Google's Political Ads to Have Increased Transparency

San Francisco: Google took a new move Wednesday to increase transparency on Google's political ads on its platform by releasing an online library of US political ads and a report on details of ad-expenditure ahead of the mid-term US elections in November this year. Google said the addition of the political advertising report and the new Ad Library are new transparency features aimed at implementing new requirements for any advertiser purchasing election ads on Google in the US, Xinhua reported.

Under the new mechanism, political advertisers now have to provide a government-issued ID and other key information that confirms they are a US citizen or lawful permanent resident in the country. The measures are apparently an updated response to disputes on social media networks that Russia had been involved in US presidential elections in 2016, an allegation that has been rejected repeatedly by Moscow. “With the Transparency Report, we hope this provides unprecedented, data-driven insights into election ads on our platform,” Google said. With the 2018 midterm elections approaching, it said its new tools aim to help protect political campaigns, provide voters with accurate information, and increase transparency across its platforms; hence increasing transparency in Google's Political Ads. (IANS)