On Wednesday, Google announced that it had suspended 39.2 million advertising accounts on its platform in 2024 — more than three times the number from the previous year — as part of its latest campaign against ad fraud.
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By leveraging large language models (LLMs) and using clues like business impersonation and invalid payment details, the company claimed it was able to suspend the “vast majority” of accounts before they could even run ads.
Last year, Google introduced over 50 improvements based on LLMs to strengthen security across its platforms.
Google’s chief Alex Rodriguez told reporters that a team of more than 100 experts was assembled across Google, including members of the Ads Safety, the Trust and Safety, and researchers from DeepMind. The team analyzed deepfake involving impersonation of public figures and developed countermeasures.
The company has introduced technical countermeasures and more than 30 updates to its ad and publisher policies over the past year. These moves have helped suspend over 700,000 offending ad accounts, leading to — according to the company — a 90% reduction in reports of deepfake ads.
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In the United States alone, Google reported suspending 39.2 million ad accounts and removing 1.8 billion ads last year, with the main violations related to ad network abuse, trademark violations, unsubstantiated health claims, personalized ads , and misleading representation.
Of all the ad account suspensions, Google said 5 million accounts were suspended for fraud-related violations. In total, the company removed nearly half a billion ads related to fraud.
Additionally, Google verified more than 8,900 new advertisers related to elections in 2024 — a year in which nearly half the world’s population voted — and removed 10.7 million election ads. However, Rodriguez noted that the number of election ads compared to Google’s overall ad volume was relatively small and is not expected to significantly impact the company’s safety metrics this year.
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In total, Google said it blocked 5.1 billion ads last year and removed 1.3 billion web pages. For comparison, in 2023 it blocked more than 5.5 billion ads and took action against 2.1 billion publisher pages.
Source: techcrunch
