Google Reportedly Made Ads for Meta’s Instagram Targeting Minor YouTube Users

Google reportedly worked on a marketing project for Meta that targeted 13 to 17-year-old YouTube users.

Written by Akash Dutta, Edited by Siddharth Suvarna | Updated: 9 August 2024 16:15 IST

Photo Credit: Reuters

The companies reportedly exploited the “unknown” demographic in Google’s system

Highlights

Meta reportedly wanted to bring teenage users to Instagram
Google and Meta reportedly worked with Spark Foundry to make the ads
Google is said to have started an investigation to look into the matter

Google and Meta reportedly struck a deal to make and show ads targeted at minor users. A report claims that the Mountain View-based tech giant was working on a marketing project to develop ads that would run on its YouTube platform. These ads were being made for Meta's photo and video-sharing platform Instagram and were reportedly targeted at teenagers. The development comes after both tech companies have separately claimed that they do not target ads to users under the age of 18.

Google, Meta Reportedly Made Ads Targeting Minors

According to a report by the Financial Times, Google and Meta struck a deal to bring minor users to Instagram via targeted ads on YouTube. Citing documents accessed by the publication, the report claimed that Google worked on the marketing project which was aimed at individuals between the ages of 13 and 17.

The claim, if true, violates Google's Ad-serving Protections for Teens policy which states that the company will disable ad personalisation and restrict sensitive ad categories for users under the age of 18.

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As per the report, the Search Giant bypassed this policy by using a target demographic labelled as “unknown”. On its website, Google says that “unknown” refers to “people whose age, gender, parental status, or household income we haven't identified.” However, Google had thousands of data points on this category of users such as location, app downloads, activity online, and more, the report claimed citing people familiar with the matter.

The report also claimed that the company could confidently determine the younger users in the unknown category. The company reportedly turned off the other age groups so the only demographic data was from the unknown group which had a higher proportion of minors. Unnamed sources told the publication that this was a way for Google to hack its internal system.

Google told the publication, “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.” While the company reportedly did not deny using the unknown category, it added that it will conduct its own investigation into the matter.

Meta told the publication that Google's unknown targeting as an option is available to all advertisers. It further added, “We have clear principles we adhere to when it comes to how we market our apps to teens on other platforms.”

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Further reading: Google, Meta, Instagram, YouTube, Cybersecurity

Akash Dutta Email Akash Dutta

Akash Dutta is a Senior Sub Editor at Gadgets 360. He is particularly interested in the social impact of technological developments and loves reading about emerging fields such as AI, metaverse, and fediverse. In his free time, he can be seen supporting his favourite football club - Chelsea, watching movies and anime, and sharing passionate opinions on food. More