Google and Meta have reportedly struck a deal to create and display ads targeted at underage users. A report claims that the Mountain View-based tech giant was working on a marketing project to develop ads that would run on its YouTube platform. These ads were created for Meta’s photo and video platform Instagram and were reportedly targeted at teens. The development comes after both tech companies separately claimed that they do not target ads to users under the age of 18.
According to a report by the Financial Times, Google and Meta struck a deal to bring underage users to Instagram through targeted ads on YouTube. Citing documents seen by the publication, the report alleged that Google worked on the marketing project that targeted individuals between the ages of 13 and 17.
If the claim is true, it violates Google’s Teen Ad Protections. policy stating that the company will disable ad personalization and restrict sensitive ad categories for users under 18.
According to the report, the search giant circumvented this policy by using an audience labeled as “unknown.” websiteGoogle says “unknown” refers to “people whose age, gender, parental status, or household income we have not identified.” However, Google had thousands of data points on this category of users, such as location, app downloads, online activity and more, the report claimed, citing people familiar with the matter.
The report also claimed that the company could confidently identify younger users in the unknown category. The company reportedly disabled the other age groups, so that the only demographic data was from the unknown group, which had a higher percentage of minors. Unnamed sources told the publication that this was a way for Google to hack its internal system.
Google told the publication: “We prohibit ads that are personalized to people under 18, period. These policies go well beyond what is required and are supported by technical protections. We’ve confirmed that these protections worked well here.” While the company reportedly did not deny using the unfamiliar category, it added that it will conduct its own investigation into the matter.
Meta told the publication that Google’s unknown targeting is available as an option for all advertisers. It added: “We have clear principles that we adhere to when it comes to how we market our apps to teens on other platforms.”
