Google still failing to clamp down on ad ‘scams,’ senator says
Digital advertising behemoth Google is “routinely” failing to curtail fraudulent ads, despite having policies in place prohibiting them, according to one top Democrat.
In a new letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai shared exclusively with The Technology 202, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D.Conn.) wrote that the tech giant has demonstrated a “troubling record of inadequate due diligence against fraud and abuse.”
While Google has faced antitrust allegations that it’s harming consumers by stifling competition in the digital ads market, the missive is part of a growing battlefront over whether tech companies are violating rules against deceiving users.
The letter cites a May 2021 investigation by my colleague Jeremy Merrill finding that advertisers impersonated government websites in Google ads, despite a ban on the practice. While Google had said it took down the ads, a new review by Blumenthal’s office found that “a search for the exact keywords in the article once again returns the same…
