Google pushes identity verification program to all advertisers, but it could take years

Google is moving towards a more transparent policy; the company announced an identity verification policy back in 2018 for political advertisers, but now it’ll be applied to all advertisers.

When advertisers buy ads from Google, they’ll be asked to complete a verification program which includes submission of business documents, personal identification and so on. This will allows users to find out more about why they’re seeing an ad or who is the advertisers behind these ads.

This has been done to political advertisers who wanted to run their election ads on Google platforms. As of now, Google has already verified political advertisers in 30 countries. The tech giant believes that the decision to verify every advertiser on its platform will lead to a healthier digital advertising ecosystem. 

However, this is not something that can be achieved overnight — Google pointed out that it could take a few years to completely verify all their advertisers, and that the company will start its verification process in phases in the U.S before it expands to other countries.