Google was busier than ever in 2015, claiming that it shut down relentless spammers and other bad guys who spread malware and 'trick-to-click' ads, which mislead users into clicking them.
The scourge of spam, clickbait and phishing attempts that has plagued the Web for years is getting worse. Google says it disabled more than 780 million "bad ads" globally last year, a 49 percent increase over 2014, according to a new Google report. The company said it shut down 524 million misleading or potentially harmful ads in 2014 and removed 350 million bad ads in 2013. For perspective, it would take an individual nearly 25 years to look at the 780 million ads Google removed last year for just one second each, according to Google.
Bad ads include ads for counterfeit products, misleading or unapproved pharmaceuticals, weight loss scams, phishing ploys, unwanted software and "trick-to-click" cons, in which ads "mislead or trick people into interacting with them." If the past years' trend continues, Google's algorithms and its team of more than 1,000 staffers dedicated to killing spam will be even busier in 2016, and they could disable more than a billion junky ads.
Google also said it suspended more than 10,000 sites and 18,000 ad accounts for attempting to sell counterfeits goods, including Gucci handbags and Ray-Ban sunglasses.
Trick-to-click ads were among the worst offenders in 2015. Google rejected more than 17 million of them last year. The company also did away with more than 12.5 million ads that violated its healthcare and medicines policy. Most of these shoddy pharmaceutical ads hawked drugs that weren't legally approved or made false claims.
Google said it blocked almost 7,000 sites for ads that hosted phishing attempts and more than 10,000 sites for offering unwanted or potentially-harmful software, which resulted in a 99-percent reduction of unwanted downloads via Google ads, according to the report. Ads for drugs that promised dramatic weight loss were a major pain point for users in 2015, and Google said it deleted more than 30,000 sites for such ads.
The company stopped showing ads in more than 25,000 mobile apps and rejected more than 1.4 million ad-account applicants for failing to follow the its ad policies. And users sent Google 4 billion feedback submissions to report various issues with ads last year, according to the report.
In the future, Google said it plans to continue the war on bad ads with refined restrictions on suspect weight loss products and new protections against malware and bots.
In recent times, the clarion call from futurists, economists, marketers, educators and leaders the world over is one of slight panic, “The world is changing and you’re not ready for it!” And of course, they make a very good point.
Big brands were once protected from small brands by high barriers to entry. Big brands had the resources to employ big agencies, to crack big ideas and to invest in big campaigns. They had the luxury of time to debate strategies and work on long-term innovation pipelines. Retailers used to partner with big brands.
According to the World Economic Forum in its most recent The Future of Jobs report, the most important skills for the future are not technical, task-oriented skills, but higher-order skills such as creativity, social influence, active learning, and analytical thinking.
In this bonus last episode of this new podcast series, BrandHook MD, Pip Stocks, talks with former ANZ group general manager of marketing, Louise Eyres, talks about the importance of thinking like a customer and using intuition to solve customer painpoints.
An interesting update considering that today is the easiest way it has ever been to measure contribution to the business as well as the h...
Frederic
State of the CMO 2019: Tenure shortens, pressure is on as marketers strive to demonstrate impact
I thought this was what Salesforce Audience Studio (formerly Salesforce DMP) was supposed to do. How are a CDP and a DMP different? I'm c...
Tony Ahn
Salesforce announces customer data platform
Well written Vanessa!! Agreed with your view that human experience is marketing's next frontier. Those businesses who are focused on the ...
Clyde Griffith
Forget customer experience, human experience is marketing's next frontier
Great tips for tops skills need to develop and stay competitive
Nick
The top skills needed to stay competitive in a rapidly changing workforce
The popularity of loyalty programs is diminishing, though I'd say it is because customers are savvy enough to recognise when a loyalty pr...
Heather
It’s time for marketers to rethink their approach to ‘loyalty’