Google apologises for placement of online ads

Google today apologised for allowing adverts to appear alongside offensive videos on YouTube as more big firms including M&S and HSBC pulled their advertising.

“I would like to apologize to our partners and advertisers who might have been affected by their ads appearing on controversial content,” Google EMEA President Matt Brittin said at the annual Advertising Week Europe event in London.

The British government has suspended its advertising on YouTube after some public sector ads appeared next to videos carrying homophobic and anti-semitic messages, prompting a flood of major companies to follow suit.

Britain is Google’s second biggest market after the US, generating £6billion mainly from advertising in 2016, or nearly 9 per cent of the firm’s global revenue.

M&S followed HSBC, Lloyds, RBS, McDonald’s, L’Oreal, Audi, the BBC, O2, the Royal Mail and Domino’s in pulling its advertising from YouTube.