BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Google announced on Thursday that it will provide more information on targeted advertisements and grant researchers increased access to data regarding the functionality of its products. This move from the Alphabet unit comes as an effort to comply with the new landmark European Union online content rules.
Referred to as the Digital Services Act (DSA), these new regulations place greater burdens on major tech companies such as Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Twitter, booking.com, Pinterest, Snap Inc’s Snapchat, Wikipedia, Zalando, and Alibaba’s AliExpress due to their extensive user base. The DSA will officially go into effect on Friday, obligating companies to take more proactive measures against child sexual abuse material and disinformation. It also requires them to be more transparent about their algorithmic processes, bots, and targeted advertisements, while simultaneously removing any illegal, unsafe, or counterfeit products from their platforms.
Google’s Vice President for Trust and Safety, Laurie Richardson, stated in a blog post, “We will be expanding the Ads Transparency Center, a global searchable repository of advertisers across all our platforms, to meet specific DSA provisions and providing additional information on targeting for ads served in the European Union.”
Furthermore, Richardson added, “We will increase data access for researchers looking to understand more about how Google Search, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Play, and Shopping work in practice, and conducting research related to understanding systemic content risks in the EU.”
Google, the U.S. tech giant, also plans to enhance the visibility of its content moderation decisions. It will explore different ways for users to contact the company and update its reporting and appeals processes to offer specific types of information and context regarding its decisions.
In addition, Google will introduce a new Transparency Center to enable users to access information about its policies on a product-by-product basis.
Foo Yun Chee, the reporter for Reuters, covered this story. The article was edited by Devika Syamnath.
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