Senator Richard Blumenthal (D.Conn) wrote a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai that stated that Google isn\u2019t doing enough to crack down on deceptive ads, demonstrating a \u201ctroubling record of inadequate due diligence against fraud and abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blumenthal\u2019s case against Google.<\/strong> Blumenthal is citing an investigation<\/a> from last year claiming that Google advertisers are impersonating government websites and purchasing ads in an effort to scam consumers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Google claims that it took down the deceptive websites, but a recent review from Blumenthal\u2019s office found that a search for the articles\u2019 keywords pulled up the same ads.<\/p>\n Blumenthal also claims that his office continued to find ads for misleading health supplements and treatments such as detox and weight loss teas, two supplements that are restricted<\/a> from advertising on Google.<\/p>\n What the senator is saying.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI am deeply concerned that Google appears unwilling to protect consumers and small businesses on Google Ads, and has demonstrated inadequate due diligence against fraud and abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Blumenthal is giving Google until September 2 to announce changes to \u201cprevent misleading or fraudulent ads from appearing to consumers.\u201d He is also requesting Google answer questions pertaining to the research they do into how users interact with ads.<\/p>\n Google\u2019s response.<\/strong> Google has \u201cstrict policies in place to protect people and advertisers alike from abuse,\u201d and \u201cSearch ads are also clearly labeled,\u201d says Google spokesperson Davis Thompson in a statement. Thompson also said the company is reviewing the letter and intends to offer a \u201cfull response.\u201d<\/p>\n Google\u2019s history of trouble.<\/strong> Rumors about a lawsuit from the US Department of Justice have been swirling around for a while. In June we reported<\/a> that Google had offered to split part of its ad business to avoid an antitrust lawsuit.<\/p>\n Last year the Federal Trade Commission released a report<\/a> calling social media a \u201cgold mine\u201d for scammers, citing that 95,000 people had been scammed out of $770 million due to fraud on social media. Though Google isn\u2019t social media, the report demonstrates how easy it is for scammers to utilize the same online tools available to advertisers to target people.<\/p>\n Why we care. <\/strong>Deceptive ads affect everyone from the consumer to the advertiser. If Google isn\u2019t able to crack down on ad scams and fake websites, then legitimate businesses could suffer as a result. Ad policies will become tougher, and the general public could lose trust, making it harder for brands to succeed online.\u00a0<\/p>\n The post Sentaor claims Google isn\u2019t doing enough to block ad scams<\/a> appeared first on Search Engine Land<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Senator Richard Blumenthal (D.Conn) wrote a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai that stated that Google isn\u2019t doing enough to crack down on deceptive ads, demonstrating a \u201ctroubling record of inadequate due diligence against fraud and abuse.\u201d Blumenthal\u2019s case against Google. Blumenthal is citing an investigation from last year claiming that Google advertisers are impersonating government websites and purchasing ads in an effort to scam consumers.\u00a0 Google claims that it took down the deceptive websites, but a recent review from Blumenthal\u2019s office found that a search […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"h5ap_radio_sources":[],"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-seo-blogs"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":false,"author_link":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/author\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n