Google and Meta collaborated to target teens, using audience loophole
Today’s tech fail story comes from The Financial Times (of London).
Google and Meta made a secret deal to target advertisements for Instagram to teenagers on YouTube, skirting the search company’s own rules for how minors are treated online.
According to documents seen by the Financial Times and people familiar with the matter, Google worked on a marketing project for Meta that was designed to target 13- to 17-year-old YouTube users with adverts that promoted its rival’s photo and video app.
The Instagram campaign deliberately targeted a group of users labelled as “unknown” in its advertising system, which Google knew skewed towards under-18s, these people said. Meanwhile, documents seen by the FT suggest steps were taken to ensure the true intent of the campaign was disguised.
The FT reports that the French advertising giant Publicis developed and launched a pilot marketing programme in Canada via Spark Foundry, its US subsidiary. After a successful rollout from February to April, Spark Foundry expanded the pilot to the United States.
When contacted by the FT, Google initiated an investigation into the allegations. The project has now been cancelled, a person familiar with the decision said.
No name, no credibility in my book.
Read the entire story at FT or Archive.today.
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