Google guilty of ad-fraud againsts its customers including NYTimes, Reuters, Wired, Mashable and Gizmodo

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Google guilty of ad-fraud againsts its customers including NYTimes, Reuters, Wired, Mashable and Gizmodo

July 25th, 2023

Awake Goy

Did Google mislead advertisers about TrueView skippable in-stream ads for the past three years?

This report finds that advertisers including Fortune 500 brands, the US federal government, and many small businesses may have been misled for years about Google’s proprietary TrueView skippable in-stream video ads. This misalignment may have cost media buyers up to billions of digital ad dollars, which were ultimately spent on small, muted, out-stream, auto-playing or interstitial video ad units running on independent websites and mobile apps.

TrueView is Google’s “proprietary cost-per-view, choice-based ad format that serves on YouTube, millions of apps, and across the web.” With TrueView, advertisers only pay “for actual views of their ads, rather than impressions.” TrueView asks users if they want to skip the video ad after 5 seconds with a visual prompt. Google’s policies state that TrueView ads must be skippable, audible, and playing of the video (and ad) cannot be solely initiated by passive user scrolling.

However, this research report finds that for years, significant quantities of TrueView skippable in-stream ads, purchased by many different brands and media agencies, appear to have been served on hundreds of thousands of websites and apps in which the consumer experience did not meet Google’s stated quality standards. For example, many TrueView in-stream ads were served muted and auto-playing as out-stream video or as obscured video players on independent sites. Often, there was little to no organic video media content between ads, the video units simply played ads only.

For a major infrastructure brand, only ~16% of their TrueView skippable in-stream video ad budget was spent on YouTube.com or YouTube’s apps. The majority of their budget was spent on tens of thousands of different websites or mobile apps which make up the Google Video Partner (GVP) network. The majority of those GVP mobile apps and websites served the TrueView skippable in-stream video ads in outstream, muted, auto-playing, interstitial, and/or non-visible ad slots – which are inconsistent with the TrueView or skippable in-stream ad format.

Adalytics shared examples of these TrueView skippable in-stream placements with advertisers and media buyers. Several dozen marketers stated that they would not have purchased this TrueView skippable in-stream inventory running on 3rd party environments, if this fact was clearly explained to them in advance. Marketers also shared that they did not expect or want video ads to be run muted, and doing so was contrary to their understanding of TrueView.

Critically, Youtube and Google’s own policies state that TrueView in-stream ads must be skippable, audible, and initiated by viewer action. TrueView in-stream ad placement reports from brands and advertisers – including Fortune 500 brands – showed that in some ad campaigns, between 42 to 75% of TrueView in-stream ad spend was allocated to GVP sites and apps which did not meet Google’s standards.

Many media buyers were surprised to learn that the majority of their ad budgets against a so-called “walled garden” environment was spent on muted, auto-playing video ads on third party websites such as lebanonfiles.com and freewebnovel.com, or on foreign-developed Android mobile gaming apps for toddlers.

Screenshot of a YouTube TrueView ad for americanexpress.com, served in a muted, out-stream, auto-playing video player on a 3rd party website.

Many TrueView skippable “in-stream” ads that Adalytics reviewed were delivered on sites and apps in which the ads were rendered in a method that violates Google’s own definitions of in-stream. Specifically, ads were placed on pages with such characteristics as

in small, out-stream video players in the corner or side of the consumer’s device viewport
in a fully muted video player
with little to no video content in between consecutive TrueView ads
where the video ads auto-play without any viewer interaction or initiation
the ads played continuously, on a loop

One digital advertising professional who was shown an advanced copy of this report said “repackaging shitty, brand-unsafe outstream as instream is a big problem.” The professional further stated “that seems like a fraud”.

In some instances, multiple TrueView skippable in-stream ads were rendered on a consumer’s device at the same time. Other examples include TrueView skippable in-stream ads that were served “stacked” on top of another “in-stream” ad. Furthermore, in some instances, the “Skip” button from the video ad was hidden or obscured outside the user’s viewport, making it impossible for the consumer to “choose to skip” the video ads after 5 seconds, forcing the user to experience the ad – a direct violation of Google’s quality standards for TrueView ads. This may have artificially inflated TrueView skippable in-stream ad video completion rates, possibly resulting in higher costs for Google’s advertisers.

Screenshot of a JPMorgan Chase TrueView skippable in-stream video ad serving on a 3rd party website, in a muted, auto-play, partially obscured video player that is covered by another ad.

Multiple Kayak.de TrueView skippable in-stream video ads being served on dostor.org, with both video ads playing in a muted, auto-play state.

Another media buyer who received an advanced copy of this research told Adalytics:

“Nobody goes to walled gardens like YouTube to run on audience networks which all have the same crappy inventory. This is a method for YouTube and Google to extract more budget and manufacture scale in a way that is palatable to the advertiser because they don’t fully understand it.”

Brands that may have purchased muted, auto-playing, mis-declared TrueView skippable in-stream inventory include:

The Wall Street Journal (owned by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp)
The United States federal government, including the Department of Health & Human Services (Medicare, Army, Social Security Administration)
The European Parliament
Johnson & Johnson
The New York City municipal government (nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor)
HP
Ernst & Young
Bayer
Newark, Delaware Police Department (joinnewarkpd.com)
The Dutch military cyber defense forces (werkenbijdefensie.nl/burgermedewerker/ict)
JPMorgan Chase Bank
American Express
Public Service Alliance of Canada
Alberta New Democratic Party
National Volunteer Fire Council
Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) (edf.giftplans.org)
Samsung
Empower Annuity Insurance Company of America
Sephora
Macy’s
Disney Plus
Best Buy
Mercedes-Benz
General Motors
Office Depot
Pizza Hut
Microsoft
Instacart
IBM (Redhat)
Ford
Honda
Vimeo
HBO Max (owned by Warner Bros. Discovery)
Novo Nordisk
Intuit (owner of Quickbooks)
The North Face
Columbia (sportswear company)
Volkswagen
Abbott Laboratories (pediasure.ca)
Petco
cerebral.com
servicetitan.com
Google (Google Career Certificates and Google Workspace Domains)
McDonald’s
Hyatt Hotels Corporation
Lavazza
Siemens
Alberta Blue Cross Plan
California Science and Technology University
Edgewell Personal Care (owner of Schick razors)
Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Rocket Mortgage
Church & Dwight (OxiClean)
National Geographic
American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science (weizmann-usa.org)
Aflac Inc. (American Family Life Assurance Company)
XM.com (trading name of Trading Point Holdings Ltd.)
Wolters Kluwer
Virgin Voyages
Aeroméxico (aeromexico.com)
Paramount Plus
Lacoste
James Hardie Industries
Western Union
National Harbor (nationalharbor.com) – from the Maryland Office of Tourism (visitmaryland.org)
Ebay
Klaviyo
Okta
Zillow
St. George’s University
Cisco
Hyundai
Mazda
Notion (notion.so)
Subaru
Consumer Cellular
Fandango (fandango.com)
Michigan Economic Development Corporation (michigan.org)
Tourism Nova Scotia (planyournovascotia.com)
Kayak.com
etoro.com
Royal Dutch Gazelle bikes
Terminix Pest Control & Termite Treatment
Canadaisthesolution.com (Canadian Energy Centre Ltd)
FreeTaxUsa.com
Squarespace.com
hotjar.com
Carrefour
Olt.com
Netgear
The Federalist Society
Quirion AG
MyFundedFX
Scholastic Corporation
Adobe
Miele (domestic appliances)
Hertz
Bosch
Vimeo
Plaid
Hollister
TikTok
United Wholesale Mortgage
Indeed.com (jobs website)
Bellroy (Australian accessories brand)
Fiverr
Tommy John
Micro Focus International Plc
NewRelic
sitechange.com
vda-global.lilisi.com
Comarch
Circa Resort & Casino Las Vegas (circalasvegas.com)
Dyson
Beliani
Semrush
McCain Foods
Expedia, Vrbo, and hotels.com
kodiakcakes.com
tablethotels.com
Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PAN)
Grammarly
GrubHub
Allbirds
Bristol Myers Squibb
Pfizer
Haleon (formerly GSK Consumer Healthcare)
Athletic Greens
Fever-Tree
KitchenAid (American home appliance brand owned by Whirlpool Corporation)
Doptelet (AkaRx, Inc)

The list of media agencies and media buying companies that appeared to have transacted muted, auto-playing, out-stream TrueView ads include:

Interpublic Group (Matterkind, Initiative, Mediabrands)
Dentsu (Amnet)
Publicis (Audience on Demand, Precision)
Omnicom (Accuen)
WPP (Xaxis, Headlight, Essence)
Havas (Affiperf)
Jellyfish
Brain Labs Digital
Horizon Media (Canvas WorldWide)
MiQ

This mis-declared TrueView in-stream inventory has been observed going back as far as 2020.

Google was observed serving brands’ TrueView ads on websites that have had tens of thousands of copyright violation takedown requests filed against them (potential “piracy sites”), raising possible brand safety concerns and questions about the validity of Google’s TAG Certification and MRC Brand Safety accreditation.

According to Google’s stated policies, Google complies with valid copyright requests and frequently delists content as a result of copyright infringements. However, it appears Google permits repeated infringement offenders to continue monetizing their content through TrueView ads.

Furthermore, Google was observed delivering thousands of TrueView ads to declared bots running out of Google Cloud data center servers. YouTube has not allowed independent 3rd party measurement and verification tags to be applied to its ad inventory since 2016.

Fortune 500 brands’ TrueView skippable in-stream ads were reported as being delivered on Russian websites, including “pravda.ru” – a website which has been characterized as “being a tool of the Russian state” and has been cited by NewsGuard as “publishing false, pro-Russian disinformation, including false claims related to the invasion of Ukraine.”

Ad campaign placement reports regarding TrueView skippable in-stream ads include references to mobile apps and websites which either do not currently exist, or do not contain any ads whatsoever, raising the possibility that either Google’s placement reporting tools have software bugs or are susceptible to deception by invalid ad traffic.

Lastly, in some instances, TrueView skippable in-stream ads from brands were reported as serving on delisted or side-loaded Android apps that are not allowed on the Google app Play Store. Some of these delisted or side-loaded apps are developed and maintained by software vendors based in US Treasury OFAC sanctioned countries such as Iran, which raises the question of whether Google’s advertisers are inadvertently sending funds to Treasury sanctioned entities.

Adalytics shared an advanced copy of this report with Ebiquity, a major marketing and media consultancy which helps brands audit their ad buys. Ruben Schreurs, the Chief Product Office of Ebiquity noted:

“The research report by Adalytics is highly incriminating. Based on the findings and allegations represented within, I see this as a structural misrepresentation of advertising products at best, and downright fraudulent misleading practices at worst. If true, this will have major repercussions in the industry and lead to a significant negative impact on Google’s perceived quality and reliability. Ebiquity works for over 75 of the top 100 brands, nearly all listed in this report as possibly being exposed, and we will initiate a large-scale review of this immediately. We thank Adalytics for their hard work in this and previous cases, and look forward to a detailed reply from Google.”

A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) in Brussels – Paul Tang, also said:

“Google deliberately makes itself the play doll of dictators, also dragging the European Parliament through the mud. The same Parliament that declared the Russian Federation in November 2022 a state sponsor of terrorism, advertises on Russian propaganda websites like Pravda because of Youtube’s scandalous system. Exposing once again the AdTech duopoly of Google and Facebook is a highly opaque game of billions which threatens democracy.“