In a move that broadcasters can leverage to make their point about the relative value of their ad platform versus online, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) is slamming Google Ads, saying it has a troubling record of not weeding out fraud and abuse and calling on the company to pony up info in its ad practices and policies.

Blumenthal, like many on the Hill, has been a sharp critic of edge provider privacy and marketing practices in general.

In a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Blumenthal said that Google has "routinely failed to address dangerous scams, impersonation, cybercrime, and other fraud on its extensive advertising network."

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He also echoed past criticism's of Google for paid ad placement on Google pushing organic results "n far down below often poorly-labeled ad placements" and a new one about Google ads that once were marked with "bright badges" and colors to show they were ads now noted with "a minimal and smaller label that is easy to miss."

He said Google's ad practices are a significant cost for small businesses and threaten local competition. "Combined with Google’s increased focused on paid ads over real answers, the result is to bury smaller competitors," he told Pichai.

Either that, he said, or those businesses have to buy expensive ads to get to the top of search results, which he called an "onerous burden and indefensible tax" on those small businesses.

He said that Google has not adequately protected the site and its users against fraud and abuse.

He wants the company by September 2 to answer the following:

"1.) Google continues to allow advertisements that impersonate government agencies, mislead consumers, promote dangerous products, and violate its terms of services. What changes does Google intend to make to its advertising review and enforcement process to prevent misleading or fraudulent ads from appearing to consumers?"

"2.) What is Google’s justification for Google’s search engine results page’s move
towards a less obvious distinction between paid and organic search results?

"3.) Has Google conducted research on whether visitors easily distinguish ads on the
Google search engine results page from organic search results?

"4.) Why does Google enable large companies to place advertisements for keywords,
trademarks, and brands names associated with local and small businesses?

"5.) What percentage of keyword-driven Google Ads revenue is derived from brands
bidding on their own name or trademark, or brands bidding on a competitor's name or trademark?

"6.) Has Google conducted research into how often consumers mistakenly visit the site of, or place a call to, a competitor or fraudulent advertiser due to misleading or
impersonating ads? What data does it use to review its policies and enforcement with respect to misrepresentation?

"7.) Google has increasingly used artificial intelligence to drive ad placements. What
protections are in place that prevent this process from unintentional "learning" to
place ads in a manner that would create consumer confusion or facilitate fraud?"

Blumenthal is a co-sponsor of a bill, The Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act, that would impose restrictions on the biggest players in the digital advertising market. ■

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has asked Google CEO Sundar Pichai to better explain reports it is censoring criticism of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). 

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The Verge reported that YouTube confirmed it had been deleting comments containing "certain" Chinese-language phrases critical of the Communist Party. Google told the paper it was a mistake the company was correcting, though the Verge pointed out red flags had been raised over the deletions months ago.  

Google's explanation did not assuage Hawley, one of Big Tech's biggest critics in Congress.  

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“Despite your stated commitments to free speech, you were happy to censor if it meant obtaining more revenue; you shelved the Google.com search engine only after you were targeted with a cyberattack," he wrote in a letter dated Wednesday, May 27. "Indeed, as recently as last year, you were secretly working on a new censorship-based search engine, Project Dragonfly, development of which was paused only in the face of immense backlash internally." 

He wants answers to a number of questions, including what led to its censoring the Chinese terms for "communist bandit" and "50-cent party" and whether the company had had any conversations with the party about those terms. 

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is calling on Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook to take personal liability for any potential privacy violations associated with their contact tracing project. 

The computer giants are trying to help stem the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic by tracking population movements. 

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In a letter to Pichai and Cook dated Tuesday (April 21), Hawley, who has been one of Congress' biggest Big Tech critics, said he is concerned about data collected for tracing the spread of the virus being anonymous and whether they could be trusted to stop the program when the pandemic ended. He wants the CEO's to have some skin in the game, as it were. 

“If you seek to assure the public, make your stake in this project personal. Make a commitment that you and other executives will be personally liable if you stop protecting privacy, such as by granting advertising companies access to the interface once the pandemic is over,” he wrote.  

One reason for his skepticism that the companies would protect privacy, he said, was Google's admission during a March Judiciary Committee hearing that it still tracks location data even after a user has "turned it off." 

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said there appears to be a YouTube ad policy 'gap' when it comes to protecting children, and he wants some answers from parent, Google.

He said Friday (Nov. 22) that many ad policies that protect kids on the YouTube Kids platform apparently do not apply to content directed to kids on YouTube's main platform.

Markey has long argued that while YouTube says it is not for children under 12, as a practical matter, "there is a wide range of child-focused content available for children on YouTube’s main platform," and plenty of children accessing the site.

“The access that children have to YouTube carries with it a corporate obligation to institute and enforce policies that protect the well being of these young users,” Markey wrote in a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. “Unfortunately, it appears there are large gaps in YouTube’s advertising policies, which raise concerns about your commitment to safeguarding children from inappropriate advertising.”

Pai said that the prohibitions on product placement, influencer "unboxing" (opening and promoting a product) videos, and other practices on YouTube kids should also apply to the "children's content across all platforms."

Only a couple of days before his committee's hearing on data privacy, Senate Commerce Committee chair Roger Wicker headed a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai wanting some answers following a story in Business Insider that the company had failed to disclose that there was a microphone it its Nest Secure home security device.

Google said that not to have mentioned the mics in the devices' technical specs was an "error." The senators want to make sure that was all it was, and that there are no similar errors out there yet to be discovered.

Wicker, joined by Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), chairman of the Consumer Protection Subcommittee, and John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Communications Subcommittee, want to know when Google realized the mics had not been disclosed, how it developed those specs, and more.

In the letter, the senators pointed out that there is growing concern about large tech companies "collecting and using personal data about [consumers] without their knowledge."

They said it was important that Google be "completely transparent" and provide "full disclosure," something that could well be part of general privacy legislation that both Democrats and Republicans are suggesting needs to be hammered out on online privacy.

They also pointed out that Google's chief privacy officer testified last September before the Commerce Committee that "transparency is a core value." They told Pichai that given that pledge, the failure to disclose the mic raised "serious questions" about its commitment to that value.

Even if Google was not using the mic, hackers could have activated it to record illicitly, they said, though not pointing out the irony of using a "secure" device to do so.

The senators want a half dozen questions answered by March 12 (by 5 p.m.), including whether Nests have always had mics, when and how it became aware it had failed to list it in the spec, if Google is aware of any third party having used the device for any unauthorized purpose and whether there are any other "similar omissions" in the tech specs for other Google products.