Google broke its own rules to show targeted Instagram ads to teens under 18: Report

Google and Meta struck a secret deal that involved running ads promoting Instagram to teens, according to a report. Google’s own policy prohibits personalizing and targeting ads to those under 18.

Google secretly teamed up with Meta on an ad campaign mediated by Spark Foundry, a US arm of the French ad giant Publicis. Meta hired Spark Foundry to help bring more teens to Instagram, which has been losing ground to TikTok in North America.

Documents obtained by the Financial Times reveal that Google agreed to collaborate on a marketing project aimed at targeting 13- to 17-year-old YouTube users with ads promoting Instagram.

The campaign specifically focused on a user group labeled as “unknown” within Google’s advertising system — a group Google knew consisted largely of under-18s.

The report further uncovers that Google took deliberate steps to conceal the true purpose of the campaign.

Unsplash: Brett Jordan

This ad campaign disregarded Google’s ad policy which protects people below 18.

“Google’s Ad-serving Protections for Teens policy implements additional safeguards. On Google Accounts of people above the digital age of consent but under 18, we disable ads personalization,” the policy says.

The Financial Times reported that the marketing program began in Canada between February and April this year, and “due to its perceived success,” the campaign was then trialed in the US in May. The companies had planned to expand it further to international markets and promote other Meta apps, such as Facebook.

Google told the Financial Times that it had initiated an investigation into the reports. “We’ll also be taking additional action to reinforce with sales representatives that they must not help advertisers or agencies run campaigns attempting to work around our policies,” it added.

Meta, on the other hand, disagreed that selecting the “unknown” audience counted as personalization or breaking any rules. The company insisted that it followed both its own policies, and Google’s rules.