. I like the top targeted keywords, but would be even better to see which ads and organizations bought the keywords. Is Trump or Beto spending more on people searching for aclu?

nyxtom 8y ago

Their policies are fascinating: Take this one in not allowing certain kinds of inappropriate content: " Content that harasses, intimidates, or bullies an individual or group of individuals Example: Content that singles out someone for abuse or harassment; content that suggests a tragic event did not happen, or that victims or their families are actors, or complicit in a cover-up of the event." Do other networks have similar policies?

nyxtom 8y ago
These two alone would cancel out most of the political ads I've seen. " Promotions that are likely to shock or scare Examples: Promotions that suggest you may be in danger, be infected with a disease, or be the victim of a conspiracy" " Promotions containing obscene or profane language Examples: Swear or curse words, slurs relating to race or sexuality, variations and misspellings of profane language"
scarmig 8y ago
> Example: Content that singles out someone for abuse or harassment; content that suggests a tragic event did not happen, or that victims or their families are actors, or complicit in a cover-up of the event. Cue the rending of garments--how dare Google claim that some events definitively did or didn't happen! 9/11 is a myth! Obama wasn't born in Hawaii! Sandy Hook was put on by crisis actors! Fake news!
deadmik3 8y ago
that's a real specific Alex Jones policy
prolikewh0a 8y ago
I've been getting a lot of these extremely hateful & racist CRTV ads on Youtube that I guess they don't care about.

caublestone 8y ago

I’ve been thinking about a crowdsourced superpac. Anyone can create an ad and then donated money funds its distribution on Google and Facebook ad networks. Kind of like digital picketing. Does anything like this exist already?

ISL 8y ago
One need not form a PAC -- it would be sufficient to buy ads yourself, and encourage others to do so, too.

ameister14 8y ago

The budgets are smaller than I thought they'd be over a 2-3 month period. Also, not surprisingly, a lot of these ads are really, really badly done. Misspelled words, bad contrast of text color to background, just unprofessional.

sdinsn 8y ago

Clicking any advertiser name shows "There was an error loading content." for me.

kodablah 8y ago

Many of the video ads are "no longer available" for viewing (e.g. OneNation [0]) and I see no information about target selectors that they used. Is Google not releasing this selectors or were the ads not targeted? EDIT: Ok, you have to select a specific campaign to see the targets. Unfortunately I can't see where to go from the non-specific-campaign-filter video I select to the campaign it was on. Also there is campaign ambiguity since they are identified by date ranges...ideally a better presentation should be done. A general FAQ can be found at [1]. Note how it doesn't include political ads that don't mention a federal candidate so, e.g. ads similar to the recent brexit ad disclosures would not even appear here if they happened domestically. Similarly, gubernatorial ads would also not appear. I can understand that what is and isn't a political ad when its about an issue and not a candidate is hard to determine (especially w/out FEC ID), but we have to assume the ads are at least viewed and categorized internally before deployed and it is at that point it would be reasonable to mark them. 0 - https://transparencyreport.google.com/political-ads/library/advertiser/AR544601303376986112 https://transparencyreport.google.com/political-ads/library/... 1 - https://support.google.com/transparencyreport/answer/9052272 https://support.google.com/transparencyreport/answer/9052272

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

prolikewh0a 8y ago

"Must be approved by Google" What prevents Google from shutting out legitimate campaigns that aren't racist or hateful, but doesn't align with how Google sees the future of the USA?