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Google Businesses

Google To Require All Advertisers To Pass Identity Verification Process (cnbc.com) 29

Posted by msmash from the taking-a-stand dept.
Google will soon require all advertisers to verify their identity, the company said in a blog post on Thursday. It's making the change to prevent advertisers from misrepresenting themselves and says it it should allow consumers to see who's running ads and which country they're located in. From a report: Consumers have seen a proliferation of ads for products from dubious advertisers, like fake vaccines, in recent months. Fake businesses have also been an issue. Existing advertisers will have 30 days to complete the verification process, according to a spokeswoman. If they don't submit the documents by then, Google said it will suspend the account and the advertiser's ability to serve ads until they provide it. The company said consumers will start seeing disclosures that list this information on the advertiser when they click "Why this ad?" on placements beginning this summer. Google will begin by verifying advertisers in the U.S. and will expand globally, expecting that the process will take a few years to complete. Google began requiring political advertisers to verify their identity back in 2018 before running election ads.
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Google To Require All Advertisers To Pass Identity Verification Process More

Google To Require All Advertisers To Pass Identity Verification Process

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  • About fucking time. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Cryptimus ( 243846 ) on Thursday April 23, 2020 @09:06AM (#59979814) Homepage

    Seriously, this is way overdue.

    • Indeed, but I do wonder how easily this will be circumvented.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rastos1 ( 601318 )
      How are you going to prove your identity? Especially for small advertisers. Scan your passport? Driving license? ID card (in countries that have it)?

      • If you're a natural person, it is your generally accepted national ID, whatever it is. If you're a legal person, your registration. Easy-peasy. How do you sign a contract without these anyway?

      • Pretty much every business everywhere has a tax ID
      • The same way PayPal verifies IDs, they will require a credit card in your name and make a small one-time charge on it, with the reference containing a special code only you can see in your card statement.

  • I wish... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I wish the people pretending to be Google would stop calling my phone to "verify my business listing".

  • Dumbasses at Google should have done this about five years ago. Guess the revenues are more important than reliability. Probably take the same view of their other product offerings. Maybe that's why their search has gone downhill. Big mistake going public years ago.

    • It has nothing to do with profits. It has to do with how difficult it is to get that person vetted.
      The right solution for this, is to have USPS/DHS provide vetting for American digital certificates just like we do passports today, and then have other nations figure out how they want to vet their citizens. Ideally, just like passports.

  • Won't work (Score:4, Insightful)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Thursday April 23, 2020 @09:30AM (#59979890)
    They will just "borrow" ids from their friends. Over 8 billion people to have identify theft done out there. This will be as effective as "phone number" verification.

    • Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by WindBourne ( 631190 )
      This is why we need VETTED digital certificates (ideally, held on phones or usb stick, with password/bio). There will be theft. Make no mistake about it. BUT, it will be MINIMAL, if done correctly.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by taustin ( 171655 )

        Vetted by whom? The only entity with the raw power to do meaningful vetting is the government, and nobody would trust them to.

        • Do you have a driver's license and passport? If so, both were vetted by the government.
          Do/Have you a military ID? If so, vetted by the government.

          Having a VETTED digital certificates means that you have a passport to be able to move around on the net, just like a regular passport enables you to move around nations. With social media, they can choose to allow us to be vetted, but still not use our name. IOW, just because you submit a vetted DC of who you are, does not mean that you can not continue to use

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ljw1004 ( 764174 )

      They will just "borrow" ids from their friends. Over 8 billion people to have identify theft done out there. This will be as effective as "phone number" verification.

      Why will that "not work"? You'll see an add about a political campaign, and at the bottom it will say "this ad is provided by John Smith of Wilmington, Ohio", and that sounds fine. The fact of an ad not having an official-sounding sensible-sounding provider is a step in the right direction, and a sufficient step I think.

  • Now, if CONgress would pass a fucking bill to require that USPS offer up VETTED DIGITAL CERTIFICATES, then it would enable social media to get rid of trolls, stop a lot of digital theft (never stop all of it), and just bring up the social niceties on social media.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      If they did that you know that the neo-cons would insist on USPS using the most ridiculously expensive vendor and wouldn't provide any money to do it with. They'd probably try to get them to pre-fund the entire program for the next 75 years as well.

      • No. Just like Passports, we would pay USPS $ to have them vet us, and then while it goes to DHS, we tell USPS which CA to use (or let them do a random pick) out of multiple choices.

  • Sad... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fish_in_the_c ( 577259 ) on Thursday April 23, 2020 @09:58AM (#59979958)

    I guess I'm just on old timer .. but I remember when Anonymity was associated with freedom on the internet.
    The math hasn't changed, but I guess people are more concerned about commerce then freedom. The less anonymous the internet because, the easier it is to control every transaction and comment. Monitor, data mine , and control the information, so you can control the people.

    • Re:Sad... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by LenKagetsu ( 6196102 ) on Thursday April 23, 2020 @10:14AM (#59980002)

      Your right to anonymity ends the instant you reach for another person's wallet.

    • Re:Sad... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by lactose99 ( 71132 ) on Thursday April 23, 2020 @10:21AM (#59980038)

      Nobody is forcing anyone to buy ads on the Internet. There's still plenty of ways to be anon.

    • Anonymity was for the users. Even when I am pushing for a VETTED digital certificate, that does not mean that Anonymity is lost. Use /. as an example.
      If they require VDC for person and business to post ads on the sides, and you gripe that one of the ads is a con, /. checks it and it is, /. can then block that person AND BUSINESS from putting another ad.
      Likewise, I want to post a political ad for Libertarians. However, Libertarian party says, that I am no longer part of the group (went GDI several years

    • Not sad at all.

      If you don't peddle your wares for money, be as anonymous as you wish. If you're interesting, I'll eventually read what you've posted. Or not.

      If you use a platform that can stuff your crap in my throat, then there better be a way to track you down if you lie.

    • If you're really that old, then you must remember that a) there was a code of civility (written done in a RFC) that was to be followed. And violation of such meant the sys admins won't hesitate to track you down (which they often could). b) your anonymity came at a price. No paid services, no registered usernames. No validity given to anything you said or did. No privileges were given (like, say broadcast-level messages. Like in ads...). The old sys admins weren't afraid to lose some money to use the ban s

  • Yeah, the badvertisers are laughing as we speak.

  • Where the certificate authorities only certify that your credit card didn't bounce, and the only thing they're an authority on is processing credit cards?

    Google is an advertising business, and they're not going to turn away most of their business.

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