Meta and Google secretly targeted teens with ads

According to the Financial Times, Google collaborated with Meta to run advertising targeting young kids, despite violating Meta's policies. According to the documents seen by the magazine, Google engaged on a marketing campaign to advertise Instagram to YouTube users aged 13 to 17. Google formerly prohibited age-based ad targeting for those under 18, but later discovered and exploited a loophole.

Because they couldn't reach the desired demographic, they chose to target a set of people Google had designated as "unknown." According to The Times, Google's personnel offered the group to Meta based on statistics indicating that many users under the category are under the age of 18. According to Meta, the company's daily engagement with 13- to 17-year-old users exceeds that of TikTok and Instagram.According to the Information, employing this vulnerability violates Google's prohibitions against proxy targeting.

Meta and Google collaborated with media firm Spark Foundry to launch the marketing campaign in Canada from February to April, according to the article. When it performed well, they launched a trial in the United States in May, with intentions to expand it to other regions and include additional Meta apps in the campaign.

After being notified by the Times, Google conducted an investigation and discontinued the initiative. "We strictly prohibit personalized ads to people under the age of 18," the company informed the publication. It said that its controls were effective in this case since it did not directly target registered YouTube users who were at least 18 years old. However, it did not explicitly deny utilizing the loophole, instead stating that it will take "additional action to reinforce with sales representatives that they must not help advertisers or agencies run campaigns" that attempt to circumvent its restrictions.