Senators Mark Warner and Richard Blumenthal have formerly complained to the FTC that Google is adding to the shortage of medical masks by not taking down advertisements that show up next to Coronavirus stories. These are ads that Google had promised to take down.
It’s difficult to police digital advertising, when billions of ads are served every minute to individuals accessing content from around the world via different devices and behavioral profiles. The challenge is defining what is a scam or bad ad, and then using defined characteristics to identify and terminate violations from the digital ecosystem. What started as a few dozen scam campaigns quickly multiplied to hundreds within days. To avoid being accused of profiting off the misfortune of others, websites and their digital partners should closely analyze their content and ad tags with an eye to removing illegitimate promotions from their digital environment.