Google eliminated nearly 800 million crappy ads last year

One of the downsides of running some the of the largest advertising networks on the Internet is that there’s always going to be people looking to pollute those networks with their crappy ads. According to Google, it purged nearly 800 million of these crappy ads from its networks last year, which is almost a 50% increase from the year prior. The company has more than 1,000 employees dedicated to finding and removing these ads, and this year it intends to put more focus on fighting bots and malware, and will work even harder to ensure that ads aren’t trying to mislead viewers.  

Google banned almost 800m “bad” adverts from its online ad networks last year as the web giant continued to crack down on advertising fraud. The figure of 780m was an almost 50% increase on 2014. Google also said that this year would see a major focus on stepping up efforts to fight back against bots – software applications that mimic the behaviour of internet users. “In 2016, we’re planning updates like further restricting what can be advertised as effective for weight loss, and adding new protections against malware and bots,” said Sridhar Ramaswamy, senior vice president of ads and commerce at Google, in a blog post on Thursday. “We want to make sure all the ads you see are helpful and welcome and we’ll keep fighting to make that a reality. The move comes amid rising scrutiny and criticism by advertisers of the actual efficacy of campaigns run across Google’s networks. The company said that its bad-ad fight in 2015 focused on areas including those that carry malware, promote fake goods or weight-loss scams, or phishing for personal information by financial fraudsters.