Google says it removed over 5 billion ads in 2022

Google released its 2022 Ads Safety Report on Wednesday, revealing its efforts to combat malicious use of its advertising platforms. The tech giant announced that it removed 5.2 billion ads for violating its policies last year, up from 3.4 billion ads removed in 2021.

While 1.36 billion of those ads were removed for abusing the ad network, 562 million were removed for not following Google’s trademark policies, and 343 million were removed due to non-compliance with legal requirements. 

In addition, the company blocked over 2.6 million election ads from unverified advertisers, removed more than 17 million ads related to the ongoing war in Ukraine, and removed ads from more than 275 Russian state-funded media sites last year.

The company also said that it removed more than 6.7 billion advertiser accounts and restricted over 4.3 billion ads covering content ‘’that is sometimes legally or culturally sensitive’’.

‘’Online advertising can be a powerful way to reach customers, but in sensitive areas, we also work hard to avoid showing ads when and where they might be inappropriate,’’ Google explains. ‘’For that reason, we allow the promotion of the content below, but on a limited basis. These promotions may not show to every user in every location, and advertisers may need to meet additional requirements before their ads are eligible to run.’’

Furthermore, the company prevented ads from being shown on a total of 1.57 billion individual publisher pages, and took action against 143,000 publisher sites in 2022. 1.15 billion of those pages had sexual content, 166 million had dangerous and derogatory content, and 110 million featured weapons promotion and sales.

Google introduced or added 29 updates to its advertising policies last year, including the expansion of its protections for teens, expansion of its verification program for financial services to ten new markets, as well as new policies for election ads and political content. The company also began rolling out its My Ad Center hub in October, to provide users with more control over the ads they see.

‘’Providing a safe and trustworthy ads experience for users is a critical contribution to Google’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,’’ said Alejandro Borgia, Google’s Director of Product Management & Ads Safety, in a blog post. ‘’As 2023 continues, we will stay diligent in our efforts to combat abuse across our platforms while helping advertisers and publishers grow their businesses.’’

The report comes days after Google announced that its Play Commerce service prevented over $2 billion in fraudulent transactions in 2022.