Google will provide more information on targeted advertisements and give researchers more access to data on how its products work, to comply with landmark European Union online content rules, the Alphabet unit said on Thursday.
Known as the Digital Services Act (DSA), the new rules are
more onerous for Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Twitter, booking.com, Pinterest,
Snap Inc's Snapchat, Wikipedia, Zalando, and Alibaba's AliExpress because of
their large number of users.
The DSA will go into effect on Friday and requires companies
to do more to tackle child sexual abuse material and disinformation, be more
transparent on their algorithmic processes, bots, and targeted advertisements,
and remove illegal, unsafe, or counterfeit products sold on their platforms.
"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," Google's vice president for trust and
safety, Laurie Richardson, said in a blog post.
"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," she said.
The US tech giant will also provide more visibility into its
content moderation decisions, give users different ways to contact the company,
and update its reporting and appeals processes to provide specified types of
information and context about its decisions.
It will roll out a new Transparency Center for people to
access information about its policies on a product-by-product basis. © Reuters