SAN FRANCISCO: YouTube on Tuesday announced ramped-up rules regarding when it will run ads with videos as it scrambled to quell concerns by brands about being paired with troublesome content.
“There’s no denying 2017 was a difficult year, with several issues affecting our community and our advertising partners,” YouTube vice president of display, video and analytics Paul Muret said in a blog post.
“The challenges we faced in 2017 have helped us make tough but necessary changes in 2018.”
Channels at YouTube will need to have at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time within the past year to be eligible for ads, according to Muret.
Previously, channels could be eligible for ads as part of a YouTube Partner Program by racking up 10,000 views or more.
“We want to take channel size, audience engagement, and creator behavior into consideration to determine eligibility for ads,” Muret said.
YouTube will closely watch for spam, abuse flags and other signals to make sure channels are remaining within the Google-owned video-sharing platforms policies regarding content, according to the post.
Muret said that manual reviews of video will be added to a Google Preferred system that brands use to place ads with popular YouTube content to better vet videos.
YouTube is also providing advertisers simpler controls regarding where ads appear and transparency including safety checks by outside parties, according to Muret.
The changes were expected to affect “a significant number” of YouTube channels eligible to run ads.
YouTube late last year pulled 150,000 videos of children after lewd comments about them were posted by viewers and went public with a vow to greatly increase the ranks of workers focused on rooting out content violating its policies.
The moves came as YouTube strived to assure companies their ads would not appear with offensive or inappropriate videos.
“We are passionate about protecting our users, advertisers and creators and making sure YouTube is not a place that can be co-opted by bad actors,” Muret said.
“While we took several steps last year to protect advertisers from inappropriate content, we know we need to do more to ensure that their ads run alongside content that reflects their values.”
YouTube toughens rules regarding which videos get ads
YouTube toughens rules regarding which videos get ads
Apple, Google offer app store changes under new UK rules
LONDON: Apple and Google have pledged changes to ensure fairness in their app stores, the UK competition watchdog said Tuesday, describing it as “first steps” under its tougher regulation of technology giants.
The Competition and Markets Authority placed the two companies under “strategic market status” last year, giving it powers to impose stricter rules on their mobile platforms.
Apple and Google have submitted packages of commitments to improve fairness and transparency in their app stores, which the CMA is now consulting market participants on.
The proposals cover data collection, how apps are reviewed and ranked and improved access to their mobile operating systems.
They aim to prevent Apple and Google from giving priority to their own apps and to ensure businesses receive fairer terms for delivering apps to customers, including better access to tools to compete with services like the Apple digital wallet.
“These are important first steps while we continue to work on a broad range of additional measures to improve Apple and Google’s app store services in the UK,” said CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell.
The commitments mark the first changes proposed by US tech giants in response to the UK’s digital markets regulation, which came into force last year.
The UK framework is similar to a tech competition law from the European Union, the Digital Markets Act, which carries the potential for hefty financial penalties.
“The commitments announced today allow Apple to continue advancing important privacy and security innovations for users and great opportunities for developers,” an Apple spokesperson said.
The CMA in October found that Apple and Google held an “effective duopoly,” with around 90 to 100 percent of UK mobile services running on their platforms.
A Google spokesperson said existing practices in its Play online store are “fair, objective and transparent.”
“We welcome the opportunity to resolve the CMA’s concerns collaboratively,” they added.
The changes are set to take effect in April, subject to the outcome of a market consultation.
