After discovering advertising for sex toys, liquor, and high-risk investments in Google’s search engine that should have been barred under its efforts to comply with UK legislation, Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google said this week it will immediately strengthen enforcement of its age-sensitive ad policy.
Last September, the United Kingdom began enforcing legislation aimed at protecting children from being tracked online. In response, Google began altering settings for users under the age of 18 across its services in Europe and internationally. “Expanding safeguards to prevent age-sensitive ad categories from being shown to teenagers” was one of the efforts it touted in August.
Specifically, the search giant began using automated tools to stop ads related to categories such as alcohol, gambling, and prescription drugs from being shown to people who are not logged in to a Google account or confirmed to be at least 18.
Tech companies face a growing challenge with policing their sprawling services, and, according to posts on online advertising forums and two advertisers, Google’s enforcement has been spotty.
The advertisers, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation from Google, expressed dissatisfaction with considerable revenues lost as a result of Google’s search engine accurately barring their advertisements from signed-out users while incorrectly allowing their competitors’ ads.
Last week, ads for leveraged trading, cholesterol medication, adult toy retailers, and a big grocer marketing a vodka product were shown to signed-out users in the United Kingdom.
To protect children, the UK Children’s Code mandates that online services adhere to 15 design and privacy principles, including limiting the acquisition of their location and other personal information. Google claims that filtering age-sensitive ads are critical to its adherence to the code.
The 5Rights Foundation, which advocated for the regulation and evaluated the results by Reuters, recommended that tech companies reveal internal research on how well they are following the code and their own policies on a regular basis.
“We must be wary of ‘safety washing,'” 5Rights said. “Tech companies need to back up their claims with action, and demonstrate how they are complying with regulations, particularly in the early stages of implementation.”
The comments were not responded to by Google. The company refused to give specific figures on how often it failed to filter age-sensitive adverts.
In November, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office said it had contacted Google, Apple Inc (AAPL.O), and other social networking, streaming, and gaming businesses to assess their compliance with the code.
