Google will share more details on targeted adverts and increase access to data on how its products perform for academics, the Alphabet subsidiary announced on Thursday.
This is in order to comply with important European Union online content regulations.
“We will be expanding the Ads Transparency Center, a global searchable repository of advertisers across all our platforms, to meet specific DSA provisions and providing additional information on targeting for ads served in the European Union,” Laurie Richardson, Google’s vice president for trust and safety, said in a blog post.
“We will increase data access for researchers looking to understand more about how Google Search, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Play and Shopping work in practice, and conducting research related to understanding systemic content risks in the EU,” she said.
Due to their massive user bases, the new regulations, the Digital Services Act, are more onerous for Meta, Microsoft, Twitter, Booking.com, Pinterest, Snap Inc.’s Snapchat, Wikipedia, Zalando, and Alibaba’s AliExpress.
The DSA, which takes effect on Friday, demands businesses to do more to combat disinformation and child sexual abuse content, be more transparent about their algorithmic processes, bots, and targeted adverts, and remove things that are hazardous, unlawful, or counterfeit from their platforms.
The American internet giant will also alter its reporting and appeals systems to provide certain sorts of information and context about its judgements, allow users more options to contact the firm, and give more insight into its content moderation decisions.
For people to access information about company policies on a product-by-product basis, it will launch a new Transparency Centre.
