Video adver on third-party sites: Google’s practices questioned

Bad luck for Google and its advertising arsenal. This time, it is its Google Video Partners offer – through which the Mountain View giant broadcasts video adver on third-party sites on behalf of its advertiser clients – which is in the sights. According to a report by the firm Adalytics (which notably helps brands to monitor and audit their online advertising campaigns) obtained by the “Wall Street Journal” Google would not respect its commitments in nearly 80% of cases.

In detail, the Google Video Partners offer promises its customers to broadcast their adver only on quality sites and guaranteed “brand safety” environments (where the safety of the brand’s image in a given ecosystem is ensured ), to arrange them before the video on the site in question starts (“pre-roll”), without the sound being cut, and that it will only charge for the service if the video advertit is not interrupted before its term by the user.

A specification which would therefore be very rarely respected by Google, according to Adalytics which says it has observed the online advertising campaigns of more than 1,100 brands between the years 2020 and 2023. The Californian company offers in particular this device for broadcasting adver on third-party sites to its customers through “bundles” (bouquets of offers) combining Google Video Partners with advertising services on its YouTube video platform.

Files that multiply

In reaction to this study by the firm Adalytics, Google claimed that the report contained “many inaccurate ertions” and did not reflect the way in which the group “ensures the protection of advertisers”. One thing is certain: the files are multiplying for the American behemoth which generated nearly 225 billion dollars in revenue through its advertising activities in the 2022 financial year, which represented almost 80% of its total turnover.

Two weeks ago, the European Commission thus filed a complaint against Google and practices it considers “abusive” with respect to online advertising. Brussels argues in particular that the “Google Ads [qui place des enchères pour le compte d’annonceurs, NDLR] distributes these auctions “only, or almost exclusively, on AdX (Google’s monetization platform)”.

In early 2022, a complaint – filed this time by a dozen US states (including Texas) in December 2020 against practices that they consider anticompetitive of the Californian firm -, had been made public by a federal judge. According to this, the Mountain View group deceived sellers and buyers online advertising, sometimes lying about the price of these advertising spaces, and pocketed the difference between the sale price and the purchase price. On both sides of the Atlantic, a threat of forced sale of Google’s “ad tech” activities is mentioned.