A new study is shedding light on how ad transparency tools that were once requested by top regulators are still yet to be found on the world’s leading tech platforms. This includes Google, Apple, Meta, TikTok, X, and more.
As one can expect, the matter is serious as it leaves a bucketload of users vulnerable to so much misinformation ahead of the entire election period.
Remember, just last year in August, we saw regulators in the EU make it mandatory for huge online platforms to be more transparent in terms of how they’re choosing to display advertising content. This includes the actual person on whose behalf such ads are getting shown. In the same manner, the ad reach as well as the recipients involved would also be a part of it.
Such rules are designed to ward off misinformation and that is very true when you are anticipating a very busy and chaotic election period that’s all set to take center stage right now.
So to better comply with such rules and regulations, it makes sense as to why big tech giants are creating more marketing databases where such ad-based data could be searched on a public level and then reaffirmed online.
But thanks to recently published research carried out by Mozilla, this proved how most repositories continue to lack in terms of clarity and functions. Therefore, in essence, they are failing big time.
The companies that were first investigated included Apple, Bing, Ali Express, Google, and YouTube amongst several others.
That’s when it was found that ad repositories lacked massive clarity in terms of the real entities that lie behind such ads and that just gives rise to a new system and further kinds of manipulative practices.
While tech giant Meta did reveal how the beneficiary was in this case and who the payer was, most platforms were mentioning just sponsors or advertisers in the titles without adding the aforementioned details to them. Thankfully, TikTok and even Google did add the location of the advertising payer so that did help in bettering the transparency factor but as one could expect, more was desired for obvious reasons.
It’s common sense to know who is funding these ads and how they end up getting targeted so that regulators can search for practices that better serve the public’s general interest.
This could linked to elections, public health, or even general knowledge because, at the end of the day, it’s the right of every viewer as commented by researchers of this study.
Meanwhile, the factor linked to accuracy testing revealed plenty of instances that showed ads being displayed across user interfaces that were lacking from ad repositories and that restricted the overall impact of reliability including transparency.
Coming on to the X app that falls under the leadership of Elon Musk, it was interesting to see how that also lacked in terms of sorting and filtering options. To access ads, you could only do it via a complex CSV file for export that no one would be keenly interested in logging into.
Today, tools involved in ad transparency are crucial for the app’s accountability and that is what many top watchdogs feel is the line of defense in the first instance. However as proven by this study, the biggest tech apps from all over the globe are greatly lacking in terms of offering such functionalities linked to useful advertising databases.
And while we speak, there is a current array of tools in existence, but that is about all that could be said regarding it.
Read next: WebGPU Browser Technology Susceptible to Data Spying, Researchers Find
As one can expect, the matter is serious as it leaves a bucketload of users vulnerable to so much misinformation ahead of the entire election period.
Remember, just last year in August, we saw regulators in the EU make it mandatory for huge online platforms to be more transparent in terms of how they’re choosing to display advertising content. This includes the actual person on whose behalf such ads are getting shown. In the same manner, the ad reach as well as the recipients involved would also be a part of it.
Such rules are designed to ward off misinformation and that is very true when you are anticipating a very busy and chaotic election period that’s all set to take center stage right now.
So to better comply with such rules and regulations, it makes sense as to why big tech giants are creating more marketing databases where such ad-based data could be searched on a public level and then reaffirmed online.
But thanks to recently published research carried out by Mozilla, this proved how most repositories continue to lack in terms of clarity and functions. Therefore, in essence, they are failing big time.
The companies that were first investigated included Apple, Bing, Ali Express, Google, and YouTube amongst several others.
That’s when it was found that ad repositories lacked massive clarity in terms of the real entities that lie behind such ads and that just gives rise to a new system and further kinds of manipulative practices.
While tech giant Meta did reveal how the beneficiary was in this case and who the payer was, most platforms were mentioning just sponsors or advertisers in the titles without adding the aforementioned details to them. Thankfully, TikTok and even Google did add the location of the advertising payer so that did help in bettering the transparency factor but as one could expect, more was desired for obvious reasons.
It’s common sense to know who is funding these ads and how they end up getting targeted so that regulators can search for practices that better serve the public’s general interest.
This could linked to elections, public health, or even general knowledge because, at the end of the day, it’s the right of every viewer as commented by researchers of this study.
Meanwhile, the factor linked to accuracy testing revealed plenty of instances that showed ads being displayed across user interfaces that were lacking from ad repositories and that restricted the overall impact of reliability including transparency.
Coming on to the X app that falls under the leadership of Elon Musk, it was interesting to see how that also lacked in terms of sorting and filtering options. To access ads, you could only do it via a complex CSV file for export that no one would be keenly interested in logging into.
Today, tools involved in ad transparency are crucial for the app’s accountability and that is what many top watchdogs feel is the line of defense in the first instance. However as proven by this study, the biggest tech apps from all over the globe are greatly lacking in terms of offering such functionalities linked to useful advertising databases.
And while we speak, there is a current array of tools in existence, but that is about all that could be said regarding it.
Read next: WebGPU Browser Technology Susceptible to Data Spying, Researchers Find
