YouTube Advertiser Exodus Highlights Perils of Online Ads -<br />By DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI and SAPNA MAHESHWARIMARCH 23, 2017<br />When Google acquired YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion, it was considered a pricey gamble, one made with the belief<br />that an online service known for pirated videos and vapid user-generated content could appeal to major advertisers.<br />But more than 400 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube every minute, and while Google has noted<br />that it prevents ads from running near inappropriate material “in the vast majority of cases,” it has proved unable to totally police that amount of content in real time.<br />That technology, known as programmatic advertising, allows advertisers to lay out the general parameters of what kind of person they want to reach — say, a young man under 25 — and trust<br />that their ad will find that person, no matter where he might be on the internet.<br />“While we recognize that no system will be 100 percent perfect, we believe these major steps will further safeguard our advertisers’ brands,<br />and we are committed to being vigilant and continuing to improve over time,” Philipp Schindler, Google’s chief business officer, said in a statement on Thursday.<br />But the technology underpinning YouTube’s advertising business has come under intense scrutiny in recent days, with AT&T, Johnson & Johnson<br />and other deep-pocketed marketers announcing that they would pull their ads from the service.
