Google and Meta reportedly skirting their own rules to ad target young teens, shows why tech giants cannot regulate themselves

Date:
Thu, 08 Aug 2024 19:30:03 +0000

Description:
Google and Meta reportedly teamed up to create ads targeting young teens, which proves why tech giants can't be trusted to regulate themselves.

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Google and Meta have reportedly been rolling out ads targeting young teens, which skirt the formers policies prohibiting such actions.

According to a report from the Financial Times (via Engadget ), Google
created a marketing campaign targeting the 13-17-year-old demographic, advertising Instagram to YouTube users in that age range. To circumvent its own rule against age-based advertising , it created a group labeled "unknown. Then, it proposed the plan to Meta, another tech giant with similar policies on restricting age-based advertising , by presenting data showing its daily engagement with the demographic.

The campaign was successfully launched in Canada with media agency Spark Foundry and then in the US, with plans to include other Meta apps and
regions. According to the Financial Times, the campaign was canceled after
the publication contacted Google, though it admitted no wrongdoing because it didn't directly target registered YouTube users know to be 18.

Interestingly enough, Googles own policies define the campaign as in
violation since it also has rules against proxy targeting. Why this matters

This recent debacle showcases why tech corporations cannot be trusted to self-regulate, even when making and publicly promoting their policies that
are meant to protect users especially its most vulnerable. Both Google and Meta used their knowledge of their rules and the formers extensive
demographic information to create an entire campaign in multiple regions.

If the Times had not uncovered documents laying out these plans, Google and Meta would have continued profiting off this operation by exploiting such a young group. Worse, they would still be able to reap the reputation benefits from these policies, encouraging teens to continue using YouTube since its being purported as safe.

Even when faced with overwhelming evidence of its actions, Google reportedly had no issue claiming it didn't violate its policies even though, interestingly enough, Googles very own policies define the campaign in violation since it also has rules against proxy targeting. This isn't the first rodeo

This isnt the first time Google has been in hot water over its advertising abuse. In 2023, the US Department of Justice brought a massive anti-trust
case against Google "for monopolizing digital advertising technologies"due to its monopoly over the ad-tech space.

Meta is immensely guilty of this as well, with its platform infamously leaning into racial biases, being used to influence the 2020 election by dissuading black and Latino constituents from voting, and the Cambridge Analytica scandal of 2018 revealing that data from 87 million Facebook profiles was used to bombard users with Trump election ads.

Looking back on these tech giants past grievances, its no surprise that they would carry out such a widespread campaign to fatten their pockets without regard for the consequences of collecting and using this data.

Google, Meta, and the like must be strongly and consistently regulated by outside forces, including journalistic organizations and governing bodies. According to its report, the Financial Times alone was able to force Google
to halt this marketing project simply by confronting the tech giant. Imagine how much safer the internet can be, especially for such a vulnerable demographic of people. You might also like EU urged to stop Meta offering an ad-free subscription service in the EU Google lays off hundreds of sales
staff Google blocked billions of ads and millions of ad accounts last year



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/social-media/google-and-meta-reportedly-sk irting-their-own-rules-to-ad-target-young-teens-shows-why-tech-giants-cannot-r egulate-themselves


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