Google to Cut Down on Advertising for Teens in the New Teen Advertising Policy

By Lydia Gichuki

In a bid to broaden its ad-serving restrictions for teenagers around the world, Google has introduced a new teen advertising policy.

With the implementation of this policy on 15^th August 2022, Google will be able to turn off ad personalization and disallow the serving of ads within sensitive and creative categories.

In essence, it means the company will restrict the amount of personalised and sensitive advertising content seen by users who are under 18.

The content will include sexually suggestive content, alcohol, tobacco, and gambling and body modification.

The policy will apply to Google accounts of individuals over the digital age of consent, 13 years, but under 18 in addition to those policies already implemented in Europe and Australia.

Depersonalization will occur across all Google products, and creative ad screening/filtering will be implemented in Ad Manager, AdSense, and AdMob.

Previous child-directed rules’ provisions, such as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the Age Appropriate Design Code (AADC), and the Australia Online Safety Act (AU OSA), will continue to apply where appropriate.

Google recommends that all advertisers read the following policy to learn about the ad categories that may be restricted.

The move to introduce these policies came after Google was accused of misusing children’s data in the past.

Last year Google said it would turn off its location history feature, which tracks location data, for users under 18 globally.

In addition, Google introduced a new policy for all under-18s and their parents or guardians to request the removal of the young person’s images from Google Image search results.

Further Google’s video-streaming site YouTube last year said it would change the default upload setting to its most private option for teens aged 13-17, where content is seen only by the user and people they choose. Users will still be able to decide to make their content public.

YouTube also removed overly commercial content from its YouTube Kids app.