Infographic: How Google Fights Bad Ads

Google carries billions of ads each year, but it’s not anything goes. The company seeks to stop “bad ads” that might push illegal products or harmful goods. A new infographic from Google, out as part of Cybersecurity Awareness Month, covers the process.

The infographic explains that 134 million ads from 824,000 advertisers were stopped last year, a figure we’ve heard before, and highlights parts of the process used, automated systems, Google’s internal expert review and reports from outside the company:

Want the infographic yourself? You’ll find it here in PDF format.

Of course, the process isn’t perfect, perhaps most notably in that Google agreed last year to settle a dispute with the US Department Of Justice over illegal pharmaceutical ads. Google paid a $500 million fine and said the ads should never have been allowed to run.

This year, Google’s been trying to open up more about the ad screening process, with a blog post earlier this year about fighting bad ads and a video on keeping ads safe:

[youtube width=”560″ height=”315″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VewFkix7qg[/youtube]

Behind The Scenes In Google’s Battle Against Bad Ads from us, also earlier this year, provides more behind-the-scenes information from Google, from an interview with David Baker, Google’s director of engineering for its advertising team.

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