TECH NEWS: GOOGLE BANS WEBSITES PURPORTING “FAKE NEWS”
Search engine giants GOOGLE, are not here for jokes. They are starting 2017 on a clean slate, which is great news for us users. According to a blog post by Scott Spencer; director of product management for sustainable ads on Wednesday, Google has banned over 200 publishers from using their Google Adsense network, in a bid to implement the company’s policy to dissociate themselves from “fake news”.
The Adsense network is the company’s ad placement service that automatically serves text and display ads on sites.
Over time Google has received lots of backlash over its handling of fake news stories, especially the most recent claims that it allowed a fake news site publish a story that claimed Donald Trump won the popular vote, which led to a lot of media buzz.
In total, Google took down 1.7 billion ads that were found in violation of their policies. It wasn’t just fake news websites; they fished out ads that were
- Over 6000 ads used for illegal products, scam and attempting to advertise counterfeit goods.
- Misleading ads and bad ads on mobile
- Over 15,000 ads that contained malware, and ads trying to game the system.
- Ads that promote and profit bad sites.
- Over 1,300 accounts engaged in tabloid cloaking.
Although google has refused to disclose the list of permanently banned websites, they have promised they will keep fighting relentlessly to weed out these websites and do justice to them.