
Increasing transparency through advertiser identity verification - NicoJuicy
https://www.blog.google/products/ads/advertiser-identity-verification-for-transparency/
======
keiferski
Prepare yourself for ads from amorphous organizations with names like _The
Committee to Re-Establish Democracy_ or _The Project for a New American
Freedom._ (No idea if these are real, I just made them up.) I suppose it helps
to see precisely who is paying for an advertisement, but I don’t think this is
actually useful in a real sense.

The only long-term solution is education: foster a sense of skepticism towards
all advertising and encourage reading information from a variety of
viewpoints. Of course, Google’s entire existence (and having destroyed
traditional media’s business model, the media itself) is predicated on ads, so
don’t expect anything this lucid soon.

~~~
hardikgupta
> I suppose it helps to see precisely who is paying for an advertisement, but
> I don’t think this is actually useful in a real sense.

Think from the perspective of an advertiser. Earlier, an advertiser could pay
for any ad anonymously. Now any ad you want to show can be traced back to you.
This is a meaningful difference. Even if you as a viewer can't pinpoint the
specific person behind an ad, they are not completely anonymous anymore (to
Google, to law enforcement that may have a warrant, etc). Of course, this
change comes at the cost of a reduction in freedom from the lack of anonymity.

~~~
ipython
Unless there is a government identification with photo of a real person
associated with the ad, there is no transparency. Shell corporations and
complex ownership structures will obscure any attempt at tracking the source
otherwise.

~~~
jjoonathan
Corporate structure should be public data and involve real people with
verified identities, yes?

Anything that reduces the difficulty of tracing should be seen as an
improvement. It's a long road from here to perfection, but that's no reason
not to take a step.

~~~
close04
Until that ownership takes an offshore detour.

~~~
isoos
Compliance rules could be extended to include due diligence on partners, and
block contracts and payments to and from entities that have no clear
ownership.

~~~
close04
It could but realistically it's unlikely to happen. Nobody would ever accept
taking responsibility for dozens, hundreds, or thousands of partners, and the
expenses involved in validating every last one of them. Not to mention the
lost business on either side. Even the IRS or banks can't keep up with long
ownership chains or properly identifying customers and they have a more vested
interest.

Laws and rules are far slower to adapt than the workarounds that bend them.
And clear ownership says little. Everything can simply point to a more or less
real identity that nobody will ever find.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against such rules. I'm just saying that the
likelihood of them achieving the results we imagine are slim.

~~~
anticensor
How hard is a policy stating _maximum of n-levels depth of nested ownership
allowed and any kind of cyclical ownership causes loss of control in both
ways_?

~~~
close04
I'm just talking about the expectations. Writing the rule is not the difficult
part. Enforcing them is because it's extra effort and expense and it leads to
losing some business. Shareholders are more than happy to support a company's
ethics until they stand in the way of profit.

Finding an appropriate _n_ might be a delicate, many big (legitimate)
businesses have really complicated ownership structures. Then you have to task
someone with validating all of this. Whose expense is it to do the due
diligence and check everything? WHo takes responsibility for failures in this
regard? And finally it will mean some business is lost on both sides and it
might be a lot of money.

Banks have anti money laundering policies yet still find ways to go around
them all the time because they want the business. Banking secrecy wasn't there
to protect privacy but to obscure shady activities. As I said, it's good to
have the rule and I'm not against it but I have the feeling people have some
unrealistic expectations from this. They just raise the bar a bit and filter
out the "chaff" while still allowing larger interests to prevail.

~~~
anticensor
> Finding an appropriate n might be a delicate, many big (legitimate)
> businesses have really complicated ownership structures

It is something between 10 and 13, if you accept that governance structure of
an organisation must match its social communication structure. It is something
between 14 and 16, if you accept that governance structure of an organisation
must match its business divisions. Any n>16 is prone to communication
shortcutting.

------
digitalengineer
>This change will make it easier for people to understand who the advertiser
is behind the ads they see

Call me skeptical, but won't it just lead to shell companies?

~~~
tialaramex
Sure, but this puts the spotlight back on the countries which allow shady
crap.

Take the United Kingdom. Google says Foo Ltd. are the advertiser, who are Foo
Ltd? Well the UK legally requires Foo Ltd. to register with Companies House, a
government agency, and this registration legally must identify Persons with
Significant Control, actual humans who make decisions for Foo Ltd.

But when you look closer you discover that Foo Ltd has a company secretary who
lives in a run down area of an ex-industrial city, and who is listed as
secretary for 1800 other companies, and its offices are registered as that
person's flat. The PSC section is filled out with the name Offshore Holdings
Inc. offering the address of a law firm in the British Virgin Islands, even
though the law is clear that Persons means very specifically human
individuals.

The UK could clean this up, but of course the people hidden behind this sort
of thing are actually wealthy and powerful and are doing all they can to
ensure nothing changes. Similar things happen in the US, and in several other
developed nations you probably think of as law-abiding and straight dealing.
Google can't fix any of that, so this is all you get.

~~~
minikites
>But when you look closer you discover

What percentage of people who view the ad are going to do this?

~~~
mattnewton
More than the number of people who were able to do so before. And hopefully if
they find something shady they will let others know. This is why we require
certain political ads to be attributed.

------
annoyingnoob
With verification, will Google be culpable the next time one of my users is
redirected to a tech support scam from a Google ad?

At least twice a year at my business users are redirected to tech support
scams from Google Search ads. Its always a similar story, "I searched for
Amazon and clicked the first link".

~~~
bootlooped
If somebody with a blue check mark on Twitter commits a crime, is Twitter
responsible?

~~~
dsl
No, because apparently it's in the public interest that it be seen. See
[https://www.thedailybeast.com/twitter-we-cant-block-trump-
be...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/twitter-we-cant-block-trump-because-hes-
a-world-leader)

------
chatmasta
For those interested, Facebook already does something similar, and also has an
"Ad Library" [0] where you can monitor ads related to "social issues,
elections or politics." It's pretty interesting, worth checking it out.

[0]
[https://www.facebook.com/ads/library](https://www.facebook.com/ads/library)

~~~
1f60c
Google also has a website similar to Facebook's Ad Library:
[https://transparencyreport.google.com/political-
ads/region/U...](https://transparencyreport.google.com/political-
ads/region/US?hl=en)

------
ogre_codes
This has big implications when advertisers get banned due to bad behaviors.
Previously a bad actor who gets banned could easily just quickly reopen a new
account. If they need to get verified, there are a few steps which increase
expenses and turn around time. If they need to create a new shell entity every
time they get banned, it adds significantly to amount of time and money
required to get their shady advertising out.

This is particularly important right now as the cost of advertising on Google
(and in general) is going down right now because of the pandemic.

~~~
dmix
It's a good time to be running shell company services. I wonder what kind of
turn around time you could achieve...

The hard part will probably be finding an agent to represent the company.
Assuming they validate bans based on company representatives.

------
Animats
Interesting. That's what I've been doing with SiteTruth for a decade. Unlike
Google, I can't make advertisers give me documents, so I have to dig into
public records.

I look forward to seeing what info Google provides to users. The demo is
useless. Name and "Location: United States" isn't much. I doubt Google will
really provide much info about their advertisers; they're paying customers.
Search users are the product.

I'd want to see the actual name and address of the business (as required in CA
and the EU), business license info (required in the UK), incorporation state
and serial number (required for an EV certificate), and have an option to buy
a business credit report from D&B. At various times I've put all of those on
SiteTruth.com.

It's become harder to get the data needed. A decade ago, an online-only
business with no clear ownership or street address was almost always a scam.
Now, it's not uncommon, although the scam percentage is still high. Businesses
are also allowed more anonymity now, this being considered "privacy". There
are "low-doc" states, such as Nevada. Owners of postal mail boxes used to be
public record; now they're anonymous. D&B used to encourage companies to
publicize DUNS numbers; now they consider that proprietary. It's a great time
to be an online scammer.

------
vikramkr
Would be nice if the information was not two clicks away but rather front and
center, especially for political ads, but a really good step nonetheless

~~~
stestagg
This is the plan. Once google have verified the advertisers, they can ‘help
users understand the source of the advert’ by replacing the mini _Ad_ icon
with the advertisers’ favicon, to increase transparency..

~~~
ignoramous
> _...with the advertisers’ favicon, to increase transparency._

My mom thinks any URL with a _padlock_ next to it is über secure [0][1] and
that she can give her bank details without worry.

[0] [https://zeltser.com/padlock-and-favicon-confusion-in-
browser...](https://zeltser.com/padlock-and-favicon-confusion-in-browsers/)

[1] [https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-
us/articles/200170416-W...](https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-
us/articles/200170416-What-do-the-SSL-options-
mean-#h_4e0d1a7c-eb71-4204-9e22-9d3ef9ef7fef)

~~~
shawnz
This is why Chrome and Firefox changed it to a grey padlock instead of a green
one

[https://blog.chromium.org/2018/05/evolving-chromes-
security-...](https://blog.chromium.org/2018/05/evolving-chromes-security-
indicators.html)

------
drewg123
This is interesting timing given the general decline of ad revenue due to the
COVID economic slowdown. I'm surprised and impressed that they are making
things harder for advertisers when then are probably fighting harder for every
ad dollar.

~~~
javajosh
It doesn't hurt that GOOG has an incredible amount of capital on hand.

------
not2b
It is meaningless, because they accept corporate identities, and it is trivial
to create shell corporations with meaningless names, like Americans For Good
Stuff And Against Bad Stuff.

------
pm_me_ur_fullzz
There is a conference going on with Ernst & Young right now about identity
verification, an Italian publication is posting verification data on the
Ethereum blockchain, for each article. It is mostly for the publisher to
protect themselves when people ask about whether they were actually the
source, doesn't protect people from sharing fake sources or making it look
similar with their own "verification" entries on a blockchain.

Steps!

~~~
throwaway595
If you haven't, check out Decentralized Identifiers [1] and Sovrin blockchain
[2].

[1] [https://w3c.github.io/did-core/](https://w3c.github.io/did-core/)

[2] [https://sovrin.org](https://sovrin.org)

------
crsv
I'd settle for more transparency around the consumers of the ad. I've heard a
few folks wonder aloud if huge percentages of their paid search volume is
fraudulent. Transparency on the consumer side is good, but there should be
more work to prevent bot traffic from eating ad spend.

------
alibaba_x
Interesting timing right before a U.S. election. Likely trying to avoid
Russian disinformation like in 2016.

~~~
corporateslave5
You realize they only spent 100k in Facebook ads in 2016?

~~~
jacquesm
At least someone gets a good ROI from Facebook ads.

------
timeimp
Would it possible for me to turn off all the ads from all the advertises?

Hypothetically, of course!

~~~
mankyd
They have/had this, but it hasn't proven terribly popular:
[https://contributor.google.com/](https://contributor.google.com/)

edit: I say "had" because I think it has changed forms over its lifetime. I
think originally you could simply load up credits and it would cover ads
across the web with blank images.

~~~
Nextgrid
It would still track you though which is a bigger problem than the ads being
visible.

------
disiplus
i think this is a great step. also we as a company dont have nothing against
that, at least it would be more visible that some of our competition is faking
a local presence.

------
ericzawo
Interesting development — Will be fun to see who all the freelance superstar
adsense pros are.

------
cypherpunk-inst
Very bad, anti-privacy, anti-anonymity development.

As governments around the world get increasingly totalitarian and everything
gets regulated to death or outright illegal, the timing for Google to ban
necessarily anonymous individuals, organizations and businesses couldn't be
worse!

