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Another problem is that a lot of the ads reportedly don’t play on high-quality websites, but rather low-quality websites that “trafficked in misinformation or ‘clickbait’ content” and supposedly even piracy sites. WSJ says that it independently confirmed some of these findings, though it wasn’t able to verify that the extent of the problem is as bad as claimed by Adalytics.
The way ads are supposed to be displayed according to Google
If the allegations turn out to be true, advertisers might be eligible for refunds as per Google’s own terms, which could rank in the billions of dollars given the sheer volume of the advertising business Google is running. Advertisers pay about $100 for every 1,000 completed, non-skipped views of the ads Google sells here, while many of the ads that usually autoplay without sound are normally sold for about $5 per 1,000 views, according to the report.
Google offered a statement to WSJ, saying that the cited report “makes many claims that are inaccurate and doesn’t reflect how we keep advertisers safe” and that “as part of our brand safety efforts, we regularly remove ads from partner sites that violate our policies and we’ll take any appropriate actions once the full report is shared with us.”
Following the initial publication of this article, a Google spokesperson reached out to us and pointed to the company’s blog post ontransparency and brand safety on Google Video Partners. In it, Google says that the report relied on unreliable sampling and proxy methologies and made “extremely inaccurate claims about the Google Video Partner (GVP) network.”
Separately, Google’s advertising business is currently under investigation in the EU, with the regulatory body concerned with the fact that Google controls and owns major businesses in the three pillars of advertising (selling, buying, and exchanging). Here, Google might even be forced to sell parts of its business if the EU ruling goes through.
UPDATE: 2025-07-17 04:19 EST BY MANUEL VONAU
Updated with Google statement
After the initial publication of this article, a Google spokesperson reached out to us with an extensive statement from the company on its blog post. We’ve updated the story to include it.
