Google to introduce changes in advertising policy to meet new child safety programme

Earlier this month, Google announced a slew of new policies and updates in order to give kids and teenagers a safer experience online. In India, Google has tied up with Amar Chitra Katha, a 54-year old Indian publishing company which publishes Indian comics and graphic novels, to come up with internet safety lessons for young users in eight Indian languages. This has been done as part of Google’s global “Be Internet Awesome” programme.

An enhanced Google Safety Centre has also been launched with stress on a strong regional connect.

In a company blog, Google stated that it intends to give young users more control over their digital footprint. “In the coming weeks, we’ll introduce a new policy that enables anyone under the age of 18, or their parent or guardian, to request the removal of their images from Google Image results. Of course, removing an image from Search doesn’t remove it from the web, but we believe this change will help give young people more control of their images online.”

In a move to tailor product experiences for kids and teens, Google will change the default upload setting on YouTube to the most private option available for teens in the 13-17 age group.

To help minors discover content in a safe environment, in the coming months Google will turn SafeSearch – which helps filter out explicit results when enabled – on for existing users under 18 and make this the default setting for teens setting up new accounts.

Along with these, Google further said that it will be expanding safeguards to prevent age-sensitive ad categories from being shown to teens, and will block ad targeting based on the age, gender, or interests of people under 18. The Tech giant will start rolling out these updates across its products globally over the coming months. “Our goal is to ensure we’re providing additional protections and delivering age-appropriate experiences for ads on Google,” it said in its blog.