Google Introduces Ad Transparency Center After Blocking Billions Of Ads Last Year

Google has launched a new ad transparency center, revealing that it blocked or removed more than five billion ads last year.

The Ads Transparency Center allows users to view all the ads a particular advertiser has run, along with the regions in which they were shown, the date it was displayed and the format of the ad.

“For example, imagine you’re seeing an ad for a skincare product you’re interested in, but you don’t recognize the brand, or you’re curious to understand if you recognize other ads from this brand,” says Alejandro Borgia, director of product management, ads safety.

“With the Ads Transparency Center, you can look up the advertiser and learn more about them before purchasing or visiting their site.”

Users can also check whether or not an advertiser is a verified business, like or block ads, or report any they believe to be violating Google’s policies. Users can access the center directly, here, or by clicking on the three dots that appear next to any particular ad.

The company has also released its 2022 ads safety report, revealing that, last year, it blocked or removed more than 5.2 billion ads, restricted more than 4.3 billion ads and suspended more than 6.7 million advertiser accounts.

It also blocked or restricted ads from serving more than 1.57 billion publisher pages and across more than 143,000 publisher sites – up from 63,000 in 2021. Most ads were blocked for ‘abusing the ad network’ with others violating trademarks, failing to adhere to legal requirements or containing prohibited gambling, adult or other inappropriate content.

“To enforce our policies at this scale, we rely on a combination of human reviews and automated systems powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning. This helps sort through content and better detect violations across the globe,” says Borgia.

In an effort to prevent scams, Google has expanded its financial services certification program to 11 countries. Last year, says Borgia, the company uncovered a targeted campaign of scammers who created thousands of accounts impersonating popular software brands to spread malware.

And it expanded its verification and transparency program for election ads, verifying over 5,900 new advertising accounts in the US and over 2,300 in Brazil ahead of elections. It also blocked more than 17 million ads related to the war in Ukraine, along with ads from more than 275 state-funded media sites.

“We also paused the majority of our commercial activities in Russia across our products. We paused ads from showing in Russia along with ads from Russian-based advertisers and paused monetization of Russian state-funded media across our platforms,” says Borgia.

With the new Ads Transparency Center, the company is following in the footsteps of Facebook, which launched an Ad Library in 2019.

Last year, Google launched My Ad Center, which allowed users to customize their ads, but didn’t give detailed information about particular advertisers and ads. In the three months since, says the company, the site’s seen more than 70 million visits, with people adjusting their ad preferences on more than 20% of those visits.