10 ms·

Increasing transparency through advertiser identity verification

200 points by NicoJuicy 7y ago

ericzawo 7y ago
Interesting development — Will be fun to see who all the freelance superstar adsense pros are.
vikramkr 7y ago
Would be nice if the information was not two clicks away but rather front and center, especially for political ads, but a really good step nonetheless
- stestagg 7y ago
  This is the plan. Once google have verified the advertisers, they can ‘help users understand the source of the advert’ by replacing the mini Ad icon with the advertisers’ favicon, to increase transparency..
  - ignoramous 7y ago
    > ...with the advertisers’ favicon, to increase transparency. My mom thinks any URL with a padlock next to it is über secure [0][1] and that she can give her bank details without worry. [0] https://zeltser.com/padlock-and-favicon-confusion-in-browsers/ https://zeltser.com/padlock-and-favicon-confusion-in-browser... [1] https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200170416-What-do-the-SSL-options-mean-#h_4e0d1a7c-eb71-4204-9e22-9d3ef9ef7fef https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200170416-W...
    - shawnz 7y ago
      This is why Chrome and Firefox changed it to a grey padlock instead of a green one https://blog.chromium.org/2018/05/evolving-chromes-security-indicators.html https://blog.chromium.org/2018/05/evolving-chromes-security-...
  - Viliam1234 7y ago
    Increased transparency would be having "Advertisement" (no abbreviation) and the advertiser's icon. Replacing "Ad" with advertiser's icon is simply a method how not to display "Ad". I expect that many icons will not be company logos, but rather something that seems like it would normally appear in a web page: a small arrow, a tiny dot, a thumb-up, etc. Then the Google will have credible deniability: hey, we didn't make the icon, the advertiser did, blame him. But of course they are the ones who refuses to display "Advertising" clearly.
digitalengineer 7y ago
>This change will make it easier for people to understand who the advertiser is behind the ads they see Call me skeptical, but won't it just lead to shell companies?
- ignoramous 7y ago
  Lead to...? See: Astroturfing (2019), Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Fmh4RdIwswE https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Fmh4RdIwswE And: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing
- tialaramex 7y ago
  Sure, but this puts the spotlight back on the countries which allow shady crap. Take the United Kingdom. Google says Foo Ltd. are the advertiser, who are Foo Ltd? Well the UK legally requires Foo Ltd. to register with Companies House, a government agency, and this registration legally must identify Persons with Significant Control, actual humans who make decisions for Foo Ltd. But when you look closer you discover that Foo Ltd has a company secretary who lives in a run down area of an ex-industrial city, and who is listed as secretary for 1800 other companies, and its offices are registered as that person's flat. The PSC section is filled out with the name Offshore Holdings Inc. offering the address of a law firm in the British Virgin Islands, even though the law is clear that Persons means very specifically human individuals. The UK could clean this up, but of course the people hidden behind this sort of thing are actually wealthy and powerful and are doing all they can to ensure nothing changes. Similar things happen in the US, and in several other developed nations you probably think of as law-abiding and straight dealing. Google can't fix any of that, so this is all you get.
  - minikites 7y ago
    >But when you look closer you discover What percentage of people who view the ad are going to do this?
    - throwaway595 7y ago
timeimp 7y ago
Would it possible for me to turn off all the ads from all the advertises? Hypothetically, of course!
- mankyd 7y ago
  They have/had this, but it hasn't proven terribly popular: https://contributor.google.com/ https://contributor.google.com/ edit: I say "had" because I think it has changed forms over its lifetime. I think originally you could simply load up credits and it would cover ads across the web with blank images.
  - Nextgrid 7y ago
    It would still track you though which is a bigger problem than the ads being visible.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
alibaba_x 7y ago
Interesting timing right before a U.S. election. Likely trying to avoid Russian disinformation like in 2016.
- corporateslave5 7y ago
  You realize they only spent 100k in Facebook ads in 2016?
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    At least someone gets a good ROI from Facebook ads.
  - alibaba_x 7y ago
    Yes I know, but the whole impeachment thing happened because of that modest amount nevertheless.
- zebogen 7y ago
  It says in the post that they've been verifying political advertisers since 2018. Now it is being extended to all advertisers.
annoyingnoob 7y ago
With verification, will Google be culpable the next time one of my users is redirected to a tech support scam from a Google ad? At least twice a year at my business users are redirected to tech support scams from Google Search ads. Its always a similar story, "I searched for Amazon and clicked the first link".
- ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  Google being culpable for malicious ads will only happen if the US finally removes Section 230 immunity. Until then, they'll keep profiting off criminal activity whilst claiming it's not their fault.
- toast0 7y ago
  Verifying the (corporate) identity of the advertisers, doesn't affect their responsibility for content (or lack thereof), but it might mean you could sue the advertiser without first needing to get the information on the advertiser from Google.
  - annoyingnoob 7y ago
    Good to know that I'll be able to sue a corporation from Antigua that was setup by a shady foreign law firm. I'm sure that will go well and be a good use of my resources. This is all a veil to try and hide the fact that Google wants ads to blend in better with results. Every couple of years Google makes it harder to distinguish ads from content. https://searchengineland.com/search-ad-labeling-history-google-bing-254332 https://searchengineland.com/search-ad-labeling-history-goog...
- bootlooped 7y ago
  If somebody with a blue check mark on Twitter commits a crime, is Twitter responsible?
  - dsl 7y ago
    No, because apparently it's in the public interest that it be seen. See https://www.thedailybeast.com/twitter-we-cant-block-trump-because-hes-a-world-leader https://www.thedailybeast.com/twitter-we-cant-block-trump-be...
kvothe_ 7y ago
kj
drewg123 7y ago
This is interesting timing given the general decline of ad revenue due to the COVID economic slowdown. I'm surprised and impressed that they are making things harder for advertisers when then are probably fighting harder for every ad dollar.
- javajosh 7y ago
  It doesn't hurt that GOOG has an incredible amount of capital on hand.
- frandroid 7y ago
  They would rather establish a framework of proof that they control rather than have a more onerous and inflexible one imposed upon them by the EU. When large companies do due diligence to show accountability, it's less likely that a government will try to force them to do it.
pm_me_ur_fullzz 7y ago
There is a conference going on with Ernst & Young right now about identity verification, an Italian publication is posting verification data on the Ethereum blockchain, for each article. It is mostly for the publisher to protect themselves when people ask about whether they were actually the source, doesn't protect people from sharing fake sources or making it look similar with their own "verification" entries on a blockchain. Steps!
- throwaway595 7y ago
  If you haven't, check out Decentralized Identifiers [1] and Sovrin blockchain [2]. [1] https://w3c.github.io/did-core/ https://w3c.github.io/did-core/ [2] https://sovrin.org https://sovrin.org
keiferski 7y ago
Prepare yourself for ads from amorphous organizations with names like The Committee to Re-Establish Democracy or The Project for a New American Freedom. (No idea if these are real, I just made them up.) I suppose it helps to see precisely who is paying for an advertisement, but I don’t think this is actually useful in a real sense. The only long-term solution is education: foster a sense of skepticism towards all advertising and encourage reading information from a variety of viewpoints. Of course, Google’s entire existence (and having destroyed traditional media’s business model, the media itself) is predicated on ads, so don’t expect anything this lucid soon.
- javajosh 7y ago
  > foster a sense of skepticism towards all advertising Here, here. I would go further and say that human society needs a universal convention that flags paid speech as such, and gives people a clear protocol to filter any (or all) paid communication.
  - Trickflick 7y ago
    Sounds like (a polarized) wanting a yes/no-solution. Maybe for a speech solution you can use a transcript (speech to text converter) which stretches every possible text hyperlinking to (educating) extending webpages with further information hyperlinks, on a topic (wiki, translating pages,...) -what for sure let 'their' influence on you um grow and possibly become more polarized ? An example-try: Methods: language regulation, using evaluative Words telling shortend storys repetition boasting hints ma(s)king half-truth to truth So now, with that on your mind lets test the transcript adding hyperlinks using the named methods... (-;
  - tantalor 7y ago
    There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. If you filter the paid speech then it follows you should also filter out the actual art, cinema, theater, etc. it paid for. Now you are left with what?
    - 7y ago
disiplus 7y ago
i think this is a great step. also we as a company dont have nothing against that, at least it would be more visible that some of our competition is faking a local presence.
chatmasta 7y ago
For those interested, Facebook already does something similar, and also has an "Ad Library" [0] where you can monitor ads related to "social issues, elections or politics." It's pretty interesting, worth checking it out. [0] https://www.facebook.com/ads/library https://www.facebook.com/ads/library
- 1f60c 7y ago
  Google also has a website similar to Facebook's Ad Library: https://transparencyreport.google.com/political-ads/region/US?hl=en https://transparencyreport.google.com/political-ads/region/U...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
not2b 7y ago
It is meaningless, because they accept corporate identities, and it is trivial to create shell corporations with meaningless names, like Americans For Good Stuff And Against Bad Stuff.
ogre_codes 7y ago
This has big implications when advertisers get banned due to bad behaviors. Previously a bad actor who gets banned could easily just quickly reopen a new account. If they need to get verified, there are a few steps which increase expenses and turn around time. If they need to create a new shell entity every time they get banned, it adds significantly to amount of time and money required to get their shady advertising out. This is particularly important right now as the cost of advertising on Google (and in general) is going down right now because of the pandemic.
- dmix 7y ago
  It's a good time to be running shell company services. I wonder what kind of turn around time you could achieve... The hard part will probably be finding an agent to represent the company. Assuming they validate bans based on company representatives.
cypherpunk-inst 7y ago
Very bad, anti-privacy, anti-anonymity development. As governments around the world get increasingly totalitarian and everything gets regulated to death or outright illegal, the timing for Google to ban necessarily anonymous individuals, organizations and businesses couldn't be worse!
Animats 7y ago
Interesting. That's what I've been doing with SiteTruth for a decade. Unlike Google, I can't make advertisers give me documents, so I have to dig into public records. I look forward to seeing what info Google provides to users. The demo is useless. Name and "Location: United States" isn't much. I doubt Google will really provide much info about their advertisers; they're paying customers. Search users are the product. I'd want to see the actual name and address of the business (as required in CA and the EU), business license info (required in the UK), incorporation state and serial number (required for an EV certificate), and have an option to buy a business credit report from D&B. At various times I've put all of those on SiteTruth.com. It's become harder to get the data needed. A decade ago, an online-only business with no clear ownership or street address was almost always a scam. Now, it's not uncommon, although the scam percentage is still high. Businesses are also allowed more anonymity now, this being considered "privacy". There are "low-doc" states, such as Nevada. Owners of postal mail boxes used to be public record; now they're anonymous. D&B used to encourage companies to publicize DUNS numbers; now they consider that proprietary. It's a great time to be an online scammer.
crsv 7y ago
I'd settle for more transparency around the consumers of the ad. I've heard a few folks wonder aloud if huge percentages of their paid search volume is fraudulent. Transparency on the consumer side is good, but there should be more work to prevent bot traffic from eating ad spend.

200 points by NicoJuicy 7y ago

Interesting development — Will be fun to see who all the freelance superstar adsense pros are.

Would be nice if the information was not two clicks away but rather front and center, especially for political ads, but a really good step nonetheless

stestagg 7y ago
This is the plan. Once google have verified the advertisers, they can ‘help users understand the source of the advert’ by replacing the mini Ad icon with the advertisers’ favicon, to increase transparency..
- ignoramous 7y ago
  > ...with the advertisers’ favicon, to increase transparency. My mom thinks any URL with a padlock next to it is über secure [0][1] and that she can give her bank details without worry. [0] https://zeltser.com/padlock-and-favicon-confusion-in-browsers/ https://zeltser.com/padlock-and-favicon-confusion-in-browser... [1] https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200170416-What-do-the-SSL-options-mean-#h_4e0d1a7c-eb71-4204-9e22-9d3ef9ef7fef https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200170416-W...
  - shawnz 7y ago
    This is why Chrome and Firefox changed it to a grey padlock instead of a green one https://blog.chromium.org/2018/05/evolving-chromes-security-indicators.html https://blog.chromium.org/2018/05/evolving-chromes-security-...
- Viliam1234 7y ago
  Increased transparency would be having "Advertisement" (no abbreviation) and the advertiser's icon. Replacing "Ad" with advertiser's icon is simply a method how not to display "Ad". I expect that many icons will not be company logos, but rather something that seems like it would normally appear in a web page: a small arrow, a tiny dot, a thumb-up, etc. Then the Google will have credible deniability: hey, we didn't make the icon, the advertiser did, blame him. But of course they are the ones who refuses to display "Advertising" clearly.

digitalengineer 7y ago

>This change will make it easier for people to understand who the advertiser is behind the ads they see Call me skeptical, but won't it just lead to shell companies?

ignoramous 7y ago
Lead to...? See: Astroturfing (2019), Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Fmh4RdIwswE https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Fmh4RdIwswE And: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing
tialaramex 7y ago
Sure, but this puts the spotlight back on the countries which allow shady crap. Take the United Kingdom. Google says Foo Ltd. are the advertiser, who are Foo Ltd? Well the UK legally requires Foo Ltd. to register with Companies House, a government agency, and this registration legally must identify Persons with Significant Control, actual humans who make decisions for Foo Ltd. But when you look closer you discover that Foo Ltd has a company secretary who lives in a run down area of an ex-industrial city, and who is listed as secretary for 1800 other companies, and its offices are registered as that person's flat. The PSC section is filled out with the name Offshore Holdings Inc. offering the address of a law firm in the British Virgin Islands, even though the law is clear that Persons means very specifically human individuals. The UK could clean this up, but of course the people hidden behind this sort of thing are actually wealthy and powerful and are doing all they can to ensure nothing changes. Similar things happen in the US, and in several other developed nations you probably think of as law-abiding and straight dealing. Google can't fix any of that, so this is all you get.
- minikites 7y ago
  >But when you look closer you discover What percentage of people who view the ad are going to do this?
  - throwaway595 7y ago

timeimp 7y ago

Would it possible for me to turn off all the ads from all the advertises? Hypothetically, of course!

mankyd 7y ago
They have/had this, but it hasn't proven terribly popular: https://contributor.google.com/ https://contributor.google.com/ edit: I say "had" because I think it has changed forms over its lifetime. I think originally you could simply load up credits and it would cover ads across the web with blank images.
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  It would still track you though which is a bigger problem than the ads being visible.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

alibaba_x 7y ago

Interesting timing right before a U.S. election. Likely trying to avoid Russian disinformation like in 2016.

corporateslave5 7y ago
You realize they only spent 100k in Facebook ads in 2016?
- jacquesm 7y ago
  At least someone gets a good ROI from Facebook ads.
- alibaba_x 7y ago
  Yes I know, but the whole impeachment thing happened because of that modest amount nevertheless.
zebogen 7y ago
It says in the post that they've been verifying political advertisers since 2018. Now it is being extended to all advertisers.

annoyingnoob 7y ago

With verification, will Google be culpable the next time one of my users is redirected to a tech support scam from a Google ad? At least twice a year at my business users are redirected to tech support scams from Google Search ads. Its always a similar story, "I searched for Amazon and clicked the first link".

ocdtrekkie 7y ago
Google being culpable for malicious ads will only happen if the US finally removes Section 230 immunity. Until then, they'll keep profiting off criminal activity whilst claiming it's not their fault.
toast0 7y ago
Verifying the (corporate) identity of the advertisers, doesn't affect their responsibility for content (or lack thereof), but it might mean you could sue the advertiser without first needing to get the information on the advertiser from Google.
- annoyingnoob 7y ago
  Good to know that I'll be able to sue a corporation from Antigua that was setup by a shady foreign law firm. I'm sure that will go well and be a good use of my resources. This is all a veil to try and hide the fact that Google wants ads to blend in better with results. Every couple of years Google makes it harder to distinguish ads from content. https://searchengineland.com/search-ad-labeling-history-google-bing-254332 https://searchengineland.com/search-ad-labeling-history-goog...
bootlooped 7y ago
If somebody with a blue check mark on Twitter commits a crime, is Twitter responsible?
- dsl 7y ago
  No, because apparently it's in the public interest that it be seen. See https://www.thedailybeast.com/twitter-we-cant-block-trump-because-hes-a-world-leader https://www.thedailybeast.com/twitter-we-cant-block-trump-be...

kvothe_ 7y ago

drewg123 7y ago

This is interesting timing given the general decline of ad revenue due to the COVID economic slowdown. I'm surprised and impressed that they are making things harder for advertisers when then are probably fighting harder for every ad dollar.

javajosh 7y ago
It doesn't hurt that GOOG has an incredible amount of capital on hand.
frandroid 7y ago
They would rather establish a framework of proof that they control rather than have a more onerous and inflexible one imposed upon them by the EU. When large companies do due diligence to show accountability, it's less likely that a government will try to force them to do it.

pm_me_ur_fullzz 7y ago

There is a conference going on with Ernst & Young right now about identity verification, an Italian publication is posting verification data on the Ethereum blockchain, for each article. It is mostly for the publisher to protect themselves when people ask about whether they were actually the source, doesn't protect people from sharing fake sources or making it look similar with their own "verification" entries on a blockchain. Steps!

throwaway595 7y ago
If you haven't, check out Decentralized Identifiers [1] and Sovrin blockchain [2]. [1] https://w3c.github.io/did-core/ https://w3c.github.io/did-core/ [2] https://sovrin.org https://sovrin.org

keiferski 7y ago

Prepare yourself for ads from amorphous organizations with names like The Committee to Re-Establish Democracy or The Project for a New American Freedom. (No idea if these are real, I just made them up.) I suppose it helps to see precisely who is paying for an advertisement, but I don’t think this is actually useful in a real sense. The only long-term solution is education: foster a sense of skepticism towards all advertising and encourage reading information from a variety of viewpoints. Of course, Google’s entire existence (and having destroyed traditional media’s business model, the media itself) is predicated on ads, so don’t expect anything this lucid soon.

javajosh 7y ago
> foster a sense of skepticism towards all advertising Here, here. I would go further and say that human society needs a universal convention that flags paid speech as such, and gives people a clear protocol to filter any (or all) paid communication.
- Trickflick 7y ago
  Sounds like (a polarized) wanting a yes/no-solution. Maybe for a speech solution you can use a transcript (speech to text converter) which stretches every possible text hyperlinking to (educating) extending webpages with further information hyperlinks, on a topic (wiki, translating pages,...) -what for sure let 'their' influence on you um grow and possibly become more polarized ? An example-try: Methods: language regulation, using evaluative Words telling shortend storys repetition boasting hints ma(s)king half-truth to truth So now, with that on your mind lets test the transcript adding hyperlinks using the named methods... (-;
- tantalor 7y ago
  There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. If you filter the paid speech then it follows you should also filter out the actual art, cinema, theater, etc. it paid for. Now you are left with what?
  - 7y ago

disiplus 7y ago

i think this is a great step. also we as a company dont have nothing against that, at least it would be more visible that some of our competition is faking a local presence.

chatmasta 7y ago

For those interested, Facebook already does something similar, and also has an "Ad Library" [0] where you can monitor ads related to "social issues, elections or politics." It's pretty interesting, worth checking it out. [0] https://www.facebook.com/ads/library https://www.facebook.com/ads/library

1f60c 7y ago
Google also has a website similar to Facebook's Ad Library: https://transparencyreport.google.com/political-ads/region/US?hl=en https://transparencyreport.google.com/political-ads/region/U...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

not2b 7y ago

It is meaningless, because they accept corporate identities, and it is trivial to create shell corporations with meaningless names, like Americans For Good Stuff And Against Bad Stuff.

ogre_codes 7y ago

This has big implications when advertisers get banned due to bad behaviors. Previously a bad actor who gets banned could easily just quickly reopen a new account. If they need to get verified, there are a few steps which increase expenses and turn around time. If they need to create a new shell entity every time they get banned, it adds significantly to amount of time and money required to get their shady advertising out. This is particularly important right now as the cost of advertising on Google (and in general) is going down right now because of the pandemic.

dmix 7y ago
It's a good time to be running shell company services. I wonder what kind of turn around time you could achieve... The hard part will probably be finding an agent to represent the company. Assuming they validate bans based on company representatives.

cypherpunk-inst 7y ago

Very bad, anti-privacy, anti-anonymity development. As governments around the world get increasingly totalitarian and everything gets regulated to death or outright illegal, the timing for Google to ban necessarily anonymous individuals, organizations and businesses couldn't be worse!

Animats 7y ago

Interesting. That's what I've been doing with SiteTruth for a decade. Unlike Google, I can't make advertisers give me documents, so I have to dig into public records. I look forward to seeing what info Google provides to users. The demo is useless. Name and "Location: United States" isn't much. I doubt Google will really provide much info about their advertisers; they're paying customers. Search users are the product. I'd want to see the actual name and address of the business (as required in CA and the EU), business license info (required in the UK), incorporation state and serial number (required for an EV certificate), and have an option to buy a business credit report from D&B. At various times I've put all of those on SiteTruth.com. It's become harder to get the data needed. A decade ago, an online-only business with no clear ownership or street address was almost always a scam. Now, it's not uncommon, although the scam percentage is still high. Businesses are also allowed more anonymity now, this being considered "privacy". There are "low-doc" states, such as Nevada. Owners of postal mail boxes used to be public record; now they're anonymous. D&B used to encourage companies to publicize DUNS numbers; now they consider that proprietary. It's a great time to be an online scammer.

crsv 7y ago

I'd settle for more transparency around the consumers of the ad. I've heard a few folks wonder aloud if huge percentages of their paid search volume is fraudulent. Transparency on the consumer side is good, but there should be more work to prevent bot traffic from eating ad spend.