2019 Elections: Google to verify political ads

New Delhi, January 22: After Twitter, the search engine giant Google on 22 January vowed to bring more transparency in political advertisements on its platform ahead of general elections in India, saying it will provide details of advertisers as well as money spent on such ads.

According to the latest reports, In a statement, Google said its updated election ads policy for India requires advertisers seeking to run poll ads to provide a pre-certificate issued by the Election Commission of India (ECI) or anyone authorized by the ECI, for every ad they wish to run.

Also, Google will verify the identity of advertisers before their election ads run on its platforms.

"To bring more transparency to the online election ads, Google will introduce an India-specific Political Advertising Transparency Report and searchable Political Ads Library. These will provide comprehensive information about who is purchasing election ads on Google platforms and how much money is being spent," it said in the statement.

The advertiser verification process will begin on 14 February, while the India Political Ads Transparency Report and Ads Library will go live in March 2019, it said.