Google and Meta accused to have collaborated on advertisements aimed at teenagers

Teenagers are the target audience for Instagram advertisements on YouTube, which Google and Meta are apparently working on jointly. A report claims that the two tech behemoths' alliance also gets around Google's child-treatment guidelines. According to the report, this has also sparked questions about digital marketing's ethical and privacy policies.

According to the report, Meta is promoting its Instagram app to users between 13 and 17 years of age on YouTube, despite Google’s policy that prohibits personalised ads for users under 18 years.

The Instagram marketing project on YouTube was labelled as “Meta IG Connects” and the collaboration was first initiated by Spark Foundry, a U.S. subsidiary of Publicis, on behalf of Meta. Moreover, the marketing project in question targets users that lie in the “unknown” category, a demographic Google acknowledged as likely skewed toward users under 19.

The report mentions that the campaign launched as a pilot program in Canada between February and April 2023 and was later extended to the US in May.

The report also highlights that the initiative was a part of Meta’s broader effort at retaining younger users and getting a competitive edge over the competition. However, despite Google’s policy against personalised ads for minors and all the other guidelines, the ad campaign ran on YouTube with Google’s advertising team’s approval. According to a document, Google staff found a loophole in the policy and used the “unknown” category as a workaround to run these ads.