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Google accused of breaking own ad rules with Meta YouTube campaign

Publicis agency Spark Foundry worked on the campaign

Google can hardly stop making money however hard it tries. Its recent history boasts a series of own goals, notably its belated decision decision to kick the plan to ditch cookies into the long grass.

It’s also facing a dangerous-looking anti trust case in the US for bunging Apple $20bn to exclude other suppliers. Here’s a handy summary from Google’s very own YouTube channel.

But, as we said, the dosh keeps rolling in. Here’s its latest Q2 earnings from Doofinder.

Total Revenues: $84.74 billion
Google Search & Other: $48.51 billion
YouTube Ads: $8.66 billion
Google Network: $7.44 billion
Google Advertising (Total): $64.62 billion
Google Subscriptions, Platforms, and Devices: $9.31 billion
Google Services Total: $73.93 billion
Google Cloud: $10.35 billion
Other Bets: $365 million
Hedging Gains (Losses): $102 million

You’d think with such a seemingly foolproof business model the company would take care not to attract trouble. But that doesn’t seem to happen either (probably inevitable when you employ thousands of geeks without that much to do.)

The FT reports that Facebook owner Meta teamed with Google to run a campaign aimed at attracting 13-17 year olds to Instagram, against both companies’ own rules as they claim they don’t target children. This wheeze may well have been dreamed up by the bright sparks at Publicis media agency Spark Foundry who worked on the test campaign in Canada. Interesting too that it’s Meta and Facebook, supposedly deadly rivals, collaborating (Facebook is trying to lure more youngsters to compete with TikTok.)

Now the project has been cancelled. Google, hand on heart as ever, says: “We prohibit ads being personalised to people under-18, period. These policies go well beyond what is required and are supported by technical safeguards. We’ve confirmed that these safeguards worked properly here because no registered YouTube users known to be under 18 were directly targeted by the company.”

Naturellement. We’re all for for free, non-state regulated media. But the antics of Google and Meta (and the omnipresent Apple in the wings) do make you wonder.

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